Dick Turpin rides again

TURPIN is going down well in the great outdoors of Nebraska, USA. There's a radio programme dedicated to yours truly and it is full of really useful daily tips on how to survive life in America.

Actually it's an impostor Dick Turpin, with none of the rich, deep history of this York highwayman.

But the 'Outdoor Tips with Dick Turpin' programme on Outdoor Radio Nebraska has them rooted to the spot in them thar backwoods, y'all.

You can pick up the tips on the Internet in 90-second audio files (http://ngp.ngpc.state.ne.us/sounds/turptips.html) and they include vital advice on essential topics like how to hook minnows, using snowshoes, making dove decoys, live-bait preferences, making camp coffee (start with hand on hip and end each sentence with 'sweetie'), hunting-dog care etc.

SO, WHAT national day is it today? Every time you get out of bed it is either the National Week of the Eternal Pessimist or National Hop to Work Day. We've had National Prune Week even Take Your Dog to Work Day.

Next Monday, a farsighted "essential" guide to what's happening tells us, it is the International Day of Solidarity with McDonalds Workers. That, apparently, is an annual day of observance to highlight the "situation" of people employed by the burger giant. But the British Egg Information Service takes the biscuit with its current Crack an Egg Month.

We are all painfully aware that sex sells, no matter what the product. But, honestly, eggs?

"Don't spend your money on Viagra or other love potions," says the press release.

"The contents of an egg provide the material our bodies need for the sex hormone, testosterone, needed by men and women alike to fire sexual desires."

Convinced? The hardsell continues: "Vitamin E in eggs helps protect against impotence and Vitamin A aids vision in dim light - excellent considering most Brits make love with the lights off!" Well, well. How do you like your eggs?

TALKING about the worldwide web, that esteemed, much-sought-after title Northern Spirit has popped up again.

Remember last week the saga of Regional Railways having to buy out the rights to the Northern Spirit label from a distributor of Scottish whisky?

Well, if you surf the net you can call up the Northern Spirit Trading Company Inc, a website dedicated to the land of the Canadian North.

It is a computerised welcome to the land of the midnight sun, glaciers, Northern Lights and the native Innuits. Delve deeper into this site and under the section headed 'How to get around' you will find reference to snow-mobiles and four-track motor vehicles. Strangely, there's not a railway line anywhere on the glaring, snowcapped horizon.

HOLY airwaves! They've got the profanity blues down at that hot air emporium in Bootham Row, York. Moles buried deep within the BBC tell Turpin that a complete ban on swearing has been imposed within the sacred precincts of Radio York.

The reason, we hear, is that so many of the staff have profound, religious convictions and are frequently offended by the language of the less-than-enlightened.

There our information ends. We cannot find out what fate awaits the foul-mouthed who offend. Could it be banishment to the Early Morning Show for a six-month stint?

A FAX sent to our Walmgate bunker this week by Channel 5 television says much about the varied delights of American talk shows.

Flagging up an "urgent change" to next week's Oprah Winfrey Show, this fax advised:

Delete: Would you watch an execution?

Insert: Too ugly to leave the house.

Turpin was interested to read that the replacement programme concerned people suffering from a condition known as 'body dismorphic disorder' - an expression requiring 21 letters, rather more than the four unkindly mustered for 'ugly'.

This change to the schedules was labelled 'erratum 41'. Turpin awaits the arrival of 'erratum 42' with indecent enthusiasm.

Incidentally, did you know that Oprah is Harpo spelled backwards?

Thought you did.

I T IS the very unpredictability of a live performance that gives theatre an added dimension. Take Thursday night, for example, when the Rowntree Players were grappling with their adventurous choice of play, Terra Nova, Teddy Tally's harrowing account of Captain Scott's ill-fated expedition to the South Pole. One actor was mid-flow explaining why one of Scott's team was letting the side down when he dried up at the crucial moment. "He's slowing the pace," came the prompt, breaking the silence with delicious irony.

STARTLING news from the Conservative Party Confer-ence in Bournemouth. On the first day of the annual Tory get-together, the Evening Press newsroom fax machine whirred and out came the very latest from Vale of York MP Anne McIntosh. The big news was that "McIntosh Attends Conservative Party Conference".

What? A Tory, here at the conference? Whatever next. She adds her praise for William Hague, who, she reminds us, is the Conservative Party leader.

NORTH Yorkshire County Council is taking severe measures, it seems, to control an ever-growing elderly population.

A news missive from the council's press office arrived with an article which was part of its consultation exercise on improving services for elderly people.

It was "also to correct some of the inaccuracies which are already being taken as gospel in reports about this issue."

The second paragraph of that article says: "...a key element of the consultation will undoubtedly focus on the possible closure of four elderly persons."

Now that's drastic.

10/10/98

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