There seems to be a difference in attitudes between the public and private sectors when it comes to turning up for work in snowy weather.

I've been told a few times, for instance, that the reason schools close in snow isn't that the children can't get there.

Onthe contrary, hard-pressed working parents make sure their offspring get to school whatever the weather rather than have to go through the nightmare of organising last-minute childcare, take time off work themselves to look after them, or risk leaving them home alone.

The teachers are a different matter. Many of them live miles away from where they work - understandably so, because who wants to be targeted by difficult pupils or have disgruntled parents turning up on the doorstep?

It does mean, though, that when the snow falls and the roads become difficult enough of them fail to arrive at work for the school to have reason to close, causing huge inconvenience to families.

The same principle, it seems, applies to some GPs. On Tuesday morning, with a fast-thawing dusting of snow on the ground, a colleague was trying to arrange to see a particular doctor at her local practice. Sorry, she couldn't have an appointment because the doctor lived 20 miles away and couldn't get in that day.

Well could she make an appointment for the following day, please? Sorry again.

They weren't making any advance appointments for that day either, in case it snowed again and the GP couldn't get in.

What?

How is it that whatever the weather everyone usually manages to turn up at the T&A, some from far-flung parts of the North of England and mostly on time? It's the same in most other companies.

Has it something to do with working in the profit-making private sector where paymaster bosses take (and aren't slow to express) a dim view of staff who they think are letting the side down?

It does help to concentrate the mind wonderfully on getting up earlier and finding ways of making the journey, whatever the weather might be doing.

In poor taste

Why can't the food firms leave well alone? Latest staple of the British culture to be tampered with is Marmite, which is now being sold in a more runny form in squeezy plastic containers.

The manufacturers claim they've made this improvement because people were fed up of the crumbs that collect in the spread in glass jars from knives which have been used to put Marmite on previous slices of toast.

Who did they ask? Certainly not me. I like crumby Marmite, thank you very much. And I like it non-runny and in the familiar glass jars.

Please leave it alone!

Lost in a name

I'm with those traders in the Oastler Centre who want its name changed back to John Street Market. That's what it is, after all: a market hall on John Street, where there always was a market (although it used to be an open-air one).

It's a down-to-earth sort of shopping centre better suited to a down-to-earth sort of name. The Oastler Centre has never caught on because it simply doesn't fit the personality of the place.

Infact, mention that name to most Bradfordians and they'll look at you blankly until you say "You know, John Street Market". Then their eyes light up with recognition.

True X-factor

Although not a fan of the An Audience With TV format (those planted questions are so obvious), I felt privileged to have been able to watch the Shirley Bassey show last weekend.

It's not just that the woman has such obvious star quality which, along with her voice, hasn't weakened at all over the years. It's also that at the age of 69 Dame Shirley is a living link with my grandmother who would have been more or less the same age as I am now (62) in 1958 when the former factory worker from Cardiff 's Tiger Bay had her first massive hit, As I Love You.

Gram, who liked larger-than-life people and knew a good musical turn when she heard one, loved Miss Bassey and that song. At that time, though, I was 14 and into Elvis, the Everly Brothers and Danny and the Juniors and couldn't share her enthusiasm for a ballad belted out by a diva-in-the-making.

Now I've grown up a bit I can entirely see what the appeal was, and still is. Gram spotted what has been obvious to millions of people in the intervening 48 years: that Dame Shirley Bassey was born with what so many try in vain to acquire - gallons of undiluted X-factor.

Alzheimer's disease

It's been a harrowing way to phase the Mike Baldwin character out of Coronation Street - having him develop Alzheimer's Disease. Although the illness has progressed at rather too rapid a rate than seems likely, the storyline has been very well handled and the performance by Johnny Briggs, as Mike becomes increasingly bewildered and distressed, has been heartbreaking.

Hopefully by taking the brave decision to have a favourite, long-standing character afflicted in this terrible way the Street team will have helped to increase awareness and understanding of Alzheimer's, which many still perceive as just old people becoming a bit dotty and forgetful.

Tragically, it's much, much worse than that. It's a horrible, ultimately fatal illness which progressively unravels personality and awareness, blights the lives of many thousands of people and isn't confined to the elderly.

Huge resources need to be put into it, both to find ways of preventing and treating it and to care for the sufferers and support their families. Corrie is currently giving a useful helping hand to the campaign to achieve that.