THERE is no end to the way smokers are being persecuted. The Evening Press recently reported that, in Halifax, 'plain-clothes' litter wardens are now imposing fines on anyone who drops a cigarette end in the street.

Skipping the question of how these ciggy-stub sleuths are garbed on ceremonial occasions (cockades, silk breeches, epaulettes and plumes, maybe, rather than skulking around in jeans and leather jackets), Yorick took to the streets of York (in plain clothes) to try to find out the reaction of the York public, if the same policy were to be pursued here.

York's tramps are very much against the scheme.

"I can usually make ten 'roll-yer-owns' a day out of tab ends. If this rule comes in, I'll be lucky if it's one", one of them told me.

Yorick hopes that City of York Council will not follow Halifax's example in depriving some of the most disadvantaged members of society of one of the few pleasures they can still afford.

WHENEVER he eats, Yorick spills something down his tie. So here is an idea for budding York entrepreneurs. Design a tie whose pattern is made up of faithfully reproduced egg-yolk blobs, tomato sauce splashes, spaghetti-spills and dribbles of chocolate sauce, so that the real thing will never be noticed.

A fortune awaits you.

At present, Yorick's wardrobe of wearable ties, if laid end-to-end, would go once round his neck. That is the scale of your opportunity, lads and lasses.

HOW many cable TV viewers are there in York? Cable TV viewers in Washington, USA were recently treated to ten hours of free porn, after computers went haywire. Only 11 complaints were received; none about content; all about payment. Would York viewers be so stingy?

IN A letter to the Evening Press last week, Irene Douglass suggested that we have a "Politeness" Week in York. In her letter, she used the term "P and Q", which, of course, stands for "Please" and "Thank you". Yorick once heard of it put to another use, as follows. Two ladies were standing in line outside (where else?) the "ladies". The lady in front was quite calm, but the lady behind seemed a bit desperate. The lady in front noticed the other lady's predicament, and let her go first.

"You pee, I'll queue", she said. Can this lady possibly have been Irene Douglass?

ALMOST as annoying as unnecessary roadside signs are the stickers displayed on the rear windows of cars, especially the one which reads: "Baby On Board" (as often as not the baby seems to be the driver).

Yorick is at a loss as to how to interpret this sign!

Does it imply that the life of the "baby" is especially precious, and that is why the car is being driven excessively cautiously, so that there is no risk to baby's fragile existence?

Is it a warning that baby is liable to screech, struggle, vomit, and generally create mayhem so that the car may swerve or brake inexplicably at any time and so become a hazard to every vehicle in the vicinity?

If this is the correct interpretation, Yorick recommends that "Baby On Board" stickers should in future be designed like the traditional triangular "Danger" signs.

MANY years ago, the Evening Press ran a cartoon competition. Yorick recently found photocopies of some of the drawings entered. They were drawn by Andrew Nichols, then of 13 Waverley Street, York. I have not managed to trace him since.

Each drawing ingeniously shows how abandoned missiles can be put to civilian use, disguising their war-like intent.

In view of the situation in Iraq, perhaps MI5 would like to see these drawings.

So, if anyone knows the present whereabouts of Andrew Nichols (or Saddam Hussein, come to that), please get in touch.

LAST week Yorick promised to explain what a 'clerihew' is.

A clerihew is a four-line verse, showing briefly someone's life story, or salient features.

The first two lines must rhyme, as must the final two; the rhymes must be as ingenious as possible, and the overall sense tellingly apt.

Here is the Beckham Clerihew I promised you.

David Beckham went to Madrid,

Once Real had put in a bid.

What this will do to Man U?

Can't imagine; can you?

And now another:

David Beckham's had his ration,

Of the world of fashion.

Compared to being a model,

Mere footer's just a doddle.

THE police say that they may not be able to enforce a ban on hunting. They are probably right.

But their main difficulties may not come from those who hunt, who, in other fields, are instinctive upholders of the law and will be both to loath to flout it.

Their main trouble will come from the 'antis'. The 'antis' have habitually had no respect for the law, as is proved by their activities during the decades when hunting was legal.

Now the 'antis' will have the police to do their dirty work for them.

It will not be a wholesome sight, to see proven yobs, criminals and hooligans, egging on the police to harass and arrest groups of previously blameless citizens.

And if the number of hunts declines, you can be sure that the number of 'antis' will increase.

They will want to be in at the kill.

WHO are the banned artists of the last 100 years? James Joyce, D H Lawrence, Samuel Beckett, are names which will spring to minds of those of a literary bent.

They are now augmented by the name of Max Bygraves. His records have been refused by Canterbury's Oxfam Shop, because 'they don't sell'.

Max (now 80) responded in typically gentlemanly fashion. "A lot of my fans are with us no more," he said.

If only Harold Pinter could be so straightforward.

Larkin about at the station...

THERE was a brilliant Channel 4 programme last Sunday about the poet Philip Arthur Larkin. It was called Love and Death in Hull.

Yorick once sat next to Larkin in the station buffet at York. He uttered not a word. But when he left I found this poem scribbled on a beer mat:

They f*** you up, the train announcements;

They may not mean to, but they do.

When you hear their rasped pronouncements

You know your train is overdue.

Updated: 12:36 Saturday, July 12, 2003