FORGET Iraq. Explosions and shellfire will rock York for the next fortnight, according to police.

Fireworks and flying eggs are likely to shatter the peace as Hallowe'en, Mischief Night and Bonfire Night loom up in quick succession, the police warned yesterday.

To take the pressure off, why not relocate one of these events to a quieter time of the year?

This is not unprecedented. "Mischief Neet" used to take place on April 30.

So says an article in the Yorkshire Folk-Lore journal ("with notes comical and dialectic"), dating from 1888.

The Fools' Day started April and the Devil's Day ended it, according to this report. The latter turned into mischief night: "a night supposed by the imps of mischief (rough youths) to be, under some old law or tradition, theirs to do as they wish with".

In those days, eggs weren't chucked. Instead "rain water tubs are let off, 'swillin' tubs are upset, doors are taken from their 'jimmers', and carried into someone's outhouse or into the waters of some mill dam.

"Donkeys are led into some field at a distance, and the pinder informed slily (sic) of the asinine trespass, or they are taken and tied to the outside of some queer man's 'door sneck'.

"Then again, some old maid's door will be slily fastened by tying tightly across the door jambs, in front of and to the 'sneck', a piece of wood to prevent her coming out of doors till released by a kind neighbour next morning."

Makes our own imps of mischief seem positively unimaginative.

But does anyone know how and why Mischief Night relocated to this time of year? And what was a pinder?

THE Diary has ruffled feathers in the Guildhall corridors of power.

My suggestion last Friday that it would be apt if York council relocated to Terry's factory because of "the council's reputation for sweeteners" prompted an angry email from Matt Beer, head of marketing and communications at the authority. He said this was "a very serious slur on the reputation of the council and the 7,500 people who work for it".

No offence was meant to council employees, and if any has been taken, I am sorry.

Nevertheless, there is a serious point to the joke.

The council/planning authority's arrangement to pay out £1.25 million if it withdraws from the Derwenthorpe development is most definitely an attraction to the Joseph Rowntree Foundation developers.

Furthermore, the council's financial logic is, I feel, questionable.

Last week Ryedale MP John Greenway rightly said a public inquiry was the only way to deal with doubts about vested interests caused by this relationship between developer and planning authority.

Council leader Steve Galloway replied that any such inquiry would be "extremely expensive" for the council "at a time when we are urged to keep down taxes".

Yet it would be even more expensive if the council pulled out - costing £1.25 million.

So the question I ask is: how can this immense budgetary pressure possibly square with Coun Ann Reid's claim that the council will be impartial over the planning application?

Updated: 09:21 Thursday, October 21, 2004