YOU'LL always find a character or two in York's Dean Court Hotel. And some of them may find themselves immortalised in a fictional bestseller.

At work Dominic Doyle is manager of the Chapter Bar at the recently-refurbished Dean Court. In his leisure time, he is writing his own chapters.

Dominic recently won a national writing prize for his story Little After Adam And Eve, a coming-of-age tale of his own experiences growing up in Yorkshire.

It will be published in Reader's Digest, and his prize was a European holiday.

Delighted to have won, Dominic hopes a publishing deal may soon be round the corner.

"Until then I'm picking up ideas in the Dean Court's bar lounge," he says.

So be careful what you say in the Chapter Bar. You may find yourself in Chapter One of Dominic's first novel...

FOLLOWING the Diary's in-depth investigation into men in skirts last Friday, colleague Chris Greenwood forwards a picture showing the dangers of getting it wrong.

It shows pop singer Darius crooning to a young girl on stage. He is wearing a kilt and, true to the Scottish rule, he is not wearing any underwear.

Unhappily, that is all too clear from the semi-crouching position he has chosen to adopt. Men in kilts, remember the three no's: no crouching, no handstands and no spinning.

BACK to the Museum of Psychic Experience, for our final visit until the Stonegate attraction throws opens its doors to everyone later in the year.

Readers may remember that the Diary took part in a preview tour of the museum, brainchild of Jonathan Cainer, last week.

At one point, our group took it in turns in the aura chair. When you sit down, your "aura" is reproduced in vivid colours in front of you. This is disconcerting particularly if, like this correspondent, your aura is an unhappy marriage of custard yellow and bright pink.

That only left us time to look into an empty room, wired up to record any activity (nothing yet). Then we were back in the real world, older but not necessarily wiser.

Or did we dream it all?

EVENING Press cartoonist Wolf lives at Bulmer. He had his water cut off last week, as predicted in a letter from Yorkshire Water informing him that essential maintenance work was due.

That same letter promised the supply would be turned on again at 3pm. By 6.30pm, a waterless Wolf called a neighbour.

"She said she'd phoned Yorkshire Water, who had said that the supply was reconnected - but it was taking longer than usual becuae the water had to flow uphill!" he reported.

By 8.45pm, still without water, Wolf, aka Richard Stansfield, decided to phone Yorkshire Water's "customer management centre" for himself to see what was happening.

"Ah yes," said the young operative who answered. "You see we didn't anticipate customers using the water once it was turned back on."

PUBLIC spirited historian Josie Sheppard gives many talks to groups all over Yorkshire.

As is customary, the York Castle Museum curator of textiles expects a phone call from the organisation's booking secretary a few days before the event to confirm.

Josie was due to give a talk to the history group of a North Yorkshire village the other week.

Because she hadn't heard anything by the morning of the talk, she decided to phone the group's secretary to check everything was okay.

The phone was initially answered by the excruciating squeal of feedback from a hearing aid.

"Hello," said Josie. "This is Josie Sheppard of York Castle Museum. I'm just phoning to..."

Which is as far as she got.

"We don't want any! Goodbye!" thundered an elderly gentleman's voice before he slammed down the phone.

Updated: 09:54 Monday, May 24, 2004