HE insists he's not clairvoyant, and won't call it a sixth sense. But somehow Kenneth Barnes has correctly forecast the gender of all but one of his children, grandchildren and step-grandchildren.

An impressive record, considering he had 18 at the last count.

Mr Barnes doesn't know how he does it. There's no spoon bending involved, and the tealeaves remain unread. Halfway through any family pregnancy, and the revelation just hits him.

"They get past four months, about the time when the baby normally quickens in the womb, and I usually know," reveals Mr B, who lives at Catterton, near Tadcaster.

"One daughter was sure she was going to have a boy. I said no. We were at a rugby match where my eldest son was playing. They were talking about it in the club room and I suddenly said 'it's a girl' - and it was."

Only once did he refrain from making a prediction, with one of his own children: a daughter as it turned out.

He came forward after reading in the Diary of clairvoyant Nance Turner-Collings' failure to know she was pregnant - let alone predict the sex of her child.

Mr Barnes' predictions are not restricted to his family. Another spooky moment occurred during that famous Panorama interview given by Princess Diana.

"I was watching the television. When she was talking about Charles, I just said 'You're dead!' I believe that people in the establishment - not the Prince of Wales - wouldn't stand for what she was saying..."

WHAT'S happened to those plans to modernise the Odeon? After 13,000 readers signed the Press petition calling for the Blossom Street cinema to be saved, bosses said they were considering a major revamp.

That was nearly a year ago. Two friends went to watch The Weather Man there at the weekend to discover the boiler had conked out and been replaced by an industrial heater.

When they were finally shown into the auditorium - complete with broken seats - they discovered they were the only ones there.

Are the Odeon's latest owners UCI hoping to close it through neglect?

LAST week we mentioned that the Selby & York Primary Care Trust website still had Jeremy Clough down as chief executive, even though he left in September.

Although this is the website you are directed to by search engine Google, it is the old one, we have been informed.

You can find the new one at www.sypct.nhs.uk - and it correctly names Penny Jones as the trust's acting chief executive.

IS that spring in the air? It's hard to tell for the blizzards.

So spare a thought for shivering shop workers.

As this note on the door at Weigh and Save, on the corner of Church Street, York, proves, the customer is always right - unless he leaves the door open.

Updated: 09:07 Tuesday, March 14, 2006