THERE were serious ructions at Radio York last week - over nothing at all. Not just any nothing, however. This is the most important nothing in the broadcasting calendar: the two minutes silence for Armistice Day.

In previous years, a BBC diktat has been issued from London instructing its outposts that they will carry the two minutes silence both on November 11 and on Remembrance Sunday.

This year, the Beeb did not send out such an order. In its absence, the Diary learns that Radio York managing editor Matt Youdale was planning to broadcast as normal last Thursday morning, without stopping for the silence.

Instead, the traditional paying of respects would be reserved only for Remembrance Sunday.

Then came another twist. BBC HQ suddenly issued a memo detailing how local radio could go about broadcasting the Armistice Day silence. This was taken by mid-morning show presenter Elly Fiorentini to mean that Radio York was opting in to the silence after all, and she announced the fact on air.

Once it had been trailed the management felt there was no option but to go ahead, and the York airwaves fell silent at the eleventh hour. Nevertheless, staff at the station were infuriated by the original plan to ignore the tribute.

An emergency joint meeting between the BBC York chapels of the National Union of Journalists and broadcasting union Bectu unanimously agreed to issue a stinging motion, a copy of which was anonymously dropped in to the Diary.

It states: "These joint chapels note:

"1 the managing editor's decision not to carry the two minutes silence for Armistice Day;

"2 the lack of discussion or communication about the decision;

"3 that schools and other institutions across the county observed the silence and that many tuned to this station to do so.

"These joint chapels deplore any attempt to remove the two minutes silence from its regular place in the schedule."

It goes on: "These joint chapels are disgusted by:

"1 the face-to-face criticism of a presenter while she was on-air, despite the lack of clear instruction from management;

"2 criticism (in front of a member of the public) of other members of staff who wanted to observe the silence.

"These joint chapels demand that management guarantee the future of the broadcasting of the Armistice Day silence on this station for the foreseeable future."

In response to the motion, managing editor Matt Youdale issued a statement to the Diary.

"BBC Radio York did take the two minutes silence as usual at 11am on November 11," he said.

"BBC Radio York also observed the two minutes silence on Remembrance Sunday in the usual fashion. In the end we took the feed from the silence at the Cenotaph in Whitehall, as for technical reasons we are not simply able to broadcast nothing, as to do so results in the transmitter going down."

FORMER York resident and Evening Press contributor Victor Lewis-Smith is now the restaurant reviewer for the Guardian.

While damning Harry Ramsden's Express at Glasgow Airport last Saturday, he wrote: "This dismal mockery of our national dish simply cannot compete with the real thing, be it from Askey's in York (a master fish fryer who sadly closed in the 1980s) or the mobile chippy that still services the Cumbrian west coast."

Which prompts the Diary to ask is Victor right? Was Askey's the all-time greatest fish and chip shop in York? Your comments appreciated.

Updated: 12:12 Wednesday, November 17, 2004