SHE'S already up for an Oscar, but could York's most famous daughter be looking to add the Turner Prize to her hefty collection of accolades?

Dame Judi Dench is one of a host of celebrities who will be creating a work of art by putting pen to paper next month - for the fourth National Doodle Day.

The event grows bigger each year and raises vital funds for Epilepsy Action and The Neurofibromatosis Association.

People will have the opportunity to bid for the celebrity doodles online, in an auction which will be launched on eBay on National Doodle Day and will run for ten days. So while Dami Judi could be putting an Oscar on her mantelpiece you could be adding an original artwork to yours.

The Diary hopes our favourite 72-year-old star will achieve a double whammy and scoop her second Oscar for her performance in Notes On A Scandal, while raising lots of money for charity - all within two days.

Paul Tranter, Epilepsy Action's fundraising manager, said: "In the last three years doodling has raised more than £100,000 to help support people with epilepsy and neurofibromatosis.

"This year's theme of Doodle Daydreams' encourages people's imaginations to run away with them. Just pick up a pen and let your daydreams take over!"

With Doodle Day set to take place on February 23 - only two days before the 79th Academy Awards are held in LA - we wonder what Dame Judi will be daydreaming about?

Small gold statues, fabulous red carpet dresses and acceptance speeches, we hope.


BIG Brother bad boy Donny Tourette and his band Towers Of London are to play York on the most romantic night of the year, St Valentine's Day.

Tourette made an early escape over the wall from the blighted Channel 4 series after being ordered to serve Foreign Office diplomat Jade Goody and her family.

Now returned to his day job, punk revivalist Tourette will be within spitting distance at Fibbers on February 14.

"Towers Of London have played here four or five times before and they're always a bit of a handful; well, more like two armfuls. That's the best way I can put it," Fibbers general manger Tim Horsnby tells the Diary.

"But it'll definitely be memorable.

"Donny's band have reinvented glam-Seventies punk, generating enough controversy to start a rock'n'roll war.

"Their thumping rock and snotty attitude sees them fall neatly between the Motley Crue and the Sex Pistols, and on stage their guitar and bass necks point to the heavens like some sort of pagan ritual.

"Hugely entertaining, even if they probably ripped it off Bill And Ted."

For tickets, phone 0870 907 7999.