Spies of The Diary have sent us an internal memo from a senior York councillor about the use of TLAs - or "three-letter acronyms".

The correspondence began when a clearly baffled local government colleague apparently admitted to being utterly in the dark when it came to a timetable for forthcoming meetings.

The kind-hearted councillor, who will remain nameless, promptly replied: "I'm sorry about all the initials, you are right to raise it and we should be more thoughtful."

The councillor helpfully enclosed a handy list for the guidance of the baffled colleague.

Having read it, The Diary can only be thankful for not having to plough through this lot on a regular basis: SMC - Scrutiny Management Committee, which has overall responsibility for the council's "scrutiny function", and meets monthly.

LGA - Local Government Association.

JAG - Joint Action Group, a partnership group between local councillors, council officers, the police and other community organisations, based on ward.

TH School - Tang Hall School.

EMAP - Executive Member Advisory Panel, a council committee based around services that receives papers and makes recommendations to the Executive Member.

RA - Residents' Association, as in Tang Hall RA (THRA), Dodsworth Area RA (DARA), Muncaster RA (MRA) and Bell Farm RA (BFRA).

But if THRA, DARA, MRA and BRFA and the rest were not enough, there remained one more clarifying caveat.

The councillor added: "Also we now tend to call the local meeting Heworth Branch meeting, to avoid confusion with Heworth Ward Committee meeting."

Avoiding confusion, indeed.

The communiqu ended with a jaunty prediction: "Don't worry - you'll get there and in a couple of years you'll be acronyming with the best of them, I guarantee!"


A NEW arrival to our fair city has found a distinctly friendly welcome, in a vitally important area of local life.

When new Press reporter Richard Harris moved to York his first port of call was his neighbourhood boozer.

After a couple of lunchtime sessions, the landlord could obviously sense that here was one customer who would be contributing regularly to his holiday fund.

So, just to make sure there were no defections to a rival pub, mein host bought the newshound a pint of bitter, introduced him to the regulars, and offered to set up a slate.

Thinking of his poor, already overworked liver, Richard wisely declined - for the moment.

Speaking exclusively to The Diary he said: "It's absolutely marvellous. I've been in the city a week, I've been in the local pub twice, and already I've had a free pint and the offer of a tab.

"If all the boozers are like this, it's going to be a very merry time."

None of which, of course, will do anything to erode the clearly unfair image of the hard-drinking hack.