YORK was in the news all last week, thanks to Royal Ascot, with much talk of hats and horses, although the headgear often drowned out the hooves.

Just as the racing fever reached a climax, the city was back in the national headlines thanks to the appointment of John Sentamu as Archbishop of York.

Now I don't often encounter archbishops in my daily life, but I liked the cut of the last one, without ever having met him.

If David Hope sometimes seemed unhappy with the ceremonial trappings, he appeared to enjoy meeting people and was cheerful and obliging for the Evening Press photographers.

With Hope having withdrawn to become a parish priest at Ilkley, York now has to get to know a new archbishop, the Ugandan-born Sentamu, who, at 56, is a relative stripling for the role.

While Hope was an ascetic bachelor, the new archbishop is a married man with two grown-up children.

In a sense, I shouldn't care who does the job, being a secular sort who takes some persuading in the spiritual department.

So should those of us without religion take any notice of this new archbishop or all the others who went before (97, in case anyone is counting)?

It may seem odd, but I think we should. John Sentamu seems an interesting man for the job, having led a life in two stages: as a lawyer in Uganda, where he stood up to tyranny, and as a priest in England. His background should give him a broader view of the world, although he is said to be a bit of a right-winger in some respects.

If his experience is wide, he has another advantage too, seeming fairly fresh thanks to his relatively rapid rise through the clerical ranks.

Then there is the matter of his race. Now you have to be careful here and not make the automatic assumption that a lively-seeming black man is going to be a better or brighter archbishop than one of the usual middle-aged white men.

According to some reports, Bishop John Sentamu would rather be judged as a man than for his ethnicity, and that seems fair enough.

Yet his race is hard to overlook in York, which remains a predominantly white city, unlike his present posting in Birmingham.

It's difficult to go on about this too much without making a fool of yourself or embarrassing the new archbishop, yet it remains refreshing that one of York's most prominent citizens should be black.

Dr Sentamu told the Evening Press that he was excited about coming up north, adding: "My vision for the church is really all about mission." He also said: "I'm used to plain speaking and you don't get it any better than in York."

He may admire plain speaking but Dr Sentamu is said to like his food piquant, loving to cook spicy meals. He has even suggested he may throw open the doors of Bishop-thorpe Palace to entertain guests with meals he has cooked.

The palace is on one of my more ambitious jogging routes, one that can be a bit of a knee-pounding stretch. Perhaps I should drop by, although I'm not sure if spicy or spiritual sustenance would get me round any faster.

Still, your Grace, if you see a middle-aged jogger with a pink face and a glowing head, chances are it could be me. So I'll stop off to say hello.

BILL Hearld wrote on Tuesday about the proposal to raise council tax on improved properties. Here's a further thought.

Two years ago, we updated our house so five of us could fit in properly. We like the 'new' house, but it's hardly palatial, it's still in the same ordinary street - and the higher mortgage payments are a sod.

Like everyone else who improves, we paid a fortune in VAT to the Government - so why should we be taxed again, via the local council, merely for having made our house better? It hardly sounds fair.

Updated: 09:29 Thursday, June 23, 2005