AN enjoyable new book has found its way onto the Diary desk. Entitled B*ll*cks To Alton Towers (only without the asterisks) it is a guide to "uncommonly British days out".

Naturally we checked out the local attractions recommended by the guide's gurus Robin Halstead, Jason Hazeley, Alex Morris and Joel Morris. First up, Mother Shipton's Cave and Dripping Well at Knaresborough.

Their report details the many items dropped off to be dripped on for petrification, including Queen Mary's shoe, left there after a royal visit in 1923, "and now preserved like a granite gravy boat.

"Quite how she made it home after her kind donation isn't explained," the authors continue.

"Then there's John Wayne's hat. No, not that one. His favourite straw hat.

"And of course, as the jolly taped commentary by the well reveals, 'No exhibition of petrified items would be complete without something from famous magician Paul Daniels and Debbie McGee'. Naturally. Just in case you were wondering, it's McGee's toy rabbit wearing Daniels' bow tie. Now that's really not magic. Especially considering that before selling off his shares and disappearing, Paul Daniels was joint owner of the Mother Shipton complex."

Another extract or two from the book, published by Michael Joseph, price £12.99, to come.

If you have an "uncommonly British day out" to recommend, we'd love to hear it.

WE may have action on the rubber bands business.

Several readers recently contacted the Diary to point out the proliferation of red rubber bands on their streets, dropped by hasty posties posting post haste.

Roger Green, of Howard Drive, York, retrieved 12 on one day, and this prompted him to write to the head postmaster at the Royal Mail Birch Park depot in Huntington.

Roger has now received a reply which he kindly shared with the Diary. "Thank you for advising me that the postmen are leaving rubber bands in your area. They are not supposed to do this for the reasons given in your letter and also because as a business we should be recycling them anyway to reduce our costs," writes delivery office manager Glyn Owen.

"We shall act on this complaint

immediately by briefing the staff in your area today and follow up by

reminding the entire office over the next seven days as we hold our weekly briefings."

Is this the end of the elastic band menace? Let us know.

NOW we know who's buying all these flats in York. Snobby southerners (what a surprise).

According to an article on property in the Daily Telegraph the other day, Chris West and his wife Carol, of Sussex, took out a buy-to-let mortgage to buy a one-bedroom flat in York. This was partly for their daughter, and partly for their pensions.

They are frequent visitors to York, Chris told the paper. "It is a pleasant place - not your typical northern industrial town at all - and we thought property was more likely to rise in value in the North...

"We have heard great tales of people doing splendidly well out of them, so we thought we would join in. After five years, we will review it and we will either sell or carry on."

Glad to be of service. You pretentious, ignorant, asset-stripping southern prats.

Updated: 08:57 Monday, May 16, 2005