AN exhibition of pictures by 18th century artist George Stubbs at the National Gallery in London is wowing critics and public alike.

Most famous for his paintings of horses, Stubbs' eye for detail has been described as breathtaking.

So perhaps it is time to resurrect the clarion call of JK Willson-Pepper. He wrote from Clifton to the Evening Press in November 1971 to thank the city for cleaning William Etty's statue. But there was another point to his letter.

"Should we not in some way remind ourselves of another York citizen whose life work has been an enrichment of both art and science?" he asked.

"During his early twenties, George Stubbs worked in York as a lecturer in anatomy and as an illustrator to a treatise on midwifery by Dr John Burton, the original Dr Slop in Laurence Sterne's novel Tristram Shandy.

"Beside becoming one of the most famous of English animal painters, George Stubbs was a pioneer of comparative anatomy and through artistic skill and courageous research made a worthy contribution to the sum of human knowledge during a long and fruitful life.

"We are not infrequently reminded of other local lads who were or who became famous - or infamous - according to taste, such as Septimus Severus, Constantine, Guy Fawkes and Dick Turpin.

"Should we not commemorate in some fashion a young man who worked here among our ancestors and who groped his way through the darkness of the unknown and lit a lamp along the path?"

Alas, nothing much resulted from this heartfelt plea.

But if there was ever a time to shine a light on our links with Stubbs, it's now.

After all, his greatest painting was Whistlejacket. He was commissioned to capture this racehorse in oils after its most famous victory, in its last race at York in 1759.

We should have a Stubbs memorial in place in time for the inevitable announcement that Royal Ascot is to move to Knavesmire permanently.

SPOTTED at York Railway Station last Thursday: Neil Hamilton, former sleaze scandal MP and now celebrity chump. His strident wife Christine, a York University graduate, was nowhere to be seen, which may explain his air of bewildered enjoyment.

TALKING of York University, it boasts a specialist team studying how humans process language. Ironically, this goes by the hard-to-read name of the psycholinguistics research group. Its web site lists all the eminent experts involved in this research, including... the US president, no less.

"Not an affiliated researcher," the web site admits, "but evidently enlightened on the subject of reading - George Bush." It goes on to publish Dubya's scholarly thoughts on the subject.

"Reading is the basics of all learning... You teach your child to read, and he or her will be able to pass a literacy test.

"One of the great things about books is sometimes there are fantastic pictures."

WITH weeks to go before the schools break up for the long holidays, guess what we have spotted in Woolworth's and Tesco's? Yup, the Back To School promotions...

THANK you to a colleague who has come up with some words to fit the climatic end to our new Yorkshire national anthem - the Countdown theme.

"How about 'Hear all, see all, say nowt... (or 'drink all' - which might lend itself more to the pow! at the end...)"

Updated: 10:54 Monday, July 04, 2005