“The news goes on … just not from here” — can you remember who said it and why?*

Yes, it was brain-stretching and rib-tickling time again, at the Annual Review for the RTS in the North East and the Border Centre.

Current affairs questions had an Olympic flavour, ranging from the in/out adventures of the flame in Greece to Jeremy Hunt’s Olympic clanger.

And the popular cryptic clues were back: which film is hinted at by “Happy Man Eats Lady”?* You may groan when you find out.

Guests who attended the autumn RTS event about the end of the long process of digital switchover (or read the report in Television) were rewarded with extra points if they could remember where it really started and finished — not Whitehaven and the Tyne-Tees region respectively, but with a pilot in Llanstefan & Ferryside in Caernarfon to start off, and the final final shutdown in Northern Ireland when the rest of the UK had been converted.

The competition at Newcastle’s Live Theatre was nailbitingly close, fighting for the 'coveted' Alto Trophy. There was much applause for the Review production trio of RTS Hon Sec Tony Edwards, his partner-in-crime Carole and Graeme Aldous.

 

The winners were Hotch Potch 2012 – Charmian Marshall, Sharon Lumb and Adam Hay – just one point ahead of The Dog’s Baubles, who headed off Last Year’s Winners. And hats off for the team who didn’t quite punch their weight but raised a laugh: The Media Heavyweights.

(Photo l to r:  Carol & Tony Edwards present the Alto Trophy to Sharon Lumb, Adam Hay and Charmian Marshall.)

 

*And the answers to the posers?

• At midday on Thursday 12 July, Iain Purdon read the final BBC World Service news bulletin to be broadcast from Bush House.
• Gladiator