It's all going on in the Archers

Yorick is not a regular follower of the long-running soap but I cannot agree that recent story-lines have got things wrong. Alastair and Shula retain a keen interest in horses, as ever. Adam and Brenda's relationship continues to be stormy, and Susan has confessed to Clarrie much more than she should.

Mary's husband, Jeffrey, has just been released from prison, but he prefers to stay in London, rather than return to Ambridge.

Is he trying to get it together again with Shioban? Does he know about Brian? Has Brian been seeing Mary?

Is Mary not 'fragrant' after all, but positively malodorous? The thought is unthinkable, until Eddie finds copies of letters from Mary, while redecorating her office.

They are all addressed to a Mr J Potts, who seems to be some sort of lawyer. Eddie surmises that while Jeffrey has been in jug, Mary has been writing every day to this "Mr J Potts". He draws his own conclusions. Eddie tells Declan about his suspicions, over a pint in The Bull that night.

More news of the Archers next week.

YORK University has plans to establish a new women-only college. It will be known as Nell Gwynne College. Men will not be allowed into the college until 8pm, and must leave by 8am.

The proposed new principal of the college, professor Mabel Whiplash, told Yorick: "I think these arrangements will enable our students to leave university without crippling debts."

WHEN the Royal Mail boasts that they've reduced the number of items they've lost, Yorick would like to know where these lost items are, that the Royal Mail is so sure it has lost.

MILLIONS of people who have never read Lady Chatterley's Lover are quite happy to quote her name in the course of their conversations.

Some of them may even be able to quote the name of her lover, Mellors. But his name was not always "Mellors". In the first draft of the book, the game-keeper's name was Parkin.

Parkin was a little man, with a ferocious moustache. Mellors was "tall and slender" and had almost no moustache. Parkin lost two front teeth in a fight. Mellors flashed his gnashers, wherever he went.

Esther Forbes, who was one of the first to see the original Parkin version, pronounced it far superior to the Mellors version.

"Obviously," she says, "Lawrence was a born novelist, before he grew a beard, read Freud, and set himself up as the prophet of sex."

u HOW many people who use the word Proustian have ever read Proust?

Yorick has only read the first book of Proust's 12-volume novel, Remembrance Of Things Past, of which the first 17 pages or so are about a man blinking.

It has always puzzled me that this work is so often the book chosen by guests on Desert Island Discs.

Perhaps they realise that it will afford them a plentiful supply of loo-paper. (I owe this gag to George Clooney, whose choice of book was War And Peace, for the exact same reason). Obviously, George had never heard of Proust.

WHEN Yorick was on Desert Island Discs, then compered by its inventor, Roy Plomley (who thought up the idea in his bath, apparently), my choice of book was A Visitors' Book.

Of course, Yorick was never on Desert Island Discs (but Willie Rushton mentioned me when he did his stint). Even so, who amongst you hasn't made a list of your eight favourite records and a book and a luxury?

When asked about the luxury, I hope some future participant will reply: " I think I'll have you, Ms Lawley."

HERE is the week's topical clerihew:

Tony Martin still believes

It's all right to shoot thieves.

But thieves are already startin'

To plot the shootin' of Tony Martin.

SO THE AA has named the A64 one of the country's worst roads for summer traffic-jams. Two of the main contributors to this situation are tractors and caravans.

But Yorick has a solution, which would be cheap to run, and use only existing facilities; it might also interest York's budding young entrepreneurs, whom Yorik is so keen to encourage.

It is this. Privatise lay-bys and make it compulsory for tractors and caravans to pull into any lay-by until the queue behind them has cleared. I leave the details of my scheme to be worked out by the fresh, young, management team at "Lay-By (UK) plc."

Updated: 11:34 Saturday, August 02, 2003