HEARTENING to see our Save Terry's petition has already attracted a thousand signatures.

But one particular sheaf of petition forms caught the Diary's eye.

Call us cynical, but the very first name aroused our suspicions.

Who knows, perhaps Donald Duck is a passionate advocate of anti-globalisation. Or a big fan of the Chocolate Orange.

Maybe he really did waddle around Disneyland getting Mickey Mouse, Dumbo and all seven dwarfs to sign up to Save Terry's. But if this is unlikely, the chance that the same petition then fell into the hands of the casts of EastEnders, Emmerdale and Coronation Street, all signing their character names in the same handwriting, seems downright implausible.

The only non-celebrity names hail from Clifton. Whoever put this together had so much fun that they didn't stop until they had completed six faked petition pages.

However, the many Terry's workers whose livelihoods are at stake may not see the joke. Needless to say, none of the signatures counts towards our campaign.

"NORTHERNERS," the invitation began, "have great taste."

The Diary was being enticed to a wine-tasting session by Booths supermarkets.

The bottles of free glug will "represent a taste of the huge range of wines sold in our 25 stores throughout the North of England".

So where was this tasting? The White Horse, near Parson's Green tube.

So that would be north as in north London, then.

GREG Dyke entertainingly put the boot in to the modern army of "consultants" at the National Railway Museum.

During his Wednesday night speech he gave these definitions of a consultant. 1) Someone who knows a thousand ways of making love but doesn't know any women. 2) Someone who is good with figures but doesn't have the personality to be an accountant.

Caring little that many consultants were in the audience at the annual dinner of the York and North Yorkshire Chamber of Commerce, he recounted a phone call from his insurance company while he was between TV jobs.

"The woman on the phone asked me if I was still the chief executive of a television company. No, I said, I'm unemployed."

After a pause she said she was sorry but her computer found the word "unemployed" difficult to deal with. She added: "Why don't we just call you a consultant? That's what we normally call the unemployed."

No wonder the first thing he did as BBC director general was to "save the organisation £20 million a year by throwing all the consultants out of the building".

IS there really no talent in York?

That is the provocative question posed by the Blackpool Tower & Circus after its talent search flopped in this neck of the woods.

"We have had a fantastic response to the talent search from certain pockets of the country but we were surprised when the entries started coming in that the number of people from York were few and far between," said circus manager Geoff Sage.

Winners of the competition will get to perform in the circus in front of an audience of 1,400. To apply, send your details to circus@mtjpr.co.uk or call 01772 421 442 by May 22.

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: 11:54 Friday, April 30, 2004