RADIO Five showed its caring face the other morning.

During an item about the Pakistan earthquake disaster, the interviewer was deep in conversation with the organiser of a massive relief operation, which was inevitably going to lead to information as to how listeners could contribute or get involved.

But no, there was a sudden interruption by an over-excited and breathless female presenter who said: "John, John, I'm sorry to butt in but we have got to end it there as there is important breaking news."

And what was that news?

The director general of the BBC was just starting a press conference to explain why television licence fees needed to be increased.

DRINKS DROUGHT?...

PART of the joy of taking part in sport is the social aftermath, where players can relax for a chat over a quiet drink, but such niceties count for nothing in the wacky world of local authority thinking.

South Lakeland District Council has given the go ahead to South Lakeland Leisure, the arms-length company which runs Kendal Leisure Centre, for a major restructuring of the upper floor.

Consequently work costing many thousands of pounds is going on at the moment to increase the size of the fitness suite and restructure the rather spartan bar into a plush bistro-bar with comfortable seating. Nothing wrong with that - except that the current thinking is to close the bistro-bar at 8pm, just about the time that the first of the evening users are staggering off the courts and dying for a drink.

Centre staff tell me that there may be a change of heart if enough users protest, but I would not bet on it as there is no provision on the plans for storing or serving draught beer.

There will no doubt be the odd bottle or three tucked behind the bar however, so that our good councillors can enjoy a soft seat and a drink during their periodic daytime visits to congratulate each other on how well the centre is serving the public.

SITE OFF TRACK...

IT IS good to see that Cumbria County Council is also spending taxpayers' money wisely.

Dave Whitehead e-mailed me to tell me about his experience when using the Cumbria Image Bank website.

"I thought I would use it to see if there were any photos of the Kendal floods. But when I typed it in the search box I got photos of trains," he says.

"So thought I would just try Kendal', but it still gave me photos of trains.

"Yet if you search for trains all you get is Sorry there are no results found for this word'."

I think he was lucky even to get trains - when I tried this week the website link just refused to work.

TIME TEASER...

I'VE often heard it said in a disparaging sort of way that the people of Ambleside do not know what time of day it is.

Now it appears there may be some truth in the statement, as this photograph of the village clock sent to me by Nick Mortimer shows. There may also be another reason - unless things have changed since I last observed it, there is also the problem of the clock in the church tower, which has chimed out the hours and quarters despite there being no face as the church never got round to fitting one after the clock was installed way back in the middle of the last century.