YOU will recall how Labour councillor Paul Blanchard was put up for sale on internet auction site ebay earlier this year.

His friend Simon Eldritch posted an advert stating: "Best mate for sale. No reserve. Just please take him. He's 29 and I've known him for 26 years. He's been OK but now's the time to get rid.

"Might get a gnome instead."

The sale was scrapped after ebay decided that selling a human was called slavery, which had been ruled illegal some years before.

Now another strange ad has appeared on ebay, also apparently aimed at the York politician. It reads...

Are YOU a chubby local councillor? With no life? Well here's the answer! Just in time for Xmas!

We promise to deliver you a life in time for all the Yuletide festivities.

Are you:

Obsessed with getting 100 feedbacks off eBay?

Unable to drive a small car safely through the city of Leeds?

Constantly scratching your nads on York TV?

Sending proofs from Bailey Cooper to your "mates" showing your new Weight Watchers photo-ID?

Get A Life!

Have you:

Got a photo of yourself sat in the Captain's seat of the USS Enterprise?

A photo of you with Tony Blair, and not noticed the total look of dis-interest in his eyes?

Get A Life!

The ad has been posted by someone styling themselves "Mooncat-Tigerfeet" and the "life" advertised has attracted one bid of £0.01. We can't see that being overtaken.

BBC Radio 4's Today programme is staging a Christmas poll to see who its listeners would like to install in the House of Lords as a "people's peer".

Yesterday one nomination was put forward: ex-It's A Knockout host and football pundit Stuart Hall.

To illustrate his way with words, the show re-broadcast one of his "recent" footie reports. As this described the clash between York City and Stoke City, when they were managed by brothers Alan and Brian Little respectively, this must be a very BBC use of the word "recent"...

MUCH to his embarrassment, Guardian sketch writer Simon Hoggart was outed as another lover of David Blunkett's ex, Kimberley Quinn, this week.

But she's not the only woman Simon holds a candle for, according to rival national the Independent.

He also lusts after our very own Vale of York Tory MP Anne McIntosh, the paper reports.

One Westminster correspondent said: "Whenever she gets up to speak, he'll turn to me and say what a looker she is.

"I don't think the feeling is reciprocated."

Updated: 09:27 Thursday, December 23, 2004