AIR mail, as it were, a letter from Phil Chinery in Darlington lands at a tangent upon the vexed subject of Durham Tees Valley Airport - known until recently as something much more straightforward.

If, says Phil, they also decide to rename Teesside Airport railway station - the halt with stops once a week - it could share with Birmingham International the distinction of the second longest name on Britain's railway network.

The longest, unsurprisingly, is LlanfairPG - and the rest - the village with the made-up name just across the Welsh border. The shortest appear to be Ayr, Ely and Wye. Aye, man.

Including spaces, Birmingham International has 24 characters while Durham Tees Valley Airport has 26. If the travelling ampersand is included, however, the longest English station name appears to be Caledonian Road & Barnsbury (27), though even that is overflown by Prestwick International Airport, which not only has 31 characters but, unlike Durham Tees Valley, a station where trains actually stop.

ALL of which led to fierce debate in the Monday lunchtime pub over whether England has any place names with only two letters, and a pint bet with Mr John Briggs who believed that there must have been.

While he bashes Google's brains out in an attempt to win a glass of beer - and to cancel out his losing bet about how many Popes there've been - readers are invited to name two Co Durham villages with only three letters apiece. The answer, and possibly John's two letter salute, at the end of the column.

STILL on the railways, Saturday's Guardian carried a friendly, full page profile on GNER chief executive Christopher Garnett, whose sister (it transpires) is the former Conservative minister Virginia Bottomley.

The piece also mentioned that the amiable Mr Garnett is much given to wearing pin-striped suits, a taste in fashion he shares with Derek Foster, whose retirement after 26 years as Bishop Auckland's MP was announced last week.

Derek, of whom it could be said that his pin-stripes have been well earned, has been much teased hereabouts for his unchanging sartorial style and has always taken it cheerfully, bespoken like a man.

Perhaps it's still what's expected in the nation's high places, in the same way that all football administrators are pejoratively said to wear an identikit.

As a football administrator, too, the second worst thing I've ever been called is a "blazer."

The worst, truth to tell, is a liar.

DARLINGTON MP Alan Milburn is reported to have earned speaking fees of "between £10,000-£20,000" during his brief return to the back benches - and properly to have declared them.

It should therefore be recorded that when richly he entertained last year's Albany Northern League dinner - affectionately recalling his formative football years in Tow Law - he neither asked for nor received a penny. Not even his bus fare home.

THE peg upon which Christopher Garnett's dress sense was hung was the impending announcement on whether GNER will keep the lucrative East Coast Main Line franchise.Probably it should, though overcrowding remains a worsening problem on all operators' long distance services.

We'd read The Guardian on the train to London, supersaver or some such in order to get the best deal. It meant leaving Darlington at 6.30am, returning on the 8.15pm from Kings Cross - the adjoining homeward table occupied by a bunch of foul mouthed and beer swilling Geordies, helplessly and hopelessly drunk.

We sought to upgrade to first class and were refused, presumably because the elite might find the peasants revolting, and thus had to seek out spare standard seats as far as possible from the Geordie riff-raffia.

GNER trains also have a quiet coach, an idea possibly borrowed from Virgin. An even more enthusiastic franchise recommendation if they promise a noisy coach - wooden seats, barred windows and a Rottweiler at either end.

SINCE one or two recent columns were unconsidered unkind to Billingham, it should be recorded that Prof David Sattelle remembers the Teesside town with much affection.

Asked by Prof Sattelle where she came from, Cambridge post-graduate Zoe Birtle replied that it was a place near Stockton-on-Tees, of which he'd never have heard.

Prof Sattelle, it transpired, had not only heard of it but was Boston's goalkeeper when they beat Billingham Synthonia in the first round of the FA Cup.

No matter that Synners lost 5-2 and not 5-1 as he supposed, or that it was 1957 and not 1958. That's just absent minded professorship. As doubtless they say in Cambridge, it's the thought that counts.

THE ulcer problem: the practice nurse has called in reinforcements, the Newcastle born and bred district nursing sister eager to announce that the troubled ankle was macerating.

"Gannin' soggy," she translated, invited to change into something more familiar.

There has also been a call from Mike Kurdi in Middleton Tyas, near Richmond, recalling the experience of his father, a long gone barber/surgeon in Jerusalem.

Presented with a leg ulcer, says Mike, he would first have examined the patient's teeth. Secondly, he would have checked the level of bran in the diet.

Finally, he says, the Jerusalem barber/surgeon would have sliced the top off of a honeycomb, made it into a poultice and applied it to the offending area.

"If that doesn't work," he concludes, "nothing will."

...and finally, there's a hamlet on the Somme called Y and pronounced E, another in Norway called A - with a sort of halo on the top, the Norse no doubt have a name for it - and a Dumfriesshire village called Ae, going for a dipthong.

The world's briefest railway station name is Ib, Santali for Iron, on the route from Nagpur to Howrah, while Bury FC not only have the only four letter name in the Football League but the only emergency exit which leads into a cemetery and the only 12-1 record victory over Stockton - FA Cup 1897.

All of which means that Mr Briggs has lost another bet.

The Co Durham villages we had in mind were Esh and Kyo, the number of Popes is 263. The column returns shortly.

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