GODFREY Bloom had better watch out when he returns from Strasbourg. The women of York are on the warpath.

Bloomers' politically incorrect comments have made him a marked man. After joining the European Parliament women's rights committee, the UK Independence Party MEP told journalists: "I am here to represent Yorkshire women who always have dinner on the table when you get home."

That wasn't his only contribution to the feminist debate, mind. He added: "I just don't think they clean behind the fridge enough."

The Diary relayed these comments to Linda Pool, housekeeper at the Monk Bar Hotel in York, and National Housekeeper of the Year.

"It's a load of bull," she fumed. "What's he going on about? You just pull your fridge out once a month and clean behind it. Everybody does.

"I don't think many women will like him if he says that.

"I'd like to go and look behind his fridge."

Godfrey, who works in York and lives at Wressle, near Selby, had better steer clear of Linda when he gets back. "I'd slap his face," she said. "It's cheeky."

Next thing the Diary knows, Linda's colleagues were queuing up to have their say.

"Women, unless they're on the social, pull the fridge out and clean behind it - unless its stuck to the bloody wall like mine is," said one. "Women are doing twice as much as they ever did. All women in York are going to go off - you are going to have a walk out."

"I definitely clean behind my fridge," another added. "I keep my wine there and I don't like dusty wine in case I have guests."

THE fuss has left Stephen Feaster, chairman of the Ryedale branch of UKIP, bemused. Godfrey, he said, "is very jovial, so quite a lot of it could be tongue-in-cheek".

In his defence, Stephen believes that the British tax regime made it harder for women to stay at home with their children.

He runs a B&B in Cropton, near Pickering, with wife Ruth. "She's just gone off on holiday and left me to do everything," he confessed. "I have got my rubber gloves on."

Out with that fridge, Stephen.

THE award for eagle eyes of the month goes to David Simpson of Brunswick Street, York, who read my Yesterday Once More feature on Monday.

"Your detective work on the period in which the Yearsley baths picture was taken in the Twenties was not far off the mark. However, could it have anything to do with the fact that in the bottom right-hand corner, just above the word baths is the year - which looked to me like 1924?"

Ahem. Well spotted.

The moral? As Roy Walker used to say on Catchphrase, "Say what you see".

FIRST to respond to the question set yesterday - what is the origin of the phrase "all meat and no gravy" - is Dale Minks.

"It comes from a risqu seaside postcard which depicts the crowded occupants, seated in a post-war railway carriage," Minnie reveals.

"One trapped elderly gentleman has to watch a rotund recent mother breast-feeding her newly-born baby utters the punchline: 'Cor blimey, lady - all that meat and no gravy!'"

NONE too keen on buying artwork by Selby train crash culprit Gary Hart (yesterday's Evening Press)?

Well, there is plenty of wholesome local fare on the same auction website where his pictures are for sale, www.ebay.co.uk

Our favourite was the Corgi gift set. The two vintage model vans, decorated with the Terry's of York livery, are boxed, in mint condition, reserve price £4.99. Something to remember Terry's by?

Write to: The Diary, Chris Titley, The Evening Press, 76-86 Walmgate, York YO1 9YN

Email diary@ycp.co.uk

Telephone (01904) 653051 ext 337

Updated: 11:30 Thursday, July 22, 2004