YORK councillor Mark Hill has had a bad week. If the Green Party had done better in the European elections he could have swapped his bike for the Brussels gravy train.

Then the fickle electorate fell in love with another small party, UKIP. Mark is going nowhere. And to top it all he is £100 worse off.

Perhaps his electoral failure is for the best. The corruption-riddled European Parliament may not be ready for a politician who keeps his promises and puts his money where his mouth is.

This was what Mark wrote in a letter published in the Evening Press on May 25: "I bet £100 (a princely sum for me) that UKIP will be beaten by that modest little outfit that opposed the Iraq War, actually campaigned against the single currency and fought the USA's efforts to contaminate our environment with genetically modified crops... the Greens. Any takers?"

There was just one: UKIP member Harry Luccock of Badger Hill, York. He sent the Evening Press a post-dated cheque for £100 "in the hope of being first to accept Councillor Hill's wager that UKIP MEP candidates will not prosper in the European Union elections".

It went Mr Luccock's way, so Mark has put his hand in his pocket and a hundred quid is on its way to Badger Hill.

"Mark Hill is an incompetent gambler," confessed Mark Hill.

It was not always so. In the '97 General Election he won £80 correctly predicting Hugh Bayley would have a 20,000-plus majority. And he took an easy tenner off the prospective Tory candidate then, Simon Mallett, who was under the delusion he'd take the seat.

WHAT of Mr Luccock? He is delighted to win the bet, having been a member of UKIP for seven years.

The 83-year-old retired British Rail manager is left cold by the European Parliament.

"The only reason Labour want to get in is because it's a total socialist conglomerate," he said.

"I am also very much against this virulent anti-Americanism that's growing in this country. If they hadn't come into the war we should never had finished as we did."

He now plans to put Mark's £100 with his own and donate both cheques to the Masonic charitable Festival For Boys And Girls in 2006.

Mr Luccock, president of the York Railway Institute Rugby Union Survivors Club, has proved he can still put the boot in.

THEY say musicians can be a wild bunch and that was certainly true at the weekend.

Arts group York Performers Platform successfully staged their musical safari, as previewed in the Diary. City shoppers were brought face-to-face with rare breeds including the fearsome golden trombonist and an ambushing cymbalist.

"Some children got so into the action that they were crawling along the pavement on their bellies so as not to disturb the fully-grown cellist," said organiser Jane Easby.

The performers platform is looking to stage performances in empty spaces around York. For more see www.performersplatform.org.uk or meet at Victor J's in York from 8pm on July 7.

Write to: The Diary, Chris Titley, The Evening Press, 76-86 Walmgate, York YO1 9YN

Email diary@ycp.co.uk

Telephone (01904) 653051 ext 337

Updated: 09:55 Wednesday, June 16, 2004