THE sheer enthusiasm with which God’s Own Country has embraced the Tour de France must have taken even the French by surprise.

It is not just here in York. Yorkshire towns, cities and villages along the route of the race’s first two stages have been getting into the spirit.

There is plenty of Yorkshire humour, of course - the ‘Ey up, T. de F.’ painted on a road near Sheffield is among our favourites - but also plenty of sheer brazen chutzpah. How about York Minster, that most grand of old ladies, draping a yellow jersey across her shoulders so it will be visible from the helicopters following the race from the air?

And then there are the ordinary Yorkshire folk who have taken this race to their hearts by dressing up shop windows, staging street parties - ‘Bishy Rue’ anyone? - or simply chaining yellow-painted bikes beneath their bedroom windows.

It was chutzpah that won Yorkshire the right to host the Grand Départ this year - Welcome to Yorkshire boss Gary Verity schmoozed the Tour de France organisers by flying them to Harewood House in a borrowed helicopter. And the sheer verve and enthusiasm with which the region has embraced the event will, over the next couple of days, show to the world what a brilliant, quirky, inventive and go-getting place Yorkshire is.

George Osborne spoke recently of a ‘northern powerhouse’ and a new HS3 linking Manchester and Yorkshire.

We’re ready, Mr Osborne. Are you?