One of my children discovered a live earwig on opening a jar of Tesco’s best strawberry jam the other week, thus confirming that appearances can be deceptive. To be fair to Tesco, the store manager was most contrite, and we got a very polite letter back apologising about the wasp. Entomology clearly isn’t their strong point, which might go some way to explain how the earwig got there in the first place. Sometimes, however, what you get is a lot better than it seems. Last week I was in East Howdon, a small and isolated community near the northern entrance to the Tyne Tunnel.