IT'S time to say Goodbye Yellow Brick Toad to the Frog Hall, but in keeping with the request that it's a fond farewell, we've commissioned a song from Tadpole Tudor (with help from Snoop Froggy Frog and Slime Shady).

After rejecting several titles including Spawn To Run, At The Hop, Toad To Nowhere, Big Frog, Walkin' The Frog and The Frogical Song, we decided to cry havoc and let slip the frogs of war with:

Spawn to be Wild

(to the tune of Born to be Wild)

Got our motors running

Heading out to Layerthorpe

Looking for a jam night

And whatever comes our way

Wayne and Deanna took it over

They soon picked up the pace

They had that Frog a'jumpin'

Sure gonna miss that place

They said they're gonna close it

Turn it into a McDonald's

So Sue started campaigning

But it was way, way too late

The campaign was joined by the Press

And we all did our best

But it couldn't be stopped

They're going to pull our Frog down

Spawn to be Wild

Spawn to be Wild

This moving ode is due to be sung tonight at the Frog Hall's final weekend blow out - it's a wake, they insist, not a funeral. Tonight is also the birthday of Tivvy, the drummer from Frog favourites Stealer, so it's party time twice over.

Bar Talk has an invite and will hopefully see lots of you in there (mine's a pint).

u BAR Talk was looking forward to the opening of York's first Wetherspoon pub this spring. The pub, readers may recall, is to move into the Travelodge on Piccadilly.

But now we're having second thoughts. Sure, the pub will offer a range of cheap real ale, in an atmosphere free of jukebox noise.

Unfortunately, it is also likely to become a monument to Wether-spoon boss Tim Martin's political fixation.

Mr Martin, who really could do with getting a haircut, told a national newspaper that he is spending £40,000 filling his pubs with anti-euro beermats and posters.

Why? "Because the euro is going to **** up the country and I really do mean that," he explains eloquently.

That's all we need. Half of York's existing boozers are already filled with bores ranting on about saving the pound, how we didn't fight six world wars to see Germany come over here with their dirty foreign money... blah blah blah.

Mr Martin's obsession will only encourage this sort of thing.

He ought to think again. Bar Talk is prepared to wager that York drinkers would rather listen to a broken jukebox playing Seasons In The Sun around the clock than listen to europhobes and europhiles debate the single currency.

u KNARESBOROUGH pub The Crown Inn has been shut by Punch Retail for refurbishment. It is being transformed into what the press release calls "a stylish new Q's pub" with "bold bright colours" and a "zoned music system".

Sounds awful, but we're not ones to prejudge. Take a look for yourself when the Crown/Q's reopens on March 22.

Updated: 14:28 Saturday, January 12, 2002