I HEARD noises coming from a boy’s bedroom the other night. What could it be? Was he furtively talking on his mobile phone under the covers, shooting aliens on his games console or watching bizarre YouTube videos of cats riding goats on his iPod?

I quietly opened the door convinced I would catch him up to no good. But no, he had fallen asleep with the radio on. What quaint, oldfashioned, innocent furtiveness.

Had he finally exhausted all the joys a boy can have with the internet?

Clearly he’s not using his imagination. Sticking on the theme of how life used to be, apparently it’s no longer acceptable to put £5 in a card when you forget to get a present when the kids go to a friend’s birthday party. It has to be £10.

I’m not sure when the change happened. To be fair the £5 note has had a good run. For at least the last two decades it’s been enough.

Changing the subject in a ham-fisted manner, the flies in Finghall have sparked some interesting feedback.

This comment from an online reader of The Northern Echo – a D&S sister paper – deserves a wider audience.

“Do we know which of these they are? It might give a clue to where they’re breeding,”

the reader says.

"The lesser housefly is a sponger and the stable fly a biter so that’s one clue. Are the villagers being licked or bitten?

“The lesser house fly, Fannia canicularis, is somewhat smaller, more slender, and the media vein is straight.

The stable fly, Stomoxys calcitrans, has piercing mouthparts and the media vein is only slightly curved.

“To just say they’re houseflies and part of the natural cycle of things is a little trite and shows a certain lack of intellectual and investigative rigour on the part of the person who carried out the survey.”

Brilliant, especially when compared to the previous anonymous reader who commented: “Oh boo hoo ...

you have flies in your house? Get a grip.”

Come on people of Finghall – tell us. Are you being licked or bitten?