Including Variables in Content Management

[logged_with_bugmenot]

Im using the following code in the layout of my site to include the .html content files into it:

[code]
<?
$url = $page.".html";
include($url);
?>[/code]

That works fine to get the html into the layout put in ever single .html file i want to include a php variable that includes the title of that .html file so it appears in a different part of the layout whenever that .html file is called.

Currently I have [code]<?php echo $header ?>[/code] in the layotu file and i have the following in the .html file [code]<?php $header = "-Home"; ?>[/code], the html in the .html file appears correctly in the layout but the php variable in the layout isnt excepting the php variable content in the .html file.
Eg: -Home isnt appearing when layout.php?page=home is called but all of the html in the home.html page is appearing.

How can I get this this to work?

[trq]

Change your file extension to .php, servers don't parse .html files as php by default.