Will Garry be The People's choice?

Garry Barrett, ex-Stone Cold Sober frontman, could be heading for the sunshine of Florida with Hull band The People Picture: Steven Bradshaw

After 24 years rocking York to its foundations this could be a breakthrough for lead singer with Stone Cold Sober Garry Barrett. He may be off to Florida next January with Hull-based band The People. It could not come at a better time for Gazza. Stone Cold Sober, the band that's had more line-ups than the New York Police Department, play their last gig together on May 1 at the Roman Bath in York before going their separate ways.

"Our lead guitarist, Colin Elsworth, is off to live in Spain, so being short-listed by The People came at a good time for me. They are a six-piece adult oriented rock band and have played in Florida before. Now they are talking about uprooting lock, stock and microphone to the Sunshine State," says the 42-year-old irrepressible frontman.

"When they last spoke to me they said they wanted me in. I know nothing's certain in this life... but so far it sounds promising."

The raspy-voiced Yorkie jammed a few numbers at a pub gig with The People in Hull recently and probably clinched it with his version of Rod Stewart's famous Maggie May.

Fans will miss Stone Cold Sober, for three years they have built up a sizeable following here in the city and in foreign climes such as Hartlepool.

During his long residency in York, Gazza has sung with Nerve Senta, Watch With Mother, Jackson Cage, Goose Horns and the Ouse Brothers.

If things go well this time next year he could be picking oranges off trees instead of his nose.

Power to The People.

UFOs over Hopgrove! Can this be true?

Too true, according to Dunnington sisters Catherine and Elizabeth Oldfield, of Common Road, Dunnington, who were stunned when they pulled up at the Hopgrove roundabout, just outside York, and saw what they can only explain as a UFO in the sky.

Catherine, 23, was driving home from Monks Cross with her teenage sister when they saw the bright light. The pair sat in silence in the car as they watched what looked like a football-sized shooting star fall from the sky.

Catherine says: "I thought it was an aeroplane crashing at first but soon realised it was something a lot more out of the ordinary.

"It can't have been a shooting star, a flare or a firework because it started too high in the sky and fell downwards. The tail wasn't very long and the light ended up as a ball shape and then disappeared.

"We looked at each other and couldn't believe what we had seen."

Did you see anything similar on March 18 at 6.50pm?

This follows a similar sighting in the same area two weeks previously.

York UFO enthusiast Simon Ritchie says: "It seems this UFO was coming from the direction of East Yorkshire which is notorious as a hotbed for UFO sightings."

Tony Lidgate, from North Yorkshire Police, said no unusual sightings had been reported in the past month. He added: "People do usually let us know when they think they have seen a UFO. As long as people don't mistake the rarely-seen sun for strange phenomena!"

Went to the derby match last Saturday between York and high-flying Darlington. The highlight of a dreary 0-0 draw was the fact that the long queue for mushy peas with pie or chips never seemed to get any shorter. If only the Minstermen were as hot as the food, served from a bleak breeze block construction, they would be in Europe by the next Millennium.

The players managed to boot five balls out of the ground which was just as well, neither side seemed to know what to do with them on the pitch.

The authorities of London clearly haven't mellowed to Turpin since I was last in the capital nearly 300 years ago.

On my return this week to deliver the Evening Press' Counter Attack campaign to Downing Street, a suspicious policeman refused to let me near the houses of power.

Claiming he feared a publicity stunt, I was banished to the other side of Whitehall where I mingled with a group of single mother protesters.

Isn't it time to let bygones be bygones?

You can't pull the wool over the eyes of Humberside Police as this press release shows: "The four Jacob ewes reported missing from a paddock in Walkington, Brough, near Hull overnight Tuesday/Wednesday, April 11 and 12... have been found in a stubble field nearly a mile away near to the Broadgates Estate.

If anyone knows how the ewes came to be in the field they are asked to contact Beverley Police Station on 01482 597900. The sheep would not have been able to get into the field themselves as they would have had to open various gates."

This rural mystery is obviously a case for the Clone Ranger.

Here are some of the loopy laws of the land in England:

All English men over 14 should carry out two or more hours of longbow practice a week, to be supervised by the local clergy.

London Hackney Carriages (in other words taxis and cabs) must carry a bale of hay and a sack of oats at all times.

A lady should not eat chocolates on public transport.

The crowd were behind me all the way, but I shook them off at the railway station -

Comic Tom O'Connor

Gossip can be e-mailed to Turpin at features@ycp.co.uk

15/04/00

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.