[CzinZumerzet]

Is Aberdeen the place referred to as 'The Granite City', think it is, and you can't get much more grey than that and we know the sun doesn't spend much time in Scotland. I can see that an Aussie or someone from a more temperate clime would think of our cities as grey, the weather very often is, but I still don't see where you get the dreary boring idea......

The Victorians built my small town almost entirely of locally mined Limestone, the type that created the natural glory of Cheddar Caves and undergound rivers and of course the Cheddar cheese mines.

In winter and when damp, the stone is deep grey veined with white quartz but in summer it is a gorgeous milky pearly grey, almost white, and the quartz deposites dazzle and delight the eye. We don't need light shows either because every night the sunsets out over the ocean explode every colour like blast funaces of gigantic wild proportion. Sorry for waxing on, but I think it's how people see towns and cities that make them what they are and sometimes it's how we feel about ourselves that adds to the overall effect. Remember what Johnson said about those '...tired of London, are tired of life...'?

But I wouldn't pay tuppence for that thing in Middlesbr'gh! Do you think it's a way of concealing a 'phone aerial inside and in the inner city? There have been some ingenious methods to defeat planning opposition and if this is one it's a bit obvious!