HERE'S some graffiti to get in a flap about. A cat flap to be precise.

This phone box, which stands close to Victoria Bar near Nunnery Lane in York, has been decorated with several motifs.

Someone has attempted to erase the rather ugly scrawl in the middle with wire wool, or something scratchily similar.

But the Free Your Mind slogan, in blood red, is left untouched, as is the moggie.

This artwork was spotted by the Diary's man in the field, Dale Minks, after we appealed for graffiti that raised a smile.

He even tried to lure the cat out with two pints of semi-skimmed, inset right.

Both the slogan and the picture are created by stencils.

The cat's creator applies the white coat first and the black on top.

"Is it graffiti? Is it art? Is it humour?" asks Dale. "No, it's Supermog!"

He has spotted the same picture on one of the boarded up doors at the Bonding Warehouse.

Dale is no stranger to public art. During the last floods he noticed that the information plinth in Tower Gardens resembled the tower of a fast submerging submarine. When it "resurfaced" he added a "U1" logo, using self-adhesive contact paper so as not to leave any permanent marks.

Who needs Tracey Emin?

ODDLY enough, deputy York council leader and Lib Dem parliamentary candidate Andrew Waller waited until after the General Election to announce controversial plans to end the weekly wheelie bin collection.

More recycling is a good thing. But what happened to the schemes where you got some pennies back for returning your empty bottle of pop to the shop?

One of the Diary's colleagues confessed that she could not remember verses of Keats or Kipling, but had this verse burned on her memory:

This bottle now costs 9d,

That's near enough a bob.

If you return it safe and sound,

It's done a right good job.

WHY was there all the judicial fuss at Burton Stone Inn about water in the vodka? Landlord Michael Short was fined £250 when trading standards discovered a diluted version of the spirit on sale at the pub.

According to my Russian, Polish, Czech, and Slovak dictionaries vodka means "little water" and they should know. So shouldn't we be prosecuting all the pubs that don't put a bit of the H2O in the hard stuff? Or was the problem that the Burton Stone Inn "little water" had "big water" in it?

Updated: 10:32 Thursday, May 12, 2005