AS ANY barrister will tell you, they are all highly-educated men and women of words. But it seems that the word "cuckolded" is not in the legal dictionary. At least not in the dictionary of learned counsel Mark McKone.

He was prosecuting in a love triangle case before the Recorder of York, Judge Paul Hoffman, at York Crown Court. At the end of his erudite address, the judge asked: "Do you mean he was cuckolding him?"

"I am not familiar with that term," Mr McKone admitted to raised eyebrows and dropped jaws all round the courtroom. "But I anticipate the answer is yes."

His opponent, Harold Shaw, also learned counsel, agreed that the victim in the case had indeed been "cuckolding" the defendant, but admitted that he had had to check his knowledge of the word with a colleague nearby.

For the benefit of all barristers and other lawyers: to cuckold (from the French, cucault) is to have a love affair with the wife of a married man. It is related to the word cuckoo.

Who says you never learn anything in the Diary?


HERE'S a message for City of York Council parking attendants and the unsuspecting driver of an illegally-parked, dark-coloured Vauxhall Astra.

The car was obviously parked illegally in Piccadilly (near the old White Swan Hotel) because it had a ticket pinned to the windscreen (so that's what windscreen wipers are for).

An odd-looking character was seen to sidle up to the car muttering to himself, remove the ticket and then walk off, tearing it into a thousand pieces which he promptly threw on the pavement (another local offence).

So when the driver got back to his car he would have no idea he had been given a ticket so he won't pay up. We hope he will not be penalised for late payment.


COINCIDENCES are funny things. How about this one...

A York woman was driving to a training course near Ripon when she was overtaken by a posh BMW motorbike which promptly dropped its pannier in her path.

She braked, picked it up and wondered what to do with it.

Further on, she saw workmen repairing the road and she was about to ask them to keep the pannier in case the motorcyclist returned, when she saw him cruising up and down looking for something.

She flagged him down and returned the container. "Thanks," he said. "I am only test-driving the bike."

With the rosy glow of a deed well done, our heroine went off to her training course.

So imagine her surprise when she walked into the room and realised the trainer was...guess who?