PLEASE spare a moment to think of our postmen and women.

Christmas for them is less a time of peace and goodwill, and more about badly wrapped parcels which disintegrate on contact, cards with barely legible addresses and endless rounds in biting winds and nipping frosts.

Not only that, but this professional band are joined by casual Christmas staff, many of whom haven't the franking sense they were born with.

A York postie tells the Diary of a couple of seasonal employees who were working out of the Royal Mail's Birch Park depot in Huntington, York.

One day the pair, both Japanese, took out three sacks of mail for delivery. They returned with two sacks still all but full.

When questioned, the duo explained that they dutifully knocked on every door and handed over the post to everyone who answered.

HERE'S to Gordon Brown. The Chancellor has managed to insult Cambridge, a place which likes to lord it over the rest of us by claiming to be Britain's top "Science City".

Gordon gave a speech which had the Anglian profs and toffs huffing with indignation. He made reference to York, Manchester and Newcastle's reputations as science cities. But he omitted Cambridge from his list.

An indignant reporter on the Cambridge Evening News then contacted science minister and Gordon's chum Lord Sainsbury demanding an explanation.

A spokesman came back to say that Cambridge was already a centre of excellence and therefore did not need to be promoted as such, while those other places needed all the help they could get.

Hang on a minute: so Mr Brown was not merely scorning Cambridge, he was also claiming that York, Manchester and Newcastle were so rubbish that we needed nursing. Four cities insulted in one speech: another PR triumph for New Labour!

THE debate over the future of swimming in York is set to continue long into this year, as plans to replace the Barbican't Centre are challenged by protesters.

But this is just the latest spat in a row that harks back at least half a century.

A report carried in the Evening Press 50 years ago today explained that the Government was allowing the building of swimming pools again.

"Before going any further," it said, "let us send birthday greetings to the swimming baths of York.

"St George's Baths have had their 75th birthday this year; Yearsley is 47 years old and the Rowntree Park Bath a mere baby of 31."

The author went on to suggest that here was a chance to build "the large central bath where championships may be staged in all their splendour and audiences of several hundred seated in comfort.

"Such baths could make good profits if they were constructed to championship specifications and if a learners' bath were also built under the same roof."

Fifty years on, we're still waiting.

THE answers to Friday's quiz questions were: 1 c); 2 c); 3 a); 4 b); 5 d); 6 a); 7 c); 8 a).

How did you do over the week? If you got all "a"s, then you were not concentrating. If you got 40 out of 40, you should get out more. If you got fewer than five, you might consider whether you are getting the most out of your Evening Press.

A BELATED Happy New Year. And more celebrations for your diarist - the computer operating software used to write this column has hit a major milestone.

Happy 10th birthday, Windows 95!

Updated: 08:50 Monday, January 03, 2005