A RESCUED seal pup in a North Yorkshire marine sanctuary was christened Chewit - before biting an animal care worker there.

Scarborough Sea Life and Marine Sanctuary had chosen to name this year's intake of animals after brands of confectionary, but little did it know that Chewit would take a chunk out of 28-year-old Helen Fletcher's knee.

Ms Fletcher, of South Cliff, Scarborough, was trying to take the seal's temperature when he bit her.

Derek Scales, who also works at the sanctuary, said: "It's a process that involves straddling the patient and inserting a thermometer. Unfortunately Chewit is so big and strong he soon wriggled free, and before Helen could retreat to safety, he managed to take a chunk out of her knee."

Plucky Helen ignored her injury, wrestled Chewit to submission and got the job done.

Afterwards, she discovered that he'd sliced a narrow but fairly deep wound on her knee and she was prescribed antibiotics to prevent infection.

Chewit was rescued from the beach at Easington by members of the British Divers Marine Life Rescue Organisation.

Derek said "He was one of the most aggressive seals they'd ever picked up, and the fact that none of them got bitten was not down to a lack of trying on Chewit's part."


Sorting out the odd numbers

WE get some odd letters sent into Diary as a matter of course, but this latest takes the biscuit.

An American teacher has seen fit to send in his musings on odd numbers (of all things), helpfully pointing out that today is May 3, 2007 - which written out numerically equates to 03.05.07.

The last time odd numbers appeared in sequence like this was on March 1, '05 and the next will be on July 5, '09, he goes on.

What are the odds of this happening? I hear you cry. Well, lest you should be disappointed, our new-found Californian correspondent, Ron Gordon, has that all figured out too.

In what he terms a parade of odd days the numerical wizard has calculated that this particular sequence can only happen once a century.

So how do we celebrate - other than turning up for work prepared for one day more odd than all the rest?

Well, Ron suggests figuring out why odd has an odd number of letters and even has an even number of letters, because as he goes on to say "if it weren't for odd numbers, all the even numbers would bump into each other."


Dishing the dirt

SO much for political correctness!

The Diary was sent a press release from a leading washing-up liquid manufacturer, boldly claiming that "Mums in York spend nearly seven days every year slaving away over the dirty dishes."

What about all us modern men who do it ourselves?