IT was just a shimmer at first; a gleam on the horizon but enough to attract attention. Drawing closer it was clear it was water, standing water, and in the Wiske flood plain.

True enough, when Spectator made the journey on Saturday through Northallerton on towards Busby Stoop it was only six days since the downpour that heralded half term. However, the same sight was noted a fortnight earlier when there was no particular memorable cause.

October was officially a warm month and in this area it does not stand out as wet. It follows a dry summer of blessed memory when Spectator was eventually driven to hauling the hosepipe down the garden to dribble water into the base of the apple trees. In other words, the excessive wetness of last winter was being absorbed. Or so it seemed until the pools forced themselves to our attention. If the water table really is, already, rising, the signs are not good for areas prone to flooding.

Every picture...

THE brochure for Darlington Civic theatre, glossy must-have for fans of live entertainment in the region, has one page which arrests the eye for the most sombre of reasons.

Designed and printed well before September 11, who could have foreseen that a picture illustrating Darlington operatic society's production of West Side Story would assume iconic significance?

A photograph of the Manhattan skyline, dominated by the twin towers of the World Trade Centre, was an obvious choice for the Bernstein musical based on the Romeo and Juliet story updated to 20th century New York.

In happier times, the eye would merely have glanced at the familiar view. Now, no-one sees this image - the brochure print is a dark monochrome full of shadows - without at least a moment's reflection.

The show, which runs until the end of this week, based as it is on divisions between opposing and apparently irreconcilable factions, can also be seen in a fresh light.

It's( not) a gas

IS there no end to the deviousness of door-to-door salesmen?

With a sign on the door indicating such callers were unwelcome, a reader felt it reasonable to ask a visitor with a clipboard and a Scottish Gas badge: "What are you selling?"

"I'm here to read you your legal rights," was the reply. And he proceeded to do so, in spite of attempts to halt the flow, until, in exasperation, very slowly and in almost audible capital letters, the householder said: "I DO NOT WISH TO CHANGE MY GAS SUPPLIER."

Legal rights? To what? The only relevant one would seem to be that to ask unwelcome visitors to leave the property.

How it is up North

THE mention of the word "nettie" at a shire counties party brought puzzlement from all but the North-Easterner present, who duly offered the explanation.

Then up piped the hostesses's young sister from Hampshire, even further south, visiting for half term: "I knew that. We had a lesson on Northerners in personal and social education."

Two nations indeed