I HAVE always known Australia is ahead of us in time... but not by nearly two months. What must have been the earliest Yule-tide party of the season was held in The Ship Inn, Strensall, just outside York when the Greens, Longs and Shields families and friends got together for a four-course, traditional, Christmas dinner as the laughter and ale flowed like the mighty Murray river.

Ship landlord Trevor Copeland played host and turned over his bottom bar to the festivities attended by more than 40 revellers.

George and Sylvia Long and Dennis and Doreen Green from Tasmania joined forces with Brian and Christine Shields from Brisbane to have a good old fash-ioned Christmas thrash among their loved ones.

And what a night they had too.

Lift engineer John Green of Northfield in Strensall, nephew of the Greens, says: "It was a smashing night. We supped some stuff. It's the earliest Christmas party I've ever been to.

"It was great to see all the families and friends re-united."

So the Greens, the Longs and the Shields are girding up their loins for the long haul back Down Under... just in time for more festive parties.

Strewth, blue, so this is Christmas!

u TO celebrate Hallowe'en The York Dungeon is thoughtfully offering £1 off the entrance fee to the attraction's ghoulish delights on production of a leaflet which is circulating throughout this ghost-ridden city.

Their Hell'oween Scream which runs until November 5, features Witchcraft Wednesday, next Wednesday, when the Dungeon will be 'open til late'.

"Dare you visit after dark?" they ask.

Not me, squire, especially when the leaflet explains the Scream experience is sponsored by the worthy, essential, but in my case scary, National Blood Service.

It's just that I can't stand... needles.

u Motorists using York's Castle car park, next to Clifford's Tower, might care to wonder what the contractors were 'on' when the surface was recently refurbished.

Just a week after resurfacing was carried out it is already showing severe signs of wear and the old dips are, again, filling with water.

More interestingly, the repainted spaces seem to be of no specific sizes; some are small, some are quite small and some are very small! The white arrows painted on the old tarmac, which helped motorists to go around the car park the right way, have also been obliterated. A regular user of this car park tells me that over this half-term he witnessed a group of youths, howling with laughter, as they gleefully watched a free vehicular pantomime of exasperated tourists shunting their cars back and forth over the whole sorry mess.

u 'SIR, (wrote Margaret Sinclair of York, to The Daily Telegraph on Tuesday) in your obituary of Sir Philip Adams (October. 18), you mention that, when he became charg d'affaires in Khartoum in 1956, the Adams household became the first in the country to have a flush lavatory.

In September 1953, I flew out to Khartoum to join my husband, who was in the Sudan Defence Force. We were given temporary quarters in the military area - a desert just outside Omdurman. We had a flush lavatory, which was much envied by our colleagues in Khartoum.'

Margaret, you should have written instead to The Times.

After all, it is isn't called The Thunderer for nowt.

u Latest news reports reveal that a cell of four terrorists has been operating in Middlesbrough. Police advised earlier today that three of the four have been detained.

A spokesman for the Teesside Peelers said the terrorists Bin Sleepin, Bin Drinkin and Bin Fightin have been arrested on immigration issues.

The police can find no one fitting the description of the Bin Workin, the fourth cell member, anywhere in the area.

But they are confident that anyone who looks like Workin will be very easy to spot in that town.

Late flash: I spotted this headline on BBC Ceefax on Thursday morning:

"Bin Laden likely to die - says Blair" We are all likely to die, Tony, me from laughing at the BBC!

u THOSE dozy people at Ovaltine should have their bumps felt.

With mailrooms all over the globe on high alert for "anthrax by post" they sent me two sachets containing granules of their 'winter warmer' milky drinks.

One was their original Ovaltine, the other was Indulgent Irish Cream, a new instant hot chocolate concoction.

Our rubber-gloved mail-sorter, Charlie, shook, rattled then rolled his eyes when he realised what the sachets contained.

Wonder if they sent any to George W Bush in the Oval office?