IT IS with great regret that we have to announce some tragic news. Rocking Rudolph is being made homeless.

We may be in the grip of a heatwave, and we all know Rocking Rudolph is a Christmas creature, but we have to find him a new home before he is thrown out on the streets.

Rudolph is the mechanical reindeer coupled to a sleigh mounted on a trailer which over the last 18 years has raised many thousands of pounds for Lions Club charities at Christmas.

He has delighted thousands of children and annoyed many adults but he's an endearing chap and he is losing his out-of-season stabling at the old Pullman bus garage in Navigation Road, York, when the building is re-developed for student flats.

The hard-up Lions have been trying to re-house Rudolph for some time now, but in desperation have approached their old friend, the Diary, for help.

Can someone please offer our reindeer a new home? He needs secure premises of around 80 sq metres where he can be sheltered from the elements and where his sleigh can be maintained. Ideally, those premises will be within a short sleigh ride less than five miles of York.

Minster Lions' Rob James said: "We need to be able to visit Rudolph regularly throughout the year to make sure he is in good health and ready to make his Christmas visits.

"Every year we make hundreds of people very happy by taking Rocking Rudolph and Father Christmas on visits. We would be very grateful if someone could provide us with new premises."

If you can offer new accommodation for our Christmas pal, phone Rob on 01904 693586 or email robert.james10@ntlworld.com
The Co-operative Bank in York usually has music playing and generally it's your usual, cheesy pop music.

But a Diary spy reports that the other day, as she stood in the queue, she realised they were playing something a bit more appropriate: If I Were A Rich Man from the Topol movie, Fiddler On The Roof.

At least it should have been more appropriate, but this is a woman with more debt than a small African country who felt that some bank clerk had been waiting for her to come in, so they could play the song and rub her nose in it.