Titifalarious

The birds not only feathered their nest is the wall-mounted ash tray at the Lambton Hounds in Pity Me, near Durham, but shortly afterwards hatched seven chicks.

Whatever HM government might warn about the health dangers of such things, at the nursery end they seemed positively chirpy.

Pub landlady Katie Wolsey had immediately put up signs urging customers – ends and means – to drop their cigarette butts elsewhere.

Further signs added that it wasn’t a joke.

“There was no problem, everyone loved them,” says Katie. “Every time anyone came in, they’d ask how the bairns were getting on.

“The parents were flying in and out all the time. The young birds obviously took a lot of feeding, but the amazing thing was that the makeshift nest appeared so clean. They must have taken all the rubbish out first.”

Baden Wolsey, Katie’s father, said that the improvised nest was a beautiful piece of engineering.

“It was also very clever, because it was four or five feet up and the cats couldn’t get near it.

“We tried to keep the blue tits as private as possible, but it turned into quite a big event. You could see how quickly they grew from balls of fluff into proper little birds. People were fascinated.”

Sadly for the photographers, the birds flew last week – empty nest syndrome captured by pub regular Pete Winstanley, equally familiar in the Hear All Sides column.

Also recommended by Pete, an internet search – “Birds nesting in ashtrays” – reveals several other reported cases, including one at the Oceana Business Park, in Wallsend.

Usually the locals are said to be in a flap.

An RSPB spokeswoman said that blue tits have “little or no” sense of smell. “They probably think of the cigarette butts as comfortable nesting material,” she added.

IT’S also from licensed premises in Durham that Peter Jefferies sends a beer mat proclaiming that the fear of an empty glass is called cenosillicaphobia.

“Most of the members in our club suffer from this ailment,”

he says.

The Oxford will have none of it, the internet overflows.

“Uncomfortable at best, downright terrifying at worst,”

says one definition and no matter that you couldn’t make it up, someone clearly has.

GEORGE Alberts, himself familiar with Durham’s pubs after his time as manager of the Millburngate Shopping Centre, has for the past decade been in Thailand.

Recently bereft that his beloved Gateshead failed narrowly to return to the Football League – George was the reserve team goalkeeper in the 1960s – he sends a cutting from the Bangkok Post which rubs salt in the wound.

Their columnist has fallen to discussing Gateshead, too. There’s a story, says the Post, that a Thai tourist landed at Heathrow, was asked by immigration the purpose of her visit and replied that it was to see Gateshead.

They refused her entry. “Not a valid enough reason for visiting the UK.” They said.

George has clearly assimilated some of the easy-going East.

“Cheeky sods,” he says.