I HAD a brush with the spirits on Monday night. I was in a rickety upstairs room in the Royal Oak and my friend Adrian was telling a ghost story.

This was after he'd performed the Dance of Death, which had reached such a crescendo, what with all the accompanying guitars and drums, it had drowned out the pub quiz below. And before you ask, I'm not into pagan rituals; Ade's a performance poet.

As we sat in a circle in the guttering candlelight, spellbound by Ade's supernatural story of an evil spirit that possessed any person retelling his tale, bloodcurdling shrieks and screams floated in through the open window.

Fortunately, this manifestation of a WKD side turned out to be freshers drunk on vodka-based alcopops pub-crawling along Goodramgate rather than any other kind of malevolent spirit, but it added atmosphere.

Yes, the students are back, and I for one would like to extend a warm welcome to them, especially since I don't have any living near me. Having (inadvertently) watched Anthea Turner: Perfect Housewife on BBC Three, I am particularly glad I do not have any next door, since the two student households she went in to sort out were very messy indeed.

"We don't stand a chance. The other team have got maggots, " one girl complained. Twenty-five bin bags of rubbish later, the maggot team won, though Anthea wisely judged their hostessing skills from her laptop, rather than dining with them in person.

I like York's students. They liven the old place up no end - you can have too much of chavs and tourists - and they're much better dressed, too. No offence to the 4,000 motorcaravanners, also back in York this weekend, who, I'm sure, look delightful in their shorts and slacks.

The husband, who was at a function at Knavesmire on Thursday, spent several entertaining minutes on the terrace of the Ebor Stand watching the white vans park up in serried ranks. "They all look the same, " he reported. "I'd want one in orange. How does anyone ever find their own?"

"Maybe they stay in and cook ready meals and listen to Camper Van Beethoven, " I said. (The husband refused to believe there is such a band but I've just looked it up on Wikipedia and I'm right. ) We are curious to know what motorcaravanners do when they all get together. Party? Get tattoos? Watch exotic dancers?

Compare curtains? I trust they will be visiting the Festival Of Food And Drink rather than raiding Tesco. And if there's any alternative acid-folk-punk-ska rock going on (CVB were pretty eclectic), I want an invite.

Anyway, to York's students, who seem to be wearing almost exactly what I was wearing when I was a student in the early 1980s. This is not surprising, since it's all come back into fashion again, but I'm sick as a pig that I didn't keep my Russell & Bromley blue pixie boots, because I saw an identical pair in Top Shop the other day and they'd be vintage by now.

I also had a tight-fitting red jumpsuit, which, according to Grazia magazine, is what every fashionconscious woman should be wearing. (But not too tight or one is in danger of developing a camel hoof, a fashion faux pas more embarrassing than a muffin top, that roll of fat you get over low-rise waistbands.

I am not going to explain what a camel hoof is; suffice to say it's nowhere near your foot. ) My jumpsuit, which had a zip running all the way up, got me into a load of trouble, but it was of the fun kind. I also had a houndstooth cape which, gallingly, was in another fashion spread this week as being one of this season's must-have items, along with leggings. (Leggings! You crazy kids. ) My new and rather fatal addiction to Grazia, a glossy women's weekly that exists purely to make you buy, buy, buy (oh, the struggle between my eco principles and my shopping gene) means that I'm also well informed about '00' girls like Kate Bosworth and Nicole Richie, who are now so thin they're a size double zero, which means they're about the circumference of my thigh.

Being an advocate for big girls - I am a size 14-16 and proud - I was delighted, therefore, to read about the backlash against superskinny models by the Madrid government, who banned any girls with a Body Mass Index of less than 18 from appearing in fashion shows because of their unhealthy image.

Now that Gisele, Posh and that other Kate are out of the frame, I may just stand a chance. "You could not not be a supermodel, " the husband said, slapping me appreciatively on the rump.

You know, it's the sweetest thing he's ever said to me.