91Èȱ¬

The iPM team have been out and about getting ready for Saturday's honours show. Jen has been doing laps of a car-park, I've been to a bank whose assets are always frozen, our editor Marilyn is digging through the archive (and keeping mum about something else), and Eddie's in deep water after finding out how sweets can get you out of a sticky situation.

If you want to know more, well you will just have to tune in on Saturday. In the meantime, a very Happy New Year's Eve to you all - and if you are reading this in the morning, I believe the aspirin are in the second drawer down under the sink..

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The New Year list is out.

In PM tonight we'll hear from 14 year old Ellie Simmonds - the youngest person to receive an award. The 91Èȱ¬ News coverage is . The full list is . What do you think of who is on it - and who's not?

To find out who's getting the iPM New Year Honour - join us on Saturday at 17.30 when we'll have a special programme dedicated to the people nominated solely by our listeners...and you can read more on this blog then too.

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iPM is the programme that starts with its listeners...and what they want to talk about.

A while back on the programme we spoke about the driving skills of people over 70, and what the law requires them to do. This morning's Daily Telegraph has news of a much more wide-ranging change to driving rules. To read more about what the Telegraph is saying, click .

Our coverage from August is here. Dozens of listeners and bloggers shared what they knew here.

Have a read and click on Comments to share what you know.

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Thanks for your suggested stories (below) keep them coming in. Anonymous1208 wrote a long comment about Culture Secretary Andy Burnham's .

I see Cabinet Office minister Tom Watson MP is asking readers of his blog to share their views on the idea of ratings. :

I'll make sure that Andy sees all of the comments, other than the two I deleted for being rude. I'm writing to him at the end of the week (January 2nd) so any further ideas are welcome until then.

It will be quite a long and challenging letter judging by the his post has attracted so far...

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the iPM New Year's Honour (more about it here).

Thanks if you took the trouble to nominate someone. The deadline has passed and we've decided that each member of the iPM team will independently read the emails that have been sent and then draw up individual short-lists of around three each...then discuss them.

There are so many people who deserve it...such diverse nominations...I don't know how we'll do it but we will come up with one before Saturday.

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Put your brain to work for iPM! The items we feature on the programme start with suggestions from audience members and blog readers like you.

This is the place to leave a comment with your ideas for the next programme. You can send us an email too, the address is ipm@bbc.co.uk

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Some of Simon Berry's prototype aid-pods.

This week on iPM we looked again at some of the stories we've featured in the past year.

• Listener told us about his campaign to distribute aid via deliveries of Coca-Cola. You can read the lyrics to Eve Graham's updated song here.


• An update of our coverage of 'cell' phones, mobile phones smuggled into prisons


• The debate (see here and ) over whether massively multiplayer games are 'addictive' provoked thoughtful comments on the blog. We heard from listeners , Sarriss and Mark Folson


• And we said goodbye with a song from one of the talking computer programmes produced by

Another of our listeners featured on iPM has made the papers this week. , who spoke to us about plankton, has an in the new year. You can see some of them in our slide-show here.

If you've a story you'd like us to follow up email us at ipm -at - bbc.co.uk, or leave a comment here.

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will be on Radio 4 at 17.30. Stand by. Meantime, there's a review of another kind here.

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We'll be here on Saturday at 17.30 with a look back at the year. Might be of interest if you get - or give - computer games today.

In the meantime, there's fun to be had HERE.

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Your ideas for stories and nominations for the iPM New Year's Honour List very welcome.

This week (the 27th) we'll be looking back to some of our favourite iPM stories - drop us a line with your thoughts.

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Inspiring career paths
For Paul Smith, it was the 1974 that inspired him to become a physicist. We got tickets for him and his son Alex to attend this year's lecture, 'Digital Intelligence', by .

Gay Life, Gay Death in Iraq
Chris Vallance reported on how life has changed for lesbian, gay and transgendered residents in Iraq.

Animated cards: love them or loathe them?
loves them and talked to Eddie about how she got hooked on them.

iPM New Year's Honour List
Your nominations are welcome for the very special iPM List. Email us with your details and theirs, and tell us why they deserve an honour.

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In good, end-of-year tradition, we're revisiting some of our favourite iPM stories and ideas. We'll ask, with great journalistic style and panache, 'so, what happened next?'

Stories on our minds -

Is Coca-cola still it?
One campaigner wants to persuade Coke to use their distribution channels to get rehydration salts to the people who need them.

Gaming 'addiction'
Does gaming obsession present our culture with problems, or frankly, is anything better that an TV addiction?

'Today I am going to kill something. Anything.'
The unprecendented decision by the qualifications body (England and Wales), AQA, to
remove a poem from the syllabus after an individual complaint.

But if there are others you'd like to hear about...get in touch.

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'Which TV programme inspired my future career?' writes Liam D'Arcy Brown.

'Would you believe me if I said Roland Rat and Kevin the Gerbil's GM-TV trip to Hong Kong in the early 1980s where Roland planned to shoot a kung fu film called Enter the Rodent?

As far as I can remember, this was the first time I became aware of Kowloon, Hong Kong and China beyond.

My interest grew in the coming years, and by 1989 I was an undergraduate at Oxford reading Chinese. I am now a published author on travel in China and on Chinese history..

..I can still hear that irritatingly catchy theme tune - "Kowloon/ Kowloon, Hong Kong/ We love Hong Kong/ It's the place for me..."

Have a similar tale? Drop us a line.

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(The Queen. Not in any way involved with this project.)

Nominate someone for an iPM New Year's Honour!

As you know, iPM is the programme that starts with its listeners. Their ideas and suggestions are what make our programme. This Christmas we're taking that one stage further.

We want to know who YOU would nominate for an iPM New Year's Honour. Ideally, someone who's not well known...they're covered in the official New Year's list. We want to hear about someone YOU know who deserves wider recognition.

Just email us their details and yours, and tell us why you want to nominate them. Our email address is iPM@bbc.co.uk. Please put HONOUR in the subject line. You'll need to make your nomination by midnight on Sunday 28th December.

There's no prize: just the honour of iPM making a fuss over the winning nominee. The iPM production team will choose from the names put forward and its decision will be final. No arguing!

That email address again: ipm@bbc.co.uk

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Stories iPM is looking at this week:

Did TV change your life?
Is there a programme you watched as a child that inspired your future career?

Gay Life, Gay Death in Iraq
Has the war in Iraq made life more difficult for its lesbian, gay and transgendered residents?

Kaupthing Bank
We continue to follow the story of British expat depositors who fear they've lost money, following the Isle of Man's bank collapse. Read the update post.

iPM New Year's Honour List
Nominate someone who YOU think deserves an Honour.

If you've experience or thoughts on any of these, or have some ideas on who we should talk to, comment below or drop us a line - thanks.

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Get in touch if there's an item in the news that you think needs more discussion or doesn't chime with your experience and tell us why.

We're also looking at:

- The difficulties faced by lesbian, gay and transgender Iraqis

- The children's TV programmes that inspired your career

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"I'm now a professional animator, and I think it is partly due to his influence that I chose this career path. His work lives on to inspire even more generations of children," writes Eleanor Leadbetter.

Did a TV programme you watched as a child inspire your career path? Do you work in the industry and have watched it change over the years?

Comment below or email if you have a story to tell or there's someone you'd like to hear from on this.

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This week you pointed us toward:

- Offal recipes

- Whether Denis MacShane MP is right to worry that older expats living in countries such as Spain could become less popular with locals as the economy worsens. We linked up with the Spanish radio station .

- What makes a good Christmas tree? Luke Walton went deep into to meet Christmas tree feller Tim Fathers. See bad trees HERE, HERE and HERE.

- How Radio 4 Longwave turns electric heaters on and off via the power of teleswitching. Philip Mills, one of the fathers of explained the longwave wonder.

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If all goes to plan, I'll be talking to of the next week. (You can hear a in the player above)

The project aims: To create educational opportunities for the world's poorest children by providing each child with a rugged, low-cost, low-power, connected laptop with content and software designed for collaborative, joyful, self-empowered learning
Currently there are around 500,000 of the laptops in use by children worldwide.

But the project has not escaped some . I want you to help me ask the right questions in the interview. If there's an issue you'd like raised send an email to ipm-at-bbc.co.uk or leave a comment.

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it'll be offal, costal, electrical and newsal.

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And here is yet another photo we got in response to our please for pictures of bad Christmas trees and decorations. If you want to know where it all began, there are details here.

We still want more though! Send them please to iPM@bbc.co.uk.

"I saw this Christmas tree the other day at the RSPB reserve at Conwy when I was helping them plan a new Butterfly Conservation garden. It might look a bit bare, but what a great idea! Kids made the decorations from pine cones, berries, dried fruit, nuts, seeds and lard, For the birds to enjoy Christmas too! See more , Cheers, Jan Miller"

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And here is yet another photo we got in response to our please for pictures of bad Christmas trees and decorations. If you want to know where it all began, there are details here.

We still want more though! Send them please to iPM@bbc.co.uk.

"This photograph shows our Yuletide Rodent. He comes out every year at Christmas and sits beneath the Christmas tree. Yes, really. David McNickle's Christmas Moggy on the PM Blog put me in mind of him, so I fetched him from the decorations box, put him in situ and took this photo, especially for Radio 4. I know that one day everyone will want their very own Yuletide Rodent and no Christmas will be complete without. Enjoy!
Happy Christmas, Sue Kilbracken P.S. No rodents were harmed in the production of this photograph."

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Yesterday we ran a piece on the difficulties facing local papers, caught between declining advertising revenues and increasing competition from the internet. Today a in the newspaper and magazine industry.

Overleaf you can hear a long edits of some of the interviews that made up the PM piece. You'll hear , , , and

Read the rest of this entry

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Just recorded an interview with Denis MacShane MP, about how Brits abroad are treated...and whether the British government should do more, especially during a recession. You can hear part of it by clicking on Start below. I admit this is rather a big photo of Mr MacShane.

The cute thing is that although the interview is for this Saturday's programme, it will be broadcast on tomorrow - the station is going to ask its listeners whether Mr MacShane is right to be worried that in a downturn, anti-foreigner feeling against Brits on the continent could rise.

iPM has done a fair bit on this already - you can read more here - if you have a view, please click on Comments.

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And here is another photo we got in response to our please for pictures of bad Christmas trees and decorations. If you want to know where it all began, there are details here.

We still want more though! Send them please to iPM@bbc.co.uk.

"Eddie, This is a photo of a tree somewhere in St Albans. I won't say where because I don't want to embarrass anybody. David McNickle St Albans"

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James Ward emails about an extraordinary PM centred coincidence, "Last Friday I was most excited to hear that the first letter featured in PM letters was from my old form teacher; the very next day I was walking in the Peak District and started talking to a man who turned out to be that very same form teacher - he had shaved his beard off so I hadn't recognised him to begin with; it had been 15 years since we last saw each other."

Have you experienced a coincidence lately? Let us know.

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Censorship and the internet: what's appropriate?
You might have read about . iPM has also been contacted about another incident of censorship.

Anne Scott says her 11-year-old daughter loves cats and was trying to download a track for a music website. A word in one song's title was filled with astrisks. Anne is upset that she was then placed in the tricky position of explaining to the child why the fairly innocent word might be considered offence by some. (Thanks to friend Andrew Heavens for the photo of another unrelated song title.)

What iPM's looking at
- How the Radio 4 LW signal can control your heating (amongst other things).

- Are British expat pensioners becoming less popular? We team up with a Spanish radio station.

- What's Britain's best worst Christmas tree? We let a tree surgeon and Christmas tree feller judge your photos of pathetic pines?

- Our cash-strapped expat pensioner Leonora Wyatt eats it now, but what offal isn't awful?

If you have any ideas or want to suggest something else, EMAIL or write a comment below.

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Thank you for the response to our plea for photos of bad Christmas trees and decorations. If you want to know where it all began, there are details here.

We still want more though! Send them please to iPM@bbc.co.uk.

"A local shop - the tree was fine but would have been better without anything. And the beautiful crescent in Boscombe (near the centre) where it's clear the council really tried hard ;-) Sorry about the camera shake, Jonnie"

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Correction - we want your offal recipes.

On Saturday's programme we heard from a pensioner abroad, having a bit of trouble making ends meet.

Chris Beardshaw (who signed himself "...pensioner!!!!!") wrote: " I was amused to hear the pensioner in France talking about 'having to eat Offal' as their pension is so diminished!! Having eaten Offal dishes all our lives, and made soup on a regular basis, I can assure her that she's in for a treat! Dishes such as 1) Kidneys with Juniper Berries 2) Lambs Liver Italian style 3) Braised Lambs Hearts 4) Tomato Tripe Casserole have had a regular place on the menu in our house for 42 years, perhaps we need to bring back the relationship with the local Butcher who was a fund of knowledge and suggestions and, of course, cookery lessons in School (and I don't mean the theory without the practise!!!)."

We love a challenge - if you have a good offal recipe, or a tip on using offal...please post it by clicking on Comments.

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Thank you for the response to our plea for photos of bad Christmas trees and decorations. If you want to know where it all began, there are details here.

We still want more though! Send them please to iPM@bbc.co.uk.

"A photo of Father Christmas. He's in a sleigh with no reindeer, and he was even blowing up his own balloons! They were selling meat at half price in Sainsbury's though.... A sign that the Credit Crunch has even affected Santa? AllotmentJo"

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Like it says on those name badges: "How can I help you?"

• If you want to know more about an item in our show click HERE.


• If you want to suggest a story... er... keep reading.

- After councillors in County Durham removed a Christmas tree for being too 'spindly', iPM listeners wrote in defence of tiny trees and lame lights. Do join in by sending us photos of Britain's best worst decorations.

- How is the credit crunch hitting expats? We've heard from Brits living in other EU nations saying that their pensions have shrunk. An MP also warned iPM that a downturn could increase tensions between expats and their host communities. Any experiences to share?

- What's YOUR news? Can you sum it up in ONE sentence? We'll see if we can find a special newsreader to deliver it with panache.

If you have other ideas or a personal experience of something in the news, add your comment to the bottom of this page or send us an EMAIL.

THE SHOW

Dynamic demand! Is it the answer to our electricity supply problems? Will it help reduce carbon dioxide emissions? Will it save us the bother of building more power stations? And what on earth is it?

Listener Roger Barton says it works by intelligent fridges "sensing the increase in mains frequency when demand drops, so they switch on. The demand increases, so they switch off again. This reduces demand, so they switch on again. This increases demand. so they switch off again. This increases demand, so....." Get the picture? READ MORE.

"Rein de veau. Uh, what's that in English? Er, veal kidney. We've started eating offal." iPM heard from Leonora Wyatt about how she and other British pensioners living in the EU are struggling to fill their bellies and heat their homes thanks to the drop in the value of the Pound. READ MORE.

Enter your PIN. Then press ENTER Following an iPM item about ideas, the manager of emailed to say that ten years ago he thought up a gizmo to make cashpoints accessible to the blind and partially sighted.

iPM heard that many new ATM's have had the capability for audio for some time, but only a few banks are making use of it READ MORE.

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Have you seen a tree or Christmas decoration that looks like this? SEND US A PHOTO!

This tree in Peterlee has been quite a talking point on PM this week. Now it's been replaced. But listener Anya Spackman loves it.

"In today's straitened economic times, what the heck does the LOOK of a Christmas tree matter, especially when it's provided free? Whatever it looks like now, it'll still be firewood or wood chip mulch by the end of January. I'd much prefer a real *growing* tree any time, whatever it looks like."

She's right. And iPM is on the hunt for Britain's least loved Christmas decoration or tree.

If near you there is a spindly, badly decorated tree, or if the council has attached three coloured bulbs to a lampost and is calling it Christmas, please take a photo and send it to us: ipm@bbc.co.uk.

We've got to love ALL our decorations. Even the bad ones. It's Christmas.

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Every week on iPM we take time to hear what our listeners are up to. Here's Jennifer and me doing the headlines last week.

If you can sum up YOUR week in a sentence, why not send it to iPM@bbc.co.uk. Please don't post anything here - we want to keep the news fresh for Saturday!

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Listener Chris Cooke writes, "As more and more banks close and we rely constantly on Cash Machines (ATMs), the visually impaired have many problems. Each and every ATM is different in lay-out and offers various options shown on a screen, which obviously is hard to use if you can't see it. It must be a nightmare."

Is it? We're looking at the issue. Do get in touch if you've experience of this issue - particularly if you are partially sighted and find using a cash machine difficult.

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It's not just data that goes missing, bills about data do too. The Communications Data Bill was in the , but it wasn't in today's Queen's Speech.

Read the rest of this entry

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How Christmassy is THIS...

And what about THIS for getting the festive spirit flowing...

These were just some of the scenes that greeted vistors to .

Have YOU seen a grotty grotto, sad Santa or duff decorations? Has your neighbour hung more lights than Blackpool? Is your town centre done up like Mr T's chest?Email us a photo.

OR do you have a story you'd like to share about Christmas tat or a personal tale of when the magic of festive season wore off? Was there a defining moment when Christmas lost its sparkle?

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"A really good idea is usually very simple once explained." That's what the President of the Royal College of Science Association told iPM in an email this week. He was responding to THIS.

Keith Beadle had a problem - not enough room for his model train sets. This was his 'very simple' idea....
Picture: Mercury Press.

Do YOU have a simple idea to solve a tricky problem? Is there a simple, everyday problem you'd love to see solved? Email us or add a comment.

Maybe we could make it into a TV show? Members of the public could pitch their ideas to rich, but blunt entrepreneurs. We'd call it "Lions' Den".

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Thanks for feedback to Saturday's item on the TV licence fee. You can listen again to the full piece here -

'The sooner the licence fee is replaced as a method of funding the 91Èȱ¬ the better.' MG

'I don't have a TV, but I'd pay £150 annually to support radio. I'd consider it an investment in my own sanity.' Deborah Angel

Read the rest of this entry

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Hello. Hoorah for your show. I perform as Madame Galina Drag Ballerina. In 2006 Woman's Hour made me New Forces' Sweetheart for my tours with Combined Services Entertainment to Iraq and Afghanistan. I'm just waiting for the Christmas corporate bookings to come in. People are determined that Variety is taking over from stand-up, you see. They're wrong.

My grand finale is making whoever in management has been set up by their colleagues to dance a Pas de Deux with me. I'll have a list of names which always gets lost down my cleavage. Everyone will be reeling drunk and pushing one another into the Chocolate Fountain....

Best...Iestyn aka Madame Galina

Got an unusual Christmas job? Drop us a line.

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