HERE'S a worrying new trend. Just as Christmas now lasts six weeks and Easter a full fortnight, April Fool's Day has doubled in size.

Or so it would seem from a joke fax we received... on April 2.

It purported to come from the National Gasometer Collection, based at 100 Mepham Street, London. The street exists, but the organisation doesn't.

Still, it is an entertaining spoof. "Few of your readers will be aware that York's third largest structure by volume after the Minster and the railway station will be demolished within the next 12 months if the authorities have their way," writes "Sir Arthur Cresswood, chairman" of the NGC.

"Layerthorpe Gasometer, which has faithfully served the domestic and commercial needs of your beautiful city for decades, is under threat from redevelopment."

The National Gasometer Collection's remit, insists the mythical Sir Arthur, is to "preserve and celebrate the best of Britain's gasholding heritage".

To that end it is overseeing the conversion of gasometers in London into an arboretum, while one near Middlesbrough will become a velodrome.

Sir Arthur has a specific aim for the Layerthorpe gasometer, and we will return to that tomorrow.

DID you spot it? A picture in some editions of Monday night's Evening Press showed two doormen and the manager in the gents of the White Swan in Malton.

The story revealed how they had been spooked by a ghost that haunts the pub, and had last been seen in the toilets.

But there was, only faintly visible, a fourth face in the photo...

Was it a publicity-hungry ghoul?

No, this apparition was created by Evening Press photographer Garry Atkinson with some computer trickery.

The head belonged to the esteemed editor of our sister publication, the Gazette & Herald, Bob McMillan. He gamely agreed to be the embodiment of the "haggard-faced ghost with grey, straggly hair".

THE secret of great comedy is timing. So you have to hand it to the Other Side Comedy Club in York.

Among the funnymen appearing at the City Screen Basement Bar club this Easter Sunday is one George Egg.

So former guest diarist and comedy club compere Dan Atkinson can legitimately boast that his bill is topped by an Easter Egg.

Cracking stuff.

STILL with eggs, there is one now sitting on the Diary's desk which you would not wish to eat.

It is an Alien Cosmolight toy: an extra-terrestrial embryo sitting inside a transparent egg shell. When you hit it, flashing lights go off.

These Chinese-made toys were all the rage five years ago apparently, and are making a comeback in playgrounds everywhere.

Interesting, then, that the back of the pack contains this badly translated warning: "Not suitable to children".

YORK-born comedian Dan Willis has played the Other Side club and was last featured in the Diary when his Jorvik jokes helped him to the next round of a national talent competition.

We thought he'd go far, and he has. Right to the other side of the world to perform in the Melbourne Comedy Festival.

He's got good reviews and is enjoying the beach barbecue lifestyle. But Dan fears it won't last.

"I find the Aussie way of life very appealing," he writes, "but have a sneaking suspicion that the moment my visa runs out on April 20th they will unceremoniously kick my fat ass out the country."

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: 10:06 Wednesday, April 07, 2004