Angus Young: I've won an award for my 'looks Like Beirut' cliché

If there's one thing I love about my job, it's the feed-back I get on stories I write.

Good or bad, it doesn't bother me. Instead, I like the fact that people take the time and trouble to respond, debate and, at times, challenge what I've written about.

So, earlier this week, I was delighted to open a large brown envelope addressed to me which arrived in the office adorned with an impressive array of colourful stamps from the United Arab Emirates.

Inside was a glossy certificate that now takes pride of place on my desk.

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My personal "Looks Like Beirut" Award was sent to me "on behalf of the entire Lebanese blogging population in recognition of the work done to keep the overused, worn-out tired cliché 'looks like Beirut' alive".

Blogger Jad Aoun, who runs the Lebanon News: Under Rug Swept blog, said: "I thank you for your dedication to unoriginal comments."

My award follows a story I did just before Christmas about the ongoing regeneration of west Hull.

In it, I wrote: "In what was once dubbed Hull's answer to Beirut, Woodcock Street is also basking in the glow of winning a national award for its dramatic transformation in recent years."

In my defence, for many years Woodcock Street did feature a very prominent piece of graffiti on the side of a house declaring it was "Little Beirut".

If I remember rightly, the spelling of the Lebanese city wasn't entirely accurate.

Anyway, I accept it's a fair cop made worse by the fact that the Mail received a similar award three years for a similar reference to Beirut in another story about Woodcock Street.

At the time, a colleague replied: "The point you make is a valid one and duly noted."

Unaware of all this, I repeated the cliché.

As Jad points in an accompanying blog, the central district of Beirut was recently highlighted at an international forum of urban development as "one of the most notable examples of revitalisation and reconstruction in the last decade".

It is also fair to record that the Lebanese Civil War actually ended in 1990.

However, with neighbouring Syria currently imploding, I don't think a trip to see the delights of downtown Beirut and thank Jad personally for my certificate is going to happen any time soon.