SINCE I wrote a piece about the exact location of the centre of Britain, letters with rival claims have arrived on my desk at regular intervals.

The latest is from Stephen Appleby, of Sedbergh Road, Kendal, who writes: "The Centre of Britain Stone is situated in my garden, one mile east of Sand Aire House.

"As far as I am concerned, that is the centre of Britain because I put it there!

"It made an interesting talking point, or leg-pull, when we held a coffee morning here one Saturday.

"To define this point is not an exact science. England, the UK, Great Britain and the British Isles are geographically different specifications of area.

"If you refer to the British Isles you must include St Kilda, 50 miles to the west of Scotland, and I am sure that suggestion would upset the centreists of the Trough of Bowland.

"While coastal erosion takes bites out of Holderness, and the sands of Grange become more landward than seaward, this centre point remains mobile.

"One could measure the distance as the crow flies,' but who travels like a crow?

"Even they don't always fly in a straight line.

"Thus, approximation rules OK.

"The idea originated from perusing one of those distance tables, which accompany most road atlases of Britain. Here you will see that, give or take a mile or so, it is the same distance from Kendal to Kyle of Lochalsh and Brighton, to Fort William and London, to Mallaig and Harwich, to Ardrossan and Hull, to Stranraer and Hull, to Liverpool and Stockton-on-Tees, to Aberystwith and St Andrews, to Bristol and Montrose, to Barnstaple and Fraserburgh, to Penzance and John o'Groats.

"If you are traveling from one to the other of each pair, Kendal must be an ideal half way point for a bed and breakfast and in most cases on a dead straight line between the two.

"If, for publicity purposes, SLDC would like to re-site the stone under the Birdcage in Finkle Street, I am quite happy for them to take it if they can do so without taking machinery into my garden."

No speeding escape WORRIED that you might have been caught by a speed camera?

Do you need help to evade paying a fine or avoiding points being put on your licence?

Would you like the latest radar gadgets to warn you that there is a speed trap around the corner?

Fear not, you need look no further than the Cumbria police website.

A reader, who I will not name for fear that he will never dare venture out on the road again, pointed out that if you visited www.cumbria.police.uk last week and used the search facility to look for speed cameras, the results included a list of sponsored-links.

That list, which was there when I did a search, threw up a fascinating directory of sites offering high-tech radar detection gadgets and information on legal loopholes to avoid paying fines or getting points on your licence.

Sadly it seemed to have disappeared when I checked the site on Monday, but I wonder if on the quiet the police website is still being sponsored by those whose aim it is to help people escape the consequences of breaking the law.

I was also amused by Cumbria County Council's new idea to install speed cameras in pairs.

Apparently motorists speed up after passing a camera thinking they are safe, but just down the road lurks a back-up which will soon catch them out.

It seems to me that the idea is rather self-defeating. As soon as motorists get used to counting two cameras before putting their foot down, it will be necessary to install three in a row, then four and so on until the whole county is covered by serried ranks of cameras.