For the first time ever, a children's story is going to be read by a celebrity using sign language on the BBC children's channel CBeebies.
The actress Rose Ayling-Ellis, who won a BAFTA for a Strictly Come Dancing Performance showing viewers what it is like to dance when you cannot hear the music, will become the first celebrity to sign a bedtime story on the channel.
The reading will take place as part of Deaf Awareness Week 2022 (2-8 May), reports The Manc.
The BBC has revealed this week that Rose will tell the story of a young bear and his dad on their journey into the discovery and management of deafness.
Rose will sign the story, Can Bears Ski?, in British Sign Language (BSL).
Written by Raymond Antrobus and illustrated by Polly Dunbar, the heartwarming children’s story is said to draw on the author’s own experience.
The story aims to show how isolating it can be for a deaf child in a hearing world.
Speaking ahead of the groundbreaking show this Sunday, Rose said: “I am super excited to read my first CBeebies Bedtime Story in British Sign Language and it’s even more wonderful to share a story written by a deaf writer.
“I hope deaf children enjoy the story and it inspires hearing children to want to learn BSL more.”
This is the first ever BSL-signed CBeebies story, with Rose – who has been deaf since birth – only speaking to introduce the story and afterwards to say goodnight.
The story will also be subtitled throughout.
As mentioned, Rose’s CBeebies Bedtime Story will air on Sunday 8 May at 6.50pm, and later on BBC iPlayer, to mark the end of Deaf Awareness Week 2022, and this is the first of two stories she has recorded for CBeebies.
The tiramisu hype lives on, and this time it's coming to Leeds.
It really does feel like the traditional Italian dessert has taken the world by storm as of late.
Everything from tiramisu cups and tiramisu coffees have been popping up all over our feed, and now tiramisu in drawer form is popping up in the city centre.
Misu Tiramisu is an independent business that began at Manchester's Christmas Markets and quickly became one of the most popular operators, all thanks to its miniature tiramisu ‘drawers’.
Images: The Hoot Leeds
The individually portioned and colourfully packaged desserts quickly became one of town’s top puddings, and owners Aleem and Aishah went on to launch a stand inside the Manchester Arndale too.
And now they’re branching out again in Leeds inside Trinity shopping centre for a two month residency.
You’ll find all their delicious flavours of handmade tiramisu, including classic, pistachio, chocolate, Biscoff, mango, and lemon - they'll also have some gluten-free tiramisu on offer as well, so no one has to miss out.
Images: The Hoot Leeds
Misu Tiramisu owners Aleem and Aishah spent a year refining the recipe for their tiramisus after a trip to Milan, first launching with their first market stall in Sale.
Misu Tiramisu is now open inside Trinity shopping centre opposite Boots Opticians and Pop Specs.
They're open every day of the week for you to get your tiramisu fix, from 9am to 8pm Monday to Saturday and from 11am to 5pm on a Sunday.
And trust us Leeds, they're just as delicious as they are adorable.
Fossilised 320-million-year-old fish found in Leeds’ Roundhay Park
Clementine Hall
A prehistoric fish fossil has been unearthed at Roundhay Park in Leeds.
The fascinating prehistoric skull bone of a coelacanth fish was discovered by a geologist at Roundhay Park earlier this year.
It is thought the creature was frozen in time aeons ago, during an era when the park was submerged under a vast tropical lagoon.
The remarkable discovery has now been kindly donated to Leeds Museums and Galleries and added to the natural sciences collection at Leeds Discovery Centre.
Image: Leeds City Council
The Leeds fossil was found by Ru Smith of the Yorkshire Geological Society during a reconnaissance walk he was carrying out ahead of a planned field excursion in the north Leeds park.
Describing the moment he made the discovery, Ru said: “There’s a layer of rock in the park which dates from around 320 million years ago, from a time before the breakup of the continents, when what is now the park would have been situated close the Equator and under the warm waters of a tropical lagoon. West Central Africa would be a good place to find similar environments in the present.
“There’s a bed of freshwater mussels called Carbonicola at one level in the rock, and opening a piece of shale from this bed in my hands I saw something unusual – a distinctive skull bone of a large fish. I knew straight away this was something different and very rare."
The bone was verified byexperts as belonging to a coelacanth older than those found elsewhere in Yorkshire, making it the oldest fossil coelacanth discovered in the region.
Ru added: “Coelacanths are pretty amazing fish and it’s just very cool to think that at one time, you could have been standing in Leeds and watching them swim around above a bed of mussels in Roundhay Park.
“That’s really the wonder of geology, looking at the rock and time travelling in the imagination to what was a very different world.”
Georgina Pellant -
6th May 2022 
