An electronics company based in the North today announced a £4.6m (€6m) investment to enable it to step up production of its tyre pressure monitoring equipment amid growing global demand.

IF you want to start the year off with a decent political thriller, seek out 'The Walker' (Pathé; €24.99). Carter Page III (Woody Harrelson) is a professional “walker”, who spends his time escorting the wives of an elite too uninterested in attending social functions.

The writer of Martin Scorsese's The Last Temptation of Christ has described The Passion Of The Christ as "medieval" and says that the old school brand of religion it preaches reminds him of Shiites.

Back in the l960s, Bob Crane was the star of the TV series, Hogan's Heroes, about a group of Americans held in a German PoW camp. It was totally bereft of wit but it ran and ran and ran and was popular.