HALF of Fleet Street decamped to North Yorkshire for Royal Ascot, and they have the expenses to prove it. So you may think our nation's finest hacks returned to London a little better informed.

Alas, no. Days after the end of the racing festival, they are still confused about the world above Watford.

First, pity first the poor "villagers" of Selby. They must have been out in a panic on Monday night, searching for their old sandbags and Year 2000 memorial waders.

With all the calm authority she is known for, Channel 5 newscaster Kirsty Young had just informed them that their "village" - along with those two other well-known Yorkshire villages, Thirsk and Helmsley - had been flooded.

This news had earlier been flashed to the world via the BBC website. "The downpour over the North York Moors cut off a number of villages with Selby, Thirsk, Carlton and Sutton-under-Whitestonecliffe among those affected," the news report insisted.

Of course we are not suggesting that Kirsty's bulletin had in any way been "informed" by reading a rival's website. But we are worried that our major news organisations can flood a dry town with such ill-informed claptrap.

We blame the BBC's weather map.

YORK MP Hugh Bayley is equally frustrated by this cavalier approach to Yorkshire geography.

"York has had a lot of good publicity on the back of Royal Ascot, which is welcome of course," he tells the Diary. "But I never cease to be amazed by the stunning ignorance of southerners of our great city."

What stoked his ire was the property magazine Location Location Location, based on the Channel 4 TV show of the same name.

An article headlined: "Old York, new York" was littered with mistakes. It turns the Bar Walls singular; captions Stonegate "The" Shambles; and prints a picture of Bettys - the one in Harrogate.

The report goes on to call one of our top attractions the National Rail Museum and spells Riccall with one 'l'. Not much evidence that those responsible visited this particular Location Location Location.

MORE evidence of a north-south divide reaches the Diary. One of Hugh's former rivals for the post of York MP, Simon Mallett, attended the Ascot singalong.

"When the regimental band struck up the first few chords of Maybe It's Because I'm A Londoner the music was drowned out by a chorus of boos and hisses," he reports.

"Even in the Royal Enclosure the words could not be heard. I hasten to add the Queen had left by this stage.

"It was only when the band played On Ilkley Moor Baht 'At that the singers found their voices again. It was all good humoured but there was a clear expression of anti-southerner prejudices of which you'd have been right proud! I was."

This set the Diary thinking. A song about Ilkley Moor is all well and grand, but is there a rousing York melody the city could unite behind on occasions such as this?

Any thoughts welcomed.

OUR bid to draw a discreet veil over this column's first attempt at racing tips has been foiled by Dale Minks.

"Do any of your readers remember an ageing, brightly dressed, feather-headed racehorse tipster called Prince Monolulu? A bit like the Diary's Ascot At York tipster, Vee For Victory Eddie, the walking karaoke man's Elvis.

"After tipping only one winner in 12 races, maybe he should be renamed King Portalooloo.

"His racing tips are cr*p."

Updated: 10:58 Wednesday, June 22, 2005