City of Pork

Someone on the New Pork Times is taking the pig out of us Yorkies. In a question-and-answer guide to the Spoken History Of Porkshire, the Daughters of the Porkshire Historical Preservation Society suggest they have all the answers...

Q: What is the capital of Porkshire?

A: The ancient walled city of Pork

Q: What was the first primitive man remains found in Porkshire named?

A: The Missing Link

Q: The name of the famous street in the Pork tourist area?

A: Piggadilly

Q: What is the old seaport in Porkshire named?

A: The Bay of Pigs

Q: What is Porkshire's major international airline?

A: Pan Ham Airlines

Q: What are the suburbs outside the walls called?

A: Hamlets

Q: The most popular ladies' hair style in the kingdom?

A: Pigtails.

Q: Porkshire's most favourite light opera?

A: Porky and Bess

Q: Favourite family pet?

A: Hamster

Q: Most famous play?

A: Pigmalion

Q: Cabbage-like vegetable colloquial to Porkshire?

A: Brussels snouts

Q: What is Porkshire's favourite ice cream?

A: Hoggendaz

Q: What do you call a Porkie who's lost his voice?

A: Disgruntled

Q: What do you call a lawyer in Pork?

A: Sowlicitor

Then they request: "Send us your pigtionary definitions and win an all-expenses paid vacation to Porkshire (seven nights and three days)."

Finally their disclaimer:

The New Pork Times is not personally responsible for the content of the publication. In fact we are clearly not responsible swine at all. All legal inquiries should be forwarded to our corporate sowlicitors: Messrs Hoggit & Sowem, a subsidiary of Dewey, Slaughter & Howe, 29-45 Sloptrough Terrace, Pork, Porkshire.

Me? I think they are absolutely... crackling!

- PEOPLE attending the public inquiry next month into York's controversial Coppergate Riverside scheme should have no problem if they need to spend a penny and want to find the Guildhall loos. Without wishing to descend fully into lavatorial humour or cause any inconvenience, Turpin would like to suggest they head for the inquiry's programme officer, just appointed by City of York Council.

For he is none other than a Mr Jim Riddle, that's Jimmy to you and me.

- THE things people get up to in church! Remember the couple caught inflagrante in St Wilfrid's near York Minster a couple of months ago?

Now the Rev Stephen Brown, rector of Ripley, near Harrogate, has written a piece in a church mag headlined 'Worshippers behaving badly'.

He says the things people get up to "really rattles my cage", and even suggests events such as concerts and coffee mornings held in church buildings may make people forget what these hallowed halls are really for.

He has been "mortally offended" by someone smoking in church and he begs members of his congregation not to shout or kneel when they pray, scorning the posture halfway between kneeling and sitting, which he calls the 'Anglican crouch'.

I know vicars who would be happy just to see more bums on pews every Sunday.

Not literally, you understand.

- WORD reaches me that four farming sisters from Hempstead, Essex, birthplace of me, Dick Turpin, plan to repeat my 'outlaw ride' to York on April 14, next year to raise cash to help farmers and rural businesses in crisis.

Having shot my fellow highwayman, Tom King, in a dispute, I recall fleeing on my trusty mare Black Bess, and riding 180 miles to York in just two days. Phew! Was I cream crackered?

Now Alice and Emily Sanders and their sisters Georgina Barrow and Katie Fairbank are planning a nine-day ride from Hempstead to the spot where I was hanged at York Knavesmire in 1739.

To support the charity ride, contact Alice Sanders on 07958 996871 or e-mail alice.sanders@royalgcol.ac.uk Cheques made payable to the Dick Turpin Fund can be sent to Great Dawkins, Hempstead, Saffron Walden, Essex, CB10 2PJ. All cash collected will be distributed by the NFU's Farmers In Crisis Fund.

Honest!

Next year our very own merry band of biking Ales Angels, who slurp at the Blue Bell in York's Fossgate, will be returning the compliment. The four amigos - Graham Chaddock, Jim Hardie, Syd Scott and Steve Morrison - who raise cash for Lidgett Grove Special Needs School, York - will be leaping into the saddle to emulate my famous run from London to York. Watch this space.

- SWEET facts from our toothsome pals at York Nestl Rowntree...

- Nearly 16,000 Smarties are eaten every minute in Britain.

- Every second 418 KitKat fingers are consumed. About 147 Polos are eaten every second and it takes the weight of two elephants to press a Polo mint.

- About 38 Milkybar Buttons are eaten in Britain every second.

- There are about 2,200 bubbles in one Aero Chunky bar.

- All sweets in the Dairy Box and Black Magic selections are placed in boxes by hand at a rate of about 80 sweets per person per minute.

- In the last two years sales of KitKat in Russia have increased from zero to 13 million bars.

- The largest Easter egg produced by Rowntree was 2ft 3in long and 1ft 7in wide and deep.

- More than 300 million Aeros are made each year, enough to circle the world two and a half times.

- The last of the three Yorkie-ad truckers, actor Stuart Mungall, doesn't eat chocolate because it gives him migraine and he failed his test for an HGV licence.

- About 570,000 tubes of Smarties are made at Nestl's York factory every day.

- When After Eights are made their centre is hard and dry. After three days in storage the top secret ingredient in the mint causes the centre to soften.

- MUM's wise words...

Time travel: If you don't straighten up, I'm going to knock you into the middle of next week!

Logic: Because I said so, that's why.