PROBABLY nicked from the Internet and thus in breach of at least two dozen of the ten commandments, a quite splendid riposte to biblical traditionalists appears in the parish magazine of Holy Trinity, Stockton. The evangelicals' stance against homosexuality is based largely on Leviticus 18:22: "Thou shalt not lie with mankind as with womankind. It is abomination."

Holy Trinity magazine notes both "advice" given along those lines by US radio evangelist Dr Laura Schlessinger and a letter in response from someone who's also been seeking the literal truths of the bible.

Space allows just three examples. "I would like to sell my daughter into slavery as sanctioned in Exodus 21:7. In this day and age, what do you think would be a fair price for her?"

Another from Leviticus: "Most of my male friends get their hair trimmed, including around their temples, though this is expressly forbidden by Leviticus 19:26. How should they die?"

Best of all: "Leviticus 21:20 states that I may not approach the altar of God if I have a defect in my sight. I have to admit that I wear reading glasses. Does my vision have to be 20/20 or is there some wiggle room here?"

Those medical exclusions also apply to the blind, the lame, those with a flat nose - "or anything superfluous" - the broken handed and broken footed, the "crackbackt" and undersized, the scurvy or scabbed and to he who "hath his stones broken."

It is because of such word for word religion that those trying to make Christianity relevant to the 21st century are driven, almost literally, bonkers.

VETERAN comedy due Cannon and Ball, very much Bible based these days, appeared at the weekend at a Gospel Music Convention in Whitby. "I know you will ask why we aren't on television any more," said Tommy Cannon. "It's because we can't cook." Much more of the Cannon and Ball park in the At Your Service column on Saturday.

THE summer edition of the National Railway Timetable, that other famously good book, is also now on sale.

Like ticket prices it has gone up; unlike ticket prices by 20 per cent. It's now £12.

The Darlington to Bishop Auckland line appears not yet to have been ripped up though - perhaps in response to the new bus service from Darlington railway station - there are changes to the rail service to Teesside Airport.

For years we have pointed out that, doubtless to save the legal expense of station closure, just one train a week in each direction has called at the airport.

Since Dr Beeching was a lad, it's been at 10.25 eastbound and 13.41 in the opposite direction, both on Saturdays. Now, however, the train for Saltburn has been re-timed to 10.28.

The change is probably to catch the morning flight for Mallorca. It's what's called integrated transport.

IT'S impossible to depart Teesside Airport, of course, without further reference to the campaign for recognition of Andrew Mynarski, the young Canadian airman who - 60 years ago this month - became the only VC winner from the then RAF Middleton St George.

A flurry of e-mails continues from Winnipeg, Mynarksi's home city. "If you think the weather's bad over there," they say - it was at the time - "you should see the blizzards over here."

Closer to home, but with relatives in Winnipeg, Patricia Cudbertson in Darlington writes despairingly of the insistence on Durham Tees Valley - a decision flying in the face of public opinion.

"As usual, the powers that be have no imagination," she says. "How great it would have been for a very brave young man who gave his life for the greater good of all to be remembered that way.

"He flew to make a difference. A great opportunity has been missed."

THE opportunity hasn't been missed, happily, at the Friarage Hospital in Northallerton which treated Canadian airmen from Middleton St George and North Yorkshire bases from 1941-45. Finally, the wooden huts of those days are being replaced by a new children's ward, women's health unit and pathology lab. The new restaurant, reports hospital manager John Gibb, will be called the Maple Leaf.

SATURDAY'S paper reported national success for Brambles, a Middlesbrough-based sandwich making company, and might have added - though it didn't - that more people in Britain are now employed in making sandwiches than in agriculture.

There are Brambles all over the region, from leisure clubs in Gateshead and South Shields to a school in Middlesbrough. The Oxford English Dictionary, however, insists that the bramble is merely "A rough, prickly shrub, a blackberry bush."

It's the fruit that's the brambleberry, perhaps only in the North-East known as the bramble. The worthiness of the sandwich maker's garland notwithstanding, they wear an etymological crown of thorns.

IN Darlington, meanwhile, the municipal magazine Town Crier reports a new health service initiative. "No-one will have to live with any pain, discomfort, sickness or ill health for longer than they have to." It's spotted by Bob Beevers, a pensioner. "I'm not sure," he says, "whether to go out and celebrate or to notify the next of kin."

BACK where we began to the Internet and to Google, the search engine that runs on best coal.

With the subject heading "Check this out, it's very funny", Paddy Burton in Sunniside - the one above Crook - advocates entering "weapons of mass destruction" but instead of hitting the search button, pressing the "I'm feeling lucky" alternative.

We have. On first appearance it's an "error" message - "click the regime change button or try again later" - in truth all that Paddy supposes it to be.

"Click the 'bomb' button," it concludes, "if you are Donald Rumsfeld."

....and finally, former polliss Barry Wood in Edmondsley, north-west Durham, returns whence it came a "Pets corner" ad from last Thursday's paper: "Dog requires safe and secure home with no children due to working long hours."

What about those who have no children for other reasons, he asks and - while on this wavelength - also remarks on the number of radio programmes like The Archers, Book at Bedtime, World at One, Play For Today, Today in Parliament and Woman's Hour which seem to have been running for ever.

What happened, he asks, to Workers Playtime, Dan Dare, The Black Museum, Journey Into Space ("always listened to from behind the couch in our house"), Life With the Lyons and Down Your Way?

Like the Gadfly column, they will doubtless return shortly.

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Published: ??/??/2004