DESPERATE times for singing publican Garry Barrett and his partner Penny Chaplin. Their snowman has gone.

Those of you with a working knowledge of climatic physics will be asking, "what's the problem?" After all, all the snowfolk created in the last cold snap have now melted from view.

Ah, but this was Snowman Norman. He was the giant inflatable fellow who had kept guard in front of the Dawnay Arms, Newton-on-Ouse, during Christmas.

He was first featured in the Diary in December. That was when we revealed how Garry, frontman of legendary York rockers Stone Cold Sober, was mounting a round-the-clock vigil after a cabbie overheard a plot to kidnap Norman.

Sad to report the worst has come true.

"It happened soon after New Year's Eve," Garry tells the Diary. "The reason for our silence until now was because we were informed by letter that Norman would suffer the consequences if we made the kidnapping public.

"However, we feel we must go public and only hope these evil people will see the error of their ways and return Norman intact."

Garry sent in this picture of a kidnapper abducting Norman, snapped by a close friend as he went to collect his doorstep milk delivery.

Penny and Garry are desperately trying to raise the ransom money, but time is running out.

"He is being held prisoner in a chest freezer, whereabouts unknown, and the fiends are threatening to pull the plug on him if their ransom demands are not met."

Anyone who has seen Norman, please, please get in touch with the Diary.

ANDY Hinkles, the voluble York artist otherwise known as Milladdio, will suffer silently for his art tomorrow night.

He is to fall asleep on the job in his role as a human exhibit at the ROTA show, Journey To The Centre Of The Earth, in the Basement Bar of City Screen, York.

"I intend to sleep through the whole three-hour event in a bed kindly donated by the Banana Warehouse," he says.

Why, Andy, why? "I'll be demonstrating the perils of icon smuggling." Nurse!

Whatever he means, let him sleep on it, but not before telling the Diary what may keep everyone else awake from 8pm to 11pm.

"Our evening of artistic entertainment in 12 parts is a free showcase for a wide range of art," says the spokesman for the Return Of The Artist generation of York experimental artists.

"Video, computers, sound, sculpture, demonstration, mime, projection, installation, a game and a happening categorise the work of the 15 ROTA artists taking part."

THOSE who are inspired by science rather than art are also in for a treat. Browsing through the brochure for the Science City York Festival Of Discovery, we found ourselves in a dilemma.

Which is the more compelling event: "robotic milking", where a modern 20:20 rapid-exit milking parlour is compared with the very latest in robotic milking technology; or "behavioural problems in stabled horses"?

You see, science can be fun.

THANK you Audrey Gibson, of Deighton, York, for cheering up our Monday.

"Last week's Evening Press seemed to focus on our local shoplifters," she writes. "Maybe they should go to Tesco."

To back up her suggestion, Mrs Gibson includes a snippet from her Tesco clubcard statement, which baldly states: "The more you swipe, the more you get back."

Updated: 09:42 Monday, March 08, 2004