THIS is the sad fate awaiting the Frog Hall if the campaign to save it fails. Our picture from 1994 shows the John Bull pub, once a hubbub of music and conversation, reduced to an empty shell, its fixtures and fittings sold off.

Regulars at the pub, which was just down the road from the Frog Hall on Layerthorpe, were reduced to bidding for bits of the pub they thought was their own.

A vigorous fight was mounted to save the pub from demolition. The John Bull Action Group's petition was signed by 3,600 people, and York MP Hugh Bayley backed the campaign. But it was all to no avail. Campaigners had to throw in the towel when the legal costs mounted. The John Bull, the only York pub to have been in the Good Beer Guide for 11 years, was no more.

York CAMRA's Geoff Henman can reel off a list of other city pubs to have bitten the dust over the years, including the Crown and the Cromwell in Micklegate; the Kingston and Grapes in Toft Green; the Market Tavern in Coppergate; the Imperial in Kingsway North and the Londesborough in Petergate.

It is too late to do anything about them. But we can save the Frog Hall.

As our report on the front page of Weekender makes clear, the Frog boasts the same sort of life and community spirit that made the John Bull special.

Everyone who cares about pubs and York should make their opposition to this desecration of our heritage clear. Our city needs thriving locals far more than it needs another video shop or burger bar.

u THE daffs are out, the sun is shining and rotund men in tight trousers are hanging around Lendal Bridge. Yes, it's that time of year: the Maltings Beer Festival.

Beer tickers from far and wide will be travelling to the Tanner's Moat boozer to sample the ale. They won't be disappointed. Another top notch selection of 40-plus beers with peculiar names is being racked up, including: Banks & Taylor's Election Ale (five per cent ABV); Goose Eye's UnkelFesterval Ale (4.4 per cent); and, weighing in at nine per cent, the appropriately named Completely And Utterly Brain Dead from Scattor Rock.

This year the festival has no name. "It's the 'politically correct beer festival'," says Maltings main man Shaun Collinge. "We haven't called anyone anything to upset them."

Given the festival runs from noon tomorrow until close of play Tuesday, there's still time...

u WALKERS Bar is the latest York pub to get a visit from the makeover maestros. Architects from owners Scottish and Newcastle have been round with their tape measures, says landlord Dave 'Wilt' Wiltshire.

He said it will be a big refurb, and will include "a raised area so we can eventually have bands". No structural alterations will be involved as it is a listed building.

This will all happen either quite soon, or after summer. Meanwhile, the powers of the Micklegate boozer's Lucky Conker are undiminished. In the first game of the summer cup, Walkers' dominoes team were slaughtered.

u NOW here is something to look forward to. Bar Talk's very own Dan Beergutstein will be appearing on TV quiz show Countdown on Monday. And not content with a small screen appearance, he has persuaded his friends at the Rose & Crown to show the event. So it will be a case of big screen Beergutstein on Monday at 4.30pm as the Lawrence Street boozer shows the show on its largest possible screen, while also providing snacks for nowt, and the usual selection of quality drinks.