A CHAP called Peter Barron wrote to The Guardian last Saturday from the village of Ripe, in East Sussex. There was no indication if he were a senior citizen, in which case he might have reached a Ripe old age.

The watchful will also realise that the editor of this newspaper is called Peter Barron, but he's from South Bank or somewhere.

The Barron of East Sussex claimed a "direct correlation" between the North/South divide and the presence of gravy on chip shop menus, and clearly has a point.

Whilst up here there may be gravy with everything - we noticed cheese and gravy the other day - in warmer climes (and Hartlepool) they sell guacamole dip, instead.

A proper column would have conducted a road test, chip shop to chip shop, but this one is surprisingly snooty about eating in the street - at least during the hours of daylight.

The greatest sign of iron will, which may without reservation be recommended to bloody minded RSMs in Her Majesty's Marines, is to buy a piping pork pie from Taylor's in Skinnergate and to leave it unmolested in the bag until rapturously pouncing upon it back at work.

Instead, we posed the question in the Brit on Monday lunchtime - what else is symbolic of the North/South divide?

Carlins and concert chairmen both received votes. There were penny ducks, proper flat caps, midges and - best of all - butchers (like Taylor's) who sold pork pies.

In the south, uniquely, they have sunshine.

The list was neither comprehensive nor impressive. With what else are we blessed in these parts, which down south is duly denied them?

NOTHING in the south - or anywhere else in England, it might inarguably be supposed - compares to the Durham and Yorkshire dales. In Arkengarthdale on Saturday, we passed by the village of Booze.

Whilst not in the Queen Camel category, as earlier columns have avowed, the name is richly resonant, nonetheless.

Scholars will claim that it is a corruption of two Old English words meaning "the house on the brow"; romanticists have a much more plausible version.

Arkengarthdale was lead mining country, where men were men and women made a half shandy last all night. Miners from other villages, it's said, would thirstily climb the hill out of Langthwaite to challenge the formidable Boozers.

It wasn't to hit Booze that we were in Arkengarthdale, however, but to visit the hamlet of Whaw. More of the wonderful day we went to Whaw in the Eating Owt column next Tuesday.

THE Oxford English Dictionary first records use of the word "booze" in 1732 - "a profusion of peck and booze" - and frequently imbibes thereafter.

There are booze-hounds and booze-ups and in New Zealand a boozeroo which, perhaps unsurprisingly, means a drinking spree.

Much the most memorable reference, however, is from the Daily Telegraph of December 2 1895, an early example of the "Who's Gazza" school of learning for which the judiciary - and in particular Mr Justice Harman, now sadly retired - was to become risibly renowned.

Mr Willis (prosecuting): "She heard some men shouting that they wanted some more booze."

Mr Justice Wright: "What?"

Mr Willis: "Booze, my Lord, drink."

Mr Justice Wright: "Ah."

THORNTON-le-Beans, another of those deep rooted mysteries, has its five minutes of fame tonight. Five minutes precisely.

The "quintessential" village between Northallerton and Thirsk features in the last of a Channel 4 series called Lesser Spotted Britain, presented by Rob Deering. Mr Deering is described as "a comedian."

Deering, adds the Channel 4 press office, looks at "interesting stories of a big rock and horse bothering", which sounds like a script from that other Channel 4 hit, Father Ted. It's on at 7.55 tonight.

CHRIS Eddowes in Hartlepool draws attention to Middlesbrough Council's ad in last Wednesday's paper for an "Anti-social behaviour co-ordinator." Does it mean, she wonders, that in the Boro all anti-social behaviour will in future happen at the same time and place?

SEDULOUSLY scanning the Internet, meanwhile, Darlington exile Phil Westberg sends details from South Africa of the winning entry in the 21st Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Competition for horrible writing.

Edward George Bulwer-Lytton, it will be recalled, was the British author whose 1830 book "Paul Clifford" began "It was a dark and stormy night."

The competition was organised by San Jose University. Rephah Berg, the winner, submitted ten entries - from those and thousands of others, the judges concluded that the worst was "a combination of the atrocious and the appropriate..."

"On reflection, Angela perceived that her relationship with Tom had always been rocky, not quite a roller-coaster ride but more like when the toilet paper roll gets a little squashed so it hangs crooked and every time you pull some off you can hear the rest going bumpity-bumpity in its holder until you go nuts and push it back into shape, a degree of annoyance that Angela had now almost attained."

In the window of Ottakar's bookshop in Darlington, meanwhile, displays quote extracts from several new books under the heading "Staff recommend."

Several would run Mrs Berg pretty close.

AT a reception in Auckland Castle on Sunday, we tackled the Bishop of Durham about the one that got away.

A rather large lady had fled, it may be recalled, after threatening another customer with a pen knife in the Bishop Auckland branch of the Co-operative Bank - at the same time as the Bishop was officially opening improvements to the main street outside.

"Goodness," said the Bishop - as he is given to doing - "I know nothing at all about that."

Thereafter we headed down Bishop's byways and came across a bar called Christians, with a promotion called Who Wants to be a Beerionaire.

It is perhaps fortunate that Bishop Michael didn't see that one, either.

FROM Bishop Auckland, too, Mrs Pat Hall adds another to our lengthening list of put-downs - and from a former pupil of Timothy Hackworth Juniors in Shildon, where manners made men.

Pat noticed that her (male) friend was looking rather plump and inquired what they were going to call the baby.

"If it's a girl after my wife, it's a boy after myself," he replied. "If it's what we suspect and nothing but a bag of wind, we'll call it after you."

...and finally back to the Brit, where Mr Jimmy Muggins wondered if we'd heard about the chap arrested whilst carrying a pair of skis through the Channel Tunnel - he was a slalom seeker - or the ice cream salesman found lying dead whilst covered in hundreds and thousands. He'd topped himself.

The gravy train returns next week.