I FORGET if it is this year, next year or the year after when Ascot will be coming to York*.

I've never been much of a race-goer. Someone once told me that I would never win, so I took their word for it.

I find it so much easier to know thyself when other people tell you what to do.

York Races is steeped in tradition. It goes back to a time when the races were a truly aristocratic occupation, when the filthy rich would mock the poor and possibly pay them a bob for the privilege.

Although ethically dubious, these times had an elegance about them. The faade, at least, of the races was one of grandeur and pomp.

So why is it now that the races turn people bonkers?

What is it about men on horses that gives underpaid middle managers the excuse to get boozed up to the eyeballs and then lurch around town sweating and shouting at strangers?

In an attempt to participate in what they perceive to be a class-ridden affair, the boorish and the crass have turned this once nigh-on regal event into a paragon of tackiness. The irony is overwhelming.

So what then when Ascot comes to York? I suspect we shall witness tackiness squared. Tackiness to the power of twelve. And I don't want to be around to get punched by some frustrated drunkard who's just lost their house on a "sure winner".

* Grumpy editorial footnote: it's 2005.

THE idea has been floated that there is money to be made if one lives within a sufficient distance of the racecourse. Which I do. So hurrah for that little piece of luck. However, taking one step back I urge any one of you (two) who are reading this to reconsider.

Having previously witnessed what these gin-soaked monsters are capable of in public (horrors that make one shake one's head slowly and lose all hope), it sends a genuine spasm through my being to think what they may do in private. In my home? No thanks!

I THINK there are more creative ways to cash in. A good starting point would be a little stall selling cheap jewellery and bottles of fake tan, maybe a nice subtle orang-utan auburn.

If it were possible I'm sure you could make a roaring trade of a morning selling people some self-respect. On a purely economic level, weaponry would be a prize product (although you would have to retire with your profits elsewhere). They shoot binge merchants, don't they?

NOW here's a poetic change of gear. Do poems have gears? Who knows?

Anyway, the members of the City of York Auden Society are feeling less than cheerfully poetic.

"The society has been advised that a Keith Davis is claiming to have a responsibility for representing to the press our Auden Birthday Celebration on February 21," Hugh Bernays of the society tells the Diary.

"We should like to make it clear that this person has no such brief. We would ask that any questions or proposals relating to our event be referred to myself or Hugo Hildyard. Thank you."

Could this be the same Keith Davis who pops up all over the wretched place and once claimed to be York's longest-travelling commuter, arriving here daily from Cockermouth?

The same K Davis of anti-war demos, anti-shops demos, anti-anything demos?

Who knows, but the high-minded friends of Auden, who was born in the city, do not seem to be impressed.

Write to: The Diary, Chris Titley, The Evening Press, 76-86 Walmgate, York YO1 9YN

Email diary@ycp.co.uk

Telephone (01904) 653051 ext 337

Updated: 10:23 Tuesday, February 17, 2004