AT 82, my mum likes a good rant and thesubjects which have had her spitting mad over the past week have included tattoos, nose-rings, and Wayne Rooney.

The Northern Echo:

She wasn’t at all happy after seeing a man covered from head to foot in tattoos, and with a ring sticking out of his nose, on The Jeremy Kyle Show.

“Don’t you go getting tattoos,” she told me, as if I’m still a child. “Or a nose-ring.”

I’m 52 in April so I’m hardly likely to start covering my body in ink or getting a nosering now, am I?

Having said that, David Dimbleby got his first tattoo – a scorpion on his shoulder– at 75. My mum wasn’t impressed by that either.

Wayne Rooney has had her even more animated – to the point where I had to tell her to go and have a lie down.

“That bloomin’ Wayne Rooney gets £300,000 a week – £300,000 a week – and all he does is spit on the pitch,” she moaned.

And then she added: “No wonder they can slide on their knees such a long way when they score a goal.”

ASHOCKING pink pigeon was spotted in Darlington and caused such a flap that a photograph of it sitting on a chimney pot made its way on to the front of Friday’s paper.

Talk in the newsroom turned to pigeons and I was reminded of the time I negotiated a deal in 2002 to get The Northern Echo its own racing pigeon.

We’d had Northern Echo the racehorse, and he’d turned out to be the slowest thoroughbred in the history of the sport, so I turned my attentions to birds.

It started with a haircut. Barber Nigel Dowson, Cockfield lad born and bred, gave me a number for local pigeon breeder Peter Matthews.

I explained to Peter that I fancied getting a racer called Northern Echo so the readers could follow its career.

“How much would it cost?” I asked.

“I’ll tell you what – advertise my coal round in the Echo and we’ll call it quits,” he replied.

And so the deal was struck between editor and coal merchant. We got a racing pigeon and Peter Matthews’ business got a valuable plug.

Sadly, Northern Echo the racing pigeon proved to be as successful as Northern Echo the racehorse.

Our bird took part in a 270-mile race from Wanstead Flatts, near London, and arrived home an hour after after all the others.

“She must have landed and laid an egg on the way,” reported Peter.

Plans to get Northern Echo the greyhound were scrapped after that.

SPOTTED by my daughter in Walworth Road, London. It makes you wonder if