SNOZ, the 38-year-old skateboarder, will be puffed up with pride at 2.30pm tomorrow when the Lord Mayor of York Coun Irene Waudby opens the new, purpose-built "runway" at the former carpark at Foss Bank near Sainsbury's.
Snoz, aka Mark Muczarles after he changed his real surname of Snowball by Deed Poll for a joke, has spent the past six weeks making the wooden skateboard rollerway with all its ramps and obstacles in time for the grand opening tomorrow.
The self-taught joiner teamed up with the city's youth work manager Bill Eve and fellow skateboarders to design and make what Bill describes as the "best little skateboard park in the world."
Snoz says: "The kids are going to love it and be so proud of it that local residents' fears about noise, nuisance and graffiti will, hopefully, be unfounded.
"We will 'police' the skateboarders and rollerbladers and make sure they respect their 'neighbours'."
The mini-rollerdrome has cost York council tax payers more than £35,000 and includes state-of-the-art soundproofing to let people living nearby get some kip on Saturdays and Sundays.
Sessions will cost £1.50 for two hours and the 'park' is expected to be a wheel treat for eager young city rollers.
Normal opening times will be announced tomorrow.
Meanwhile, I challenge our revered Lord Mayor to get her skates on and have a go...
- THE potty poets are at it again and if you'll stanza for this you'll stanza for the Queen.
Roger Stevens and Celia Warren have come up with Vikings Don't Wear Pants, Potty Poems Of The Past and Andrew Collet offers you Electric Knickers, Potty Poems To Power Your Pants.
Roger and Celia have put the hysteria back into history with epics such as:
Roman Invasion
BC 55
Julius Caesar,
Roman geezer,
Came to Britain, wasn't smitten,
Back to Gaul,
After All
While in Electric Knickers, Andrew regales us with humorous takes on ear wax, cowpats, toilets and the strange doings of teachers. Try this:
Waterlogged
Dad took the telly into the bath
to watch his favourite football team,
but rain stopped play right away
when the pitch filled up with steam.
Nonsense, I know, but nice nonsense and well illustrated.
Now thanks to publishers The King's England Press, based in Rotherham, I have ten prizes of both books autographed by the their authors to give away. They would make great presents for kids or dotty uncles.
Just answer this question: Where would you find The King's England Press?
Put your answer, with your name, address and daytime telephone number, on a postcard and send it to Poems Competition, Dick Turpin, The Evening Press, PO Box 20, 76/86 Walmgate, York YO1 9YN by next Friday.
A couple of dotty-dittie stocking-fillers for free.
- BARRY and Barbara Stickney of the Phoenix in York's George Street have adventure holidays.
Just back from two weeks in Cyprus Barbara tells me that one hot night as they lay in bed she felt the earth move.
She whispered in Barry's ear: "Did the earth move for you, darling?"
His only reply was: "Sssnnorrrrr."
He had slept through an earth tremor measuring 4.3 on the Richter scale!
- IMPISH six-year-old scallywag Charlie Squires of York was attending his first wedding.
After the service his older cousin asked him: "How many women can a man marry?"
"Sixteen!" replied Charlie triumphantly.
His cousin laughed and asked: "How do you work that out?"
"Easy," said Charlie, "All you have to do is add it up... four better, four worse, four richer, four poorer!"
His older sister Jody heard all this and nearly fell into the wedding cake.
- Annie Wright, a former Yorkie who now works in Brum, was one of the millions who enjoyed the St Nicholas Fayre in Parliament Street and St Sampson's Square last weekend.
She tells me she was so enchanted by the music of the fairground organ she "bought a home-made CD of the fairground organ playing in the square. Now, according to the label I'm the proud owner of tunes including Californier Here I Come, Waiting for the Roberty Lee and Bums A Dais'...
"It's very good and after a short spell I think I'll buy another," she says.
- AS true as I'm riding this monocycle...
A bear walks into a bar in Bootham, York and sits down. He bangs on the bar with his paw and demands a beer.
The barman approaches and says: "We don't serve beer to bears in bars in Bootham."
The bear, becoming angry, demands that he be served a beer.
The barman tells him again, more forcefully: "We don't serve beer to belligerent bears in bars in Bootham."
The bear, very angry now, says: "If you don't serve me a beer, I'm going to eat that woman sitting at the end of the bar."
The barman says: "Sorry, we don't serve beer to belligerent, bully bears in bars in Bootham."
The bear goes to the end of the bar and eats the woman. He comes back to his seat and again demands a beer.
The barman tells him: "We do not serve beer to belligerent, bully bears in bars in Bootham who are on drugs."
The bear bellows: "I am not on drugs."
The barman says: "You are now, that was a barbitchyouate."
- THE winner of my singing squirrel competition from last week is Douglas Fillingham of Muncastergate, York. Yes, the Billy Furry of the animal kingdom was singing Itchycoo Park by the Small Faces which spent 14 weeks in the charts in 1967.
He's my squirrel and I know what he sings.
Five CDs are winging their way to you Douglas.
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