EVERYONE'S raven about those birds. As we reported last Friday, motorists are furious at the way crows Russell and Sheryl are carrion on, tearing windscreen wipers off cars at Askham Bar Park and Ride.

Driver John Foster was spitting feathers after having six wiper blades pecked to bits in five months.

Russell and Sheryl's vandalism has been caught on CCTV.

But the council refused to give the Evening Press stills from the footage, citing the Data Protection Act.

Quite right.

We don't want these birds' rights to be infringed.

However, the council is quite happy to kill the pesky crows.

The famous fliers, also known as the Peckhams, look set to be "humanely destroyed".

And not everyone is delighted by this prospect.

Clint Walsh protested by creating this special take on the film poster for 1994 release The Crow.

"Believe in the attraction of rubber," it states. "The Crow. Stealer of wipers."

Clint sits a few desks away from John Foster at Norwich Union Life in York.

"I have sat listening to him bleat about it for the last few days," Clint told the Diary.

"My sympathy ran out the other day."

So he made the poster and sent it round the office. "There have been quite a few laughs," he said - although not from Mr Foster.

"I pinned a copy of it to his chair. I have had no reaction to it yet."

Crowman Clint, 27, is no stranger to vehicle vandalism. Something once left a large dent in a previous car he owned and had left parked in Huntington Road.

He believes a drunk staggered into it. Not a crow? "It would have to have been a very, very big one."

Anyway, Clint is not happy that Russell and Sheryl might soon be knocked off their perch. So he is plotting a campaign to save them. Caw.

THE crows aren't the only ones to value rubber.

Evening Press community correspondent Joy Crawshaw rings to suggest that the Diary runs a series on life's handiest inventions.

She is very attached to kitchen roll, but another item is number one in the Crawshaw League of Usefulness.

The rubber band.

"We use so many rubber bands," Joy explains. In her household they are deployed to reseal bags of food for the freezer and to keep her iron cable in order.

And here is Joy's top tip. To reach those awkward cobwebs "attach a duster to the end of a pole with... a rubber band."

Any more suggestions?

THE England rugby union team sported skin tight shirts during their victorious World Cup campaign. Turns out they should have been wearing Big Girls' Blouses.

The union code is not peopled by rugged types at all.

According to a new survey, rugby fans like nothing more than sipping a glass of Chardonnay in a relaxing bubble bath before slapping on some moisturiser and popping downstairs to watch a weepie film.

If you want a tougher, macho sport, you would be better off watching pro-celebrity flower arranging.

Updated: 11:16 Monday, April 05, 2004