THE great York sell-off continues. While the council flogs off the historic setting of Clifford's Tower and various chunks of green belt, the Church now plans to close the Minster library and hawk off its contents.

The Dean and Chapter are not chucking everything out: heaven forbid. Anything dating from before 1700 has a good chance of being rehoused elsewhere in York Minster, Canon Jonathan Draper told us on Friday.

Even now he is sashaying down the aisles of Ikea. Propped up in his trolley, a flat-packed Markr storage unit which will look divine under the Five Sisters window, displaying Civil War tracts, a medieval manuscript or two and a dish of pot-pourri.

The rest of the library's collection will be disposed of. This material "can usually be found elsewhere", says Canon Draper. He makes it sound like a pile of old Beanos stuffed under the bed.

Quite where else you can go to find Minster choir music manuscripts; a theatrical register "containing candid and impartial strictures on the various performances at the Theatre Royal, York, Vol I, 1788"; or even the Archbishop of Canterbury's 1745 Minster sermon "on occasion of the present rebellion in Scotland", I don't know. Waterstone's, perhaps?

If anyone can assure us that this controversial sell-off will be handled sensitively, the canon can. "We are certainly not looking to have a jumble sale of the material," he said.

Why not? There is nothing more English than a church jumble sale - and at least that would add some levity to proceedings. Imagine the scrum of bargain hunters rummaging through ancient essays, fighting over parish records and haggling over theatrical playbills: "I'll give you ten bob for the lot."

But if the Chapter is looking for a classier approach, bring on David Dickinson. Television's Mr Cheese will be thrilled to handle so many genuine treasures (instead of the junk he usually sifts through in all those flea markets - sorry antique emporiums).

How we'll chortle as he claims this priceless liturgy is "cheap as chips", or that centuries-old illustrated tract is "a real bobby dazzler".

To boost custom, the Dean and Chapter might throw in a Minster candlestick or the astronomical clock. And perhaps the Archbishop himself could oversee the bidding for one of his signed cassocks.

Eventually, the Minster Library will be emptied and Starbucks can open a coffee bar there. Just what York needs.

In a few years' time, as the York Vodafone Minster's shareholders tour their Gothic HQ, the cathedral's chief executive will tell them how people once made a great fuss over a collection of fusty old books. And they will smile at our navety for thinking that York's history is special, and that those such as the Dean and Chapter who are entrusted with its custodianship should be honoured at their good fortune, not curse their bad luck.

JEMINI, the British duo whose pointless performance in Eurovision was a record in itself, made two mistakes. Firstly, they sounded like the death throes of a recently castrated seal. And secondly, they were about 20 years out of date.

Pretty and perky is so 1980s. Political and peculiar is the order of the day. To do well at Eurovision now it is best to 1) claim an unorthodox sexual orientation (cf transsexual Israelis or Russian lesbians), and 2) to hail from a country which annoys the United States - which helps explain the Turks' victory on Saturday.

That's why next year my money's on the Frenchman with the foot fetish.

Updated: 11:14 Wednesday, May 28, 2003