It was the university's Open Day and like, I suspect, hundreds of other parents we were struggling to find our way around the city centre campus.

We had a map, but having relied on our sat nav to get us from A to B for some time now, we didn't read it with much skill or success.

I had that bemused look on my face which people tell me is quite common with me.

A girl in a bright yellow T-shirt approached.

"Are you alright?" she asked me. "Can you manage?"

"Crikey," I replied. "I didn't know Newcastle United were that desperate."

Boom, boom! as Basil Brush might have said.

OK, so I made that bit up (it is a version of a soccer joke which I first heard at a Leeds Chamber of Commerce dinner many moons ago, and I've been saving it up until now).

But the rest, as they say, is true.

We were in Newcastle at the weekend – Mrs S and I, and our eldest – and we were giving it the once over as a potential centre for furthering of her education.

This represented a strange new world for both of us as neither of us went to university ourselves.

In my case, a one-year college course in journalism, post A-levels, was the closest I got to further education.

And I have to admit, I felt a slight pang of envy as we looked around.

I felt envious – though, be assured, not in an obsessive way – both of her youth and for the fact that her life is still largely an unpainted canvas which lies ahead of her.

Like her younger sister, she has achieved so much already and yet she is still at the start of her journey – one which God, her results and the parental budget willing, will see her become the first Scott to go to university.

Newcastle might not be her final choice but, if it is Newcastle, it seemed a friendly place – like Leeds, mixing 21st century aspiration and redevelopment with a hefty dose of time-honoured Northern grit and tradition.

And, like Leeds, it knows what it is like to be the butt of everyone else's football jokes.

The university campus lies in the shadow of St James' Park and as we meandered around various buildings, checking out the place, we were passed by numerous glum-looking Geordies on their way to watch yet another home defeat.

They sported their shirts bearing the name Northern Rock – club and sponsor united in disharmony – and it took me all my self control to stop myself from pointing and laughing at them.

We Leeds fans can be grateful that however much of a laughing stock we became in the Ridsdale "goldfish" years, the seemingly never ending tale of woe that emanates from the home of the "Toon" has comfortably eclipsed our own misfortunes.


How low can they go?


IT'S good to see that the BBC continues to take its responsibilities as a public service broadcaster seriously.

On the one hand, it reduces investment in quality children's programming and, on the other, it gives us Hole In The Wall with Dale Winton.

I don't know what made me more angry as I attempted to watch the first programme of the series – the pathetic childishness of actress turned Loose Women presenter Sherrie Hewson (who has clearly never heard of the phrase 'growing old gracefully') or the pathetic childishness of the show in its entirety.

And what made me even more angry was the knowledge that in some small way, through the licence fee, I was paying for this so-called entertainment.

If you haven't seen it, don't.

For the record, it involves B-list celebrities (and I include team captain and Yorkshire cricketing legend Darren Gough in that category) trying to jump through shaped cut outs on a wall which advances towards them.

They do this clad in skin tight lycra which results in body shapes verging on the obscene.

Failure to complete the task sees them dumped, It's A Knockout style, into a tank of water.

And that's it.

The only saving grace, I suppose, is that the winning team gets to give money to a charity of their choice.

But then again, how much more money might they be able to give away to charity if they didn't spend it on this lame excuse for Saturday night TV entertainment?


Education, not cash, comes first

I have always thought of Chris Patten as a fairly decent sort of Tory, although I realise that some of you would argue there is no such thing.

I had him a bit like Ken Clarke: a man of the world with a few quid in his pocket who saw the bigger picture – and not some chinless wonder born into privilege with a lack of understanding of real life.

It seems I may have to reconsider my opinion.

Now Lord Patten, and chancellor of Oxford University, he said this week that middle-class families should be willing to pay higher tuition fees for university education, claiming the current fee cap of £3,000 a year was "intolerably" low.

He blustered: "It is surely a mad world in which parents or grand-parents are prepared to shell out tens of thousands of pounds to put their children through private schools to get them into universities, and then object to them paying a tuition fee of more than £3,000 when they are there."

He told delegates at the Headmasters' and Headmistresses' Conference (HMC) in central London that universities must not be treated like "social security offices".

You'll gather, if you have read the main article this week, that I need at this stage declare an interest in proceedings.

But I think we should all be interested in what Mr, sorry, Lord Patten has to say – and pray that it will not find a sympathetic hearing in Tory circles should the party see off Gordon Brown (or his replacement) in a couple of years' time.

Those of us who have worked hard to build our homes and raise our families, who have obeyed the law and paid our taxes, should not be excluded from the education system just because our honest endeavours happen not to add up to the salaries of doctors and lawyers.

Mr Patten should be told, in no uncertain terms, that no parent should ever be put in a position where economic factors dictate the quality of their child's education.

A good education is a right – not a privilege.