EVEN while on holiday our chief reporter Mike Laycock can't resist the lure of the media.

He's enjoying a week away from the coalface with the family in sunny Ty Coch, North Wales. But a trusty reporter is also a predictable one.

When Mike learned the coastal hills of the tourist site were caught on a webcam for visitors to glimpse, he couldn't resist putting himself in the limelight by waving, mobile phone in hand, to a watching newsroom. If you can make him out in this grainy image, Mike has his back to the sea with his ear clamped to a mobile phone.

SPOTTED: The mildest-mannered graffiti artist in York who has daubed "pigs can oink off" on a wall by the riverside path off Foss Islands Road.

The unashamedly childish slogan has been scrawled just a few minutes' walk away from Foss Bank, where cops launched a graffiti clampdown earlier this year.

WEIGHT of the world on your shoulders? Need a bit of solitude to escape the pressures of the daily rat race?

Then look no further than the Thorpe Perrow Arboretum, just off the confines of the A1 near Bedale.

Some people may use stress balls, some may take a relaxing walk, but at Thorpe Perrow you can go a step further by de-stressing in a forest.

If you're going on holiday, show forest chiefs a booking form and they'll let you calm down for free in the depths of the arboretum's woodlands.

Replace bad temper with tree bark, bird song and wild flowers - there's now no excuse for getting frustrated at the wheel.

A DENNIS Norden moment now for best-selling North Yorkshire author Graham Taylor.

The former vicar came to grief during a freak accident, involving a sheep no less, while he was filming a documentary on the paranormal.

It all happened while Taylor was giving a piece to camera while walking on a high ridge near Lastingham. As he walked by, a sheep suddenly broke wind and Taylor, momentarily distracted, turned and slipped on the contents of the sheep's efforts that had shot across his path.

To make matters worse - as if taking a tumble in front of a full camera crew wasn't bad enough - the whole incident was caught on film. It'll be All Right On The Night here we come.

THANKS to all Diary readers who submitted entries for our caption competition.

For those with short memories, we printed a photograph of a well-known York playboy with a young beauty queen and asked for your efforts.

The entries have been flying in and we'll be publishing the best, and the worst, in Monday's diary.

Updated: 11:24 Friday, August 12, 2005