I spy my little fly

I forgot to mention, the other day, that one of my last captures before the great bulb disaster was this fly. Like most people, I'm rather vague about flies which all seem similar, apart from the various blue and greenbottles whose brilliant colour compensates for that annoying buzz. I also kill horseflies without compunction. Once bitten... Finally, I remember an absolutely lethal sort of fly in the grassy uplands of Guyana. I'm pretty sure that Evelyn Waugh describes it, too, in his travel book 92 Days. So I had to look up this strikingly-coloured visitor to the trap, which looks in the top pic as though it's on a diving board at one of those 1930s lidos, wondering whether to jump. I like the way that its yellow livery extends to its toes. It's a Noon Fly according to my best researches, although I will not be surprised if some Dipterist puts me and anyone reading this right on that. Actually, I'd be grateful if one of them would tell me what a Noon fly was doing out at night. A propos of nothing, I must just plug my new book True North, which has just come out - published by Guardian Books/Random House. It should be in 'good bookshops', as they say, or available from net order services. It's my take on the North of England after 22 years of reporting from here. The messages are (a) it's great - the subtitle is In Praise of England's Better Half and (b) to Northerners: be cheerful.