Despite the pressures of newspaper deadlines, we Diary contributors are not generally inclined to cursing our way through the day.

And we certainly keep it clean when sending out emailst especially to the likes of politicians and public relations agencies.

So we were taken aback the other day when an email we had sent to a York PR firm bounced back, accompanied by a strict admonishment.

We were told our message had been "quarantined because it contained unacceptable language", and advised us to consult our "mail administrator" (who he?) to release the message.

We hastily examined the despatched message to check that an obscenity or profanity had not somehow slipped in, or that a word could have been misinterpreted.

But no, we had just thanked the firm for a press release it had sent out, said we would "do something on this" for the paper this week and urged the firm to "keep on sending stuff to me", before ending the message with the words "Happy New Year".

Now we all know that the sleaziest elements of the "Net" could do with cleaning up, but what was the problem with this?

Answers on an email please to mike.laycock@ycp.co.uk, (but keep it clean or your message too could end up being quarantined!).

Diary understands this is not the first time perfectly innocent emails have been caught out by filters for obscenity or political correctness.

A woman, also involved in the PR industry, has also had difficulties of this kind, including ones involving sending out emails containing the perfectly acceptable name of a large Lincolnshire town.

And a picture of someone with a very bald head could not be sent, presumably because the machine got the impression the email image was of acres of flesh from a rather different part of someone's body.

Meanwhile, we have also received an email from a Mr Xiao Jun, managing director of Chin Fung (Trading) Limited of Hong Kong, a "premier global trading group managing the supply chain for high-volume, time-sensitive consumer goods".

Mr Jun said he was searching for representatives who could help him "establish a medium of getting to our costumers in Canada/America and Europe as well as making payments through you to us. If you are interested in transacting business with us we will be glad".

Thanks, but we will stick with the day job.

Is this what rock stars turn to when they are getting on a bit and the life of sex, drugs and rock'n' roll starts to lose its attraction?

Diary notes from the programme for Hull New Theatre's Christmas panto, Aladdin, that the musical numbers are written and arranged by ...Keith Richards. Has he fallen out with Sir Mick, we asked? But a closer look at the programme reveals that, perhaps in a bid to quash such idle speculation, it does include the word "Paddington", inserted between "Keith" and "Richards".

Updated: 09:05 Thursday, January 06, 2005