AH, the fickle fortunes of football. York City footballers Christian Fox and Gary Hobson were club ambassadors last Wednesday then, less than 24 hours later they, along with six other City hotshots, were told their services were no longer required by the cash-strapped club. Our snapper, Paul Baker, took both pictures of Christian and Gary who were helping to raise cash for the disability charity, Scope, in the William Hill bookmakers in York's Swinegate before they hot-footed down to Castle Gallery in Coppergate Centre to promote football-related art by Middlesbrough-born artist Mackenzie Thorpe.

The beautiful game has a way of turning ugly as Fox, Hobson and co will testify.

u FLATTERY gets you everywhere. But the email chief reporter Mike Laycock received was OTT. It began: "Dear Dr Mike Laycock..."

The closest he ever gets to becoming a quack is when he floats his rubber duck in the bath.

The email was an invitation from Professor Freddy Malpica, President of the Inter-American Organisation of Higher Education, for Mike to participate in an International Conference on Education and Information Systems: Technologies and Applications EISTA 2003.

The conference will be held in Orlando, Florida, in late July and early August. The prof said the main objective of the event was to provide a forum for the presentation of solutions and problems of the applications of Information Communication Technologies (ICT) in Education and Training.

Mike is to information technologies what Sophia Loren is to tack-welding. Nevertheless, he was invited to submit his original and unpublished works, research results, case studies, information systems developed and innovative ideas and designs.

He was also asked to consider the possibility of organising an invited session related to the topic of his research interest.

Mike wondered if there might be a juicy fee for crossing the pond and sharing his wisdom with academia.

But, scanning the rest of the mail, he found no reference to fees, apart from a conference fee payable of $330 dollars before the set deadline, and $380 dollars after it. The email ended: "We are looking forward to meeting you at EISTA 2003 conference, in Orlando."

Mike will give it a miss... until he has mastered the art of getting the top off his Biro!

u NO more lunch-time tinctures of tonsil tonic for York Museums Trust front-of-house staff.

Booze is verboten by order of The Management who don't want their minions breathing booze over fee-paying punters.

Next it will be lentil sandwiches and one-arm press-ups by the pool. The nanny state takes another step forward.

And before the flak starts I know all about Euro edict blah, blah, blah relating to health and safety at work.

u IF you find people leaving the gents' at Asda in Huntington boggle-eyed, here's the reason. A notice above the urinal at eye-height reads (in descending line of type-sizes):

"Canyoureadthis?

Ifnotwhynot?

visit our optician

Asda Price always the lowest price"

It's enough to make any eagle-eyed bladder-reliever cross his legs with laughter. But, gents, if you try in vain to decipher this blur on the toilet wall, I suggest you zip up and try to find the household products shelf.

Odds are you will need some boot polish...

u I rarely write about myself... so I'll write about my nine year old son, Michael.

Last Sunday no expense was incurred when I took him to watch Bolton beat Middlesbrough on Sky TV at the Ship Inn, Strensall. After 35 seconds he got bored, looked at me intently and said: "Dad, why have you got a face like a crinkle cut crisp?"

In the immortal words of parish beadle Mr Bumble in Lionel Bart's film of the Charles Dickens classic Oliver Twist: "One boy, boy for sale..."

u ROLL over Beethoven... and let me drive!

The kind of music you listen to as you motor along does affect your driving skills, according to new research commissioned by a computer games giant.

Pop songs such as the Cheeky Girls' The Cheeky Song can help improve your driving skills, while rap lyrics such as those on Eminem's Lose Yourself encourages drivers to speed, according to new research commissioned to promote a new computer driving game.

Adam Verby, chauffeur to some of the biggest names in show business, studied the effects various genres of music have on people's driving skills. Verby is a specialist in offensive and defensive driving as well as being chauffeur to celebrities including Johnny Depp, Kate Moss, Caprice, Will Young and Holly Valence.

To test the skill-enhancing properties of rock, pop, jazz, classical, techno and rap on driving skills, 100 UK drivers were monitored by Adam Verby while driving to different types of music.

The results were conclusive:

70 per cent of those who listened to pop songs experienced a higher level of concentration when driving and were less likely to speed and more likely to reach their destinations without crashing

54 per cent of drivers exposed to rock songs demonstrated superior reaction times

43 per cent of those who listened to classical music were more prone to having a road accident because of the "dream-like" states of the sounds of Beethoven and Mozart.

Ten top tunes to help you drive safely:

1. Cheeky Girls - The Cheeky Song

2. Blue - Fly By

3. Bryan Adams - Summer Of 69

4. Kylie Minogue - Can't Get You Out Of My Head

5. Madonna - Holiday

6. Justin Timberlake - Cry Me A river

7. Girls Aloud - Sounds Of The Underground

8. Christina Aguilera - Dirrty

9. Fleetwood Mac - Go Your Own Way

10. Bruce Springsteen - Born In The USA

Ten top tunes likely to incite speeding and dangerous driving:

1. Eminem - Lose Yourself

2. Big Brovaz - Nu Flo

3. Lisa Maffia - All Over

4. NWA - F*** The police

5. Mis-teeq - Scandalous

6. So Solid Crew - 21 Seconds

7. House of Pain - Jump Around

8. Triple 8 - Knockout

9. 50 cent - The Club

10. Beethoven - Symphony No 5

Updated: 11:56 Saturday, May 17, 2003