Sightings are more usually reported off Cornwall, with recent sightings of a 6ft bull shark near Penzance and three makos.. I'm frightened because a lot of people use that area around North Shields and now there is a shark out there."Sharks are rarely seen in such northerly locations. "I don't think it's a shark because it is breaching the surface of the water and that is more characteristic of a mammal such as a porpoise, a dolphin or a minke whale," he said.But Mr Walker said: "I go out in my boat a lot and I've seen dolphins before and they are nothing like this."When we saw it, there was a party going on with five or six other vessels and about 30 people saw it Some of them reported it, but I have the proof. Another North Shields fishermen who claimed earlier this year to have seen a blue shark - one of the fastest swimmers in the world - suddenly seems less deluded than many locals considered him at the time.The Walkers had been out in their boat, a Hardy Pilot craft, for five minutes when they spotted the creature. Mr Walker, a courier, waited until his film had been developed before he could believe what he had seen and took the results to a friend for confirmation.Zahra d'Aronville of the Blue Reef Aquarium in nearby Tynemouth was less convinced.

"I was waiting with the camera but it just smashed into the side and [David] was convinced it was coming to get us."It is the second apparent sighting of a shark in North Shields as many weeks Last week, an 8ft porbeagle shark showed up. It circled the vessel several times and even bumped into the boat before swimming down the Tyne towards the North Sea.

06/11 - 08/11 Access Keith Urban Tickets staging in Huntington Center, I Wireless Center. Keith Urban is staging in Toledo, Moline and Wichita. Keith Urban tickets

07/11 - 08/11 Score some Drake Tickets performing in Chippewa Valley Festival Grounds, Choctaw Casino & Resort. Drake is performing in Cadott, Durant and Seattle. Drake tickets

06/11 Score some Kid Rock Tickets performing in Borgata Events Center, 1. Kid Rock is performing in Atlantic City, Tampa and Baltimore. Kid Rock tickets

"It was about 3am or 4am and I just saw it going round and round the harbour," said Mr Walker, 43, who was fishing for cod and mackerel with his son David, 13, when they both spotted the fish."It was among all the boats and just kept circling round then it came close to us and hit our boat," he recalled. The murky depths of North Shields harbour on Tyneside are a long way from the balmy waters of Australia but evidence from a fisherman's camera suggests the locations share a common appeal to sharks. Philip Walker, 43, photographed a creature with a familiar-looking large dorsal fin as it made its way towards his boat near the port's fish quay. No problem with that, but an alternative solution is simpler.

Do as other team sports, such as rugby union and hockey, do (though rarely need to) and respond to dissent against a referee's decision by moving the free kick 10 metres up-field.JOHN STOKESSOUTHAMPTON. But as most European countries now have this awkward practice, can we persuade them to go with us?ROB SCOREBASINGSTOKE, HAMPSHIRE Women in charge Sir: Evelyn Knowles (letter, 1 November) wonders how anyone could know that women would be "equally crap at running the world". Two words: Margaret Thatcher.MARK BLACKMANLONDON SE14Sir: A lady once said to Churchill: "Do you know, Winston, that in the year 2000 women will rule the world?" To which he answered: "What, still?" Now that right and left are disappearing in politics, should we let gender gently dissolve as an issue too?MATTHEW DEXTERLONDON NW5 Answer to dissent Sir: Alexander Dow brings up, once again, the loutish behaviour of players that mars our enjoyment of football (letter, 31 October) He suggests 10-minute sin-binning, signalled by a blue card. This practice of changing the clocks twice a year is a real pain. Many of us take the best part of a week to recover, especially in the spring when we "lose an hour" There is a campaign to have us permanently on European time. Much better to have us one hour ahead of GMT permanently, as tried by the Wilson government in the late 1960s. Though a blank wall has often proved a temptation to graffiti artists, and though fashionable visual artists have, in recent decades, often filled commissions for public spaces with physically embodied sentences which, at a pinch, could be described as "poetic", it's only quite recently that architects and architectural spaces have started to use poetry proper.The first high-profile one was for the new Cardiff Opera House, which included a line of poetry, in both Welsh and English, by the poet Gwyneth Lewis.