WHILE you can purchase pheasant wings in Walmgate (as we reported on Friday), love eggs in Goodram-gate and kokeshi dolls in Coppergate, it is becoming increasingly difficult to buy, well, normal stuff in York.

The Diary notes with sadness the demise of Hargreaves, the pet shop in Goodramgate. The closure of Mawsons of Walmgate in Christmas 2000 left Hargreaves as the sole purveyor of ferret food and flea powder, collars and catflaps, baskets and bird cages in the centre of town.

Now this animal emporium has gone too. Where does the York shopper go for his cuttlefish or cat crunchies? Out of town is the answer.

With the honourable exception of the market, there are hardly any city centre retailers which cater for the resident on a provisions run.

When it is easier to buy skean-dhu daggers than doggy drops in York, something has gone askew.

THE Diary's favourite amphibians (to be honest the only ones of our acquaintance) are baffled by the latest events down at Disasterthorpe.

Plans to build a giant housing development on wild meadows near Osbaldwick, drawn up by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, will require the ripping out of some well-established hedgerows.

But the foundation told the Diary that those hedgerows which border the Sustrans cycle path would stay.

Only one problem: there aren't any. Unless you count weeds and bushes as hedgerow.

Newton and Ridley, the great crested newts facing eviction when the Rowntree bulldozers move in, are confused.

"Have the JRF counted yards and yards of hedge that is not there to embellish their calculations? Has this hedge simply uprooted itself and gone? Or has this hedge been stolen?" ask the newts in their latest Letter From Amphibia.

"We would ask all York residents to turn their pockets out, look in all the nooks and crannies in their lofts and garages. Somebody must have information leading to the recovery of this hedgerow.

"All information should be passed on to the confidential Hedgewatch UK hotline, or to an officer at York police station. Ask for Special Branch."

MORE on York's bygone bookie. "Yes - I remember Prince Monolulu, in full regalia, sitting in the stalls at the Empire watching The Belle Of New York," recalls first lady of The Groves, Margaret Lawson. "Perhaps he found it relaxing after the races.

"My mother, a neighbour and her daughter had all gone, at the last minute, hoping to see the show because we were performing extracts from it at dancing class.

"We were told all the seats were booked. However the kind, understanding theatre manager escorted us to a vacant box.

"So we got seats, a good view of both the stage and Prince Monolulu."

DAVE Merrett was a man ahead of his time. Twenty years ago today, in an Evening Press interview to mark his appointment as the city council's environmental health committee chairman, the present Labour group leader spoke of his concern about pollution.

"He acknowledges that York is a classic area for bad chest complaints and hopes that the problem can be tackled by increasing public awareness of the problem," the report revealed.

Moreover, "he would happily ban smoking in public places, points to Continental and American precedents and finds Labour meetings as smoky as some pub bars".

Perhaps in another 20 years something will be done about it.

Updated: 10:54 Monday, June 27, 2005