HILDA Ogden caused quite a stir in the Foss Bank Sainsbury's. Hilda, aka actress Jean Alexander, turned heads and set tongues wagging as she did her rounds of the supermarket last Saturday.

A couple of the store's staff went looking for her from aisle to aisle.

"Where has she gone?"

"Well, she was here a minute ago, she can't have disappeared."

The group of followers grew. Finally, they tracked Hilda down to the deli counter.

Comments after the "chase" included: "She looks just the same, doesn't she?"

"Oh, yes it's great to see her in the flesh, isn't it?"

It seems we are still in love with Hilda, the woman with a singing voice akin to the sensation of driving over 200 speed humps one after the other.

The actress, now in her seventies but still much in demand in series such as Last Of The Summer Wine and Heartbeat, copes brilliantly with fans and fame. "They put me where I am today," she has been heard to say with refreshing humility over a snifter of her favourite tipple, the occasional whisky.

I know what Hilda was buying at the Sainsbury's deli counter... Coronation chicken, of course!

- HAVE I got news for the person who wrote to me - a woman, judging by the handwriting - who is at odds with a high-profile protester in York. I am sure you know to whom I refer.

Please ring me on 01904 653051 or fire off an e-mail as soon as possible to turpin@ycp.co.uk - I am sure I can help you, if you help me, just a little. Strictest confidence guaranteed. All will soon be revealed.

- SHISH kebab, talk about hard sell! Word reaches my ears that somewhere on the wings of a Harrier jet involved in the Iraq war is a surface-to-air missile bearing the legend "Sponsored by Wards of York".

One of the lads who works in Wards, the refrigeration and catering specialists in Hurst's Yard, just off Walmgate, has a friend in the RAF out in the Gulf who has chalked the muted advert on the monstrous weapon.

He laughed nervously when I tackled him about.

One thing is sure, the advert will have a short shelf life now the war is in full swing. Make ice not war, I say.

- HERE'S a little poser today for all you Turpinites - spot the town. And I bet you don't get it right. A new visitor guide which has just come out includes the following sentence. "The pretty market town of ... retains much of its original charm."

It sounds the sort of place you might like to visit for afternoon tea on a Sunday. Helmsley, nestling at the foot of the North York Moors, perhaps. Or maybe Pickering.

Oh, all right, I'll give you a clue, although you still won't get it: the guide has been brought out to promote the Tees Valley.

Perhaps you've been walking in the higher reaches of the Tees Valley and are desperately trying to remember the name of pretty little towns and villages lurking there.

Well, it's none of those. It's Darlington. Yes, that's right: "The pretty market town of Darlington retains much of its original charm."

Pretty? Pretty boring, more like.

Interestingly, the guide also claims Darlington, with its own railway museum and brick sculpture of a train, is the "perfect place to celebrate railway heritage".

I always thought that accolade belonged to York.

Not for nothing are people from Darlington known as Darloids. They make the monkey-hangers of Hartlepool look posh.

- Proof that the Americans don't speak the same lingo -- or even lingua - has came from Harrogate.

Lingua Forum, the language translation agency based in the spa town, has decided to open an office in Beverly Hills, California.

But it is changing its name to translate4me after research showed this would be better understood by the Yanks.

But before you screech with mirth about how we have to drop Latin to dumb-down for our cultural cousins, hear this: the new name will apply in Britain as well.

Surely something has been lost in the translation?

- WHILE inhaling great gulps of sea air in Whitby, I overheard this odd, if saucy, conversation on the cliff-top famed for its places of worship past and present.

A couple from the south of England had been wandering around Whitby Abbey, and ventured into the peaceful, if windswept, nearby surroundings of St Mary's Church.

After looking over the sea-eroded gravestones and admiring the view across the North Sea, the man noticed an engraving on the graveyard path, bearing details of a long-gone Whitby stalwart.

"I wonder what you have to do to get laid in the path?" he inquired aloud.

At this point I retreated, with the girlfriend's reply, as salty as the sea air stinging the cliffs, still ringing in my ears.

- AMAZE your friends, boost your street cred with these hip new expressions:

Blamestorming - sitting around in a group, discussing why a deadline was missed or a project failed, and who was responsible

Seagull manager - a manager who flies in, makes a lot of noise, cr*ps on everything, and then leaves

Assmosis - the process by which some people absorb success and advancement by kissing up to the boss, rather than working hard

Salmon day - the experience of spending an entire day swimming upstream, only to get foul-hooked in the end

Mouse potato - the on-line, wired generation's answer to the couch potato

Sitcoms - Single Income, Two Children, Oppressive Mortgage. What yuppies turn into when they have kids and one of them gives up work to stay home and look after them

Swipeout - an ATM or credit card that has been rendered useless because the magnetic strip is worn away from extensive use

Xerox subsidy - euphemism for swiping free photocopies from one's workplace

Percussive maintenance - the fine art of whacking an electronic device to get it to work again

Adminisphere - the rarefied organisational layers beginning just above the rank and file. Decisions that fall from the adminisphere are often profoundly inappropriate or irrelevant to the problems they were designed to solve.

Updated: 16:38 Friday, March 21, 2003