When publicity-shy curator Mike Bennett was offered the chance to be interviewed for a BBC Radio York programme about his Richard III Museum at Monk Bar he jumped at the chance.

Being a consummate professional, he not only invited the reporter to the museum to record the piece, but spent the whole interview dressed up as the controversial king. Radio viewers couldn't believe their eyes.

Mike, who is used to donning his wig and tights for his one-man theatre show, An Audience With King Richard III, insisted the costume had worked for the recording. "It was the right thing to do because it meant I was interviewed in character," he says.

"I've always thought that Richard III had the ideal face for radio."

Verily, Mike is a king among wits...

An Audience With King Richard III runs from August 15 to 17 and August 22 to 24, starting at 8pm, Monk Bar.

I once had a mime show on Radio Phnom Penh until Pol Pot and his murderous Khmer Rouge moved in. But the pay wasn't much to shout about.

- The Ales Angels completed their 261-mile Dick Turpin bike ride from London's Kings Cross to the Blue Bell in York's Fossgate.

It should have been 240 miles but they got lost in London and Lincolnshire.

The total raised was an amazing £6,500 and they apparently earned every penny. During the three-and-a-half days it took them to complete the ride it rained on three of them. They sustained four punctures and various cuts and bruises, even retrieving one member when he missed a bend and rode down a 20ft bank into a ditch!!

The five Ales Angels - Syd Scott, Steve Morrison, Neil Watson, Jim Hardie and Graham Chaddock - would like to thank all the regulars at the Blue Bell in York and the other supporting pubs, plus Paul Newman (they don't drop names) Paul Martin, from CPS, Done Bookmakers, and all the others who raised money.

A sum of £2,500 went to the children of York's Lidgett Grove Special Needs School, £2,500 to the Children's Unit at York District Hospital and the remainder will go to other child-based local charities.

Apart from this year's London- to-York ride, the Angels have also ridden coast to coast in England, Scotland and Ireland for charity.

Now they seek another cycling challenge for their next annual ride.

Any ideas, my trusty Turpinites?

- Wisecracking Lee Bell, 24, who works for his dad, Ged, at the family's butchers' shop in Middlethorpe Grove, Dringhouses, York, was taken aback by a phone call this week.

He answered the shop phone and an executive-type started rabbiting on about buying a laptop computer. He went on for almost a minute about the model he wanted, colour, size etc.

Poor Lee couldn't get a word in.

He finally managed to interrupt and shout: "Excuse me sir, we don't sell laptops we sell lamb chops!"

The man bursts out laughing. Lee says: "It was hilarious. I thought it was a wind-up from one of my mates."

- STANDARDS are going down the nick in upmarket Harrogate.

Not content with being the home to such curious phenomena as a club where references to laptops have nothing to do with small-scale portable computers, certain local business people have sought to catch the eye of potential customers in a most... provocative way.

Spotted recently while travelling on the town's Skipton Road, a van was parked at the side of the road, bearing a local telephone number and apparently used by a firm in the carpeting trade.

And what was the phrase emblazoned on the side of this vehicle? You've guessed it - "The best shag in town."

The downward slope is getting ever more slippery.

Pass the smelling salts Sybil, I feel a head coming on.

- Overheard at York Crown Court - a judge was apologising to jurors who were finding their seating accommodation a little too cramped. "These seats were not intended for people" he mused, and then as he realised what he had said, "or rather not intended for people of today." The court was built in the 1770s when humans were slightly smaller.

Shall I spare the judge's blushes? Hang it, no! Not Dick Turpin.

It was the Honorary Recorder of York, Judge Paul Hoffman, who has more cause than most to know the trials and tribulations of working in our grand historical buildings.

- STILL in legal mode, who was that trying to get into York Magistrates Court at the unjustly hour of 9am the other day?

None other than the Chairman of the Bench himself, Dr Peter Hogarth JP.

And who tried to stop him?

The court's security staff, hell-bent on making sure no undesirables sully the hallowed corridors of justice.

The chairman pulled rank, as they so often do in such open and shut cases, and persuaded his underlings he was entitled to enter his court.

Top marks to the legal, eagle-eyed security team, though.

He who sends people down may get sent up...

- WHAT company expenses do you normally put on your credit card?

Petrol? Hotel bill? Maybe a meal out with a customer? Well, according to new research on behalf of Vauxhall GM Card, not everyone is as unimaginative.

In a survey of more than 1,700 people, GM Card found some very iffy expenses claims including:

- A giant inflatable carrot

- A stuffed goat

- Lap dancers

- A court summons

- Condoms

- A whoopee cushion

Michelle Howard, GM communications manager, explains: "It's amazing what people will buy with their credit cards, and claim back as company expenses."

Updated: 09:30 Saturday, August 03, 2002