SHE can dance, she can act, she can model... and she can even pull a great pint of Tetley's. York-born Kelly Leavitt, 30, strutted her stuff with other beauties in the world-famous chorus line at the Moulin Rouge in Paris for two years and now she is teaching York youngsters how to move to the music with her mum Patricia Veale, who has been teaching dance in Acomb for 18 years.

Kelly has also danced in cabaret shows in the Bahamas, Japan, Spain and Switzerland after training in ballet, tap, musical and jazz at the London Dance Centre.

The elegant, 5ft 8ins-tall Kelly positively glides behind the bar and tables of The Rose And Crown in York's Lawrence Street where she stays with her Aussie boyfriend and pub landlord, Paul Clarey and his stunning sister Georgia.

Kelly was self-effacing and modest when I tackled her on her dancing exploits.

She still winces with remembered pain when she recalls the night she fell off the Moulin Rouge's stage on to the table of one of the customers and cracked a rib.

"We were doing our routine when the lights went out, even those at the side of the stage. I lost my footing and went headlong off the stage in all my feathers and what have right on to a front row table. It was embarrassing but it couldn't be helped."

u AHHHHH-CHOOOO!

Got a cold? Nirolex Day Cold Comfort from Boots promises relief but beware - read the notes on the box before taking the tincture or you could finish up with more ailments than a raging hypochondriac

The destructions warn: "This medicine may cause diarrhoea, nausea, vomiting, stomach pain, constipation, headache, blurred vision, ringing in the ears, irritability, nightmares, loss of appetite, difficulty in passing urine, rapid heart rate, shaking or skin rashes, sputum (phlegm) retention and sweating."

Then adds ominously: "If anything else unusual happens talk to your doctor."

Like what? Winning the Lottery? Dropping down dead...?

Boots said it understood why some customers may find the list of possible side effects on its £4.19 cold remedy hard to swallow. A spokeswoman explained: "This particular product contains three active ingredients and we recognise the list of side-effects can be quite alarming to some people."

Oh, yeah? Who would be worried by such maladies? But apparently they must list the reported side effects to any of the active ingredients in the medicine.

Nirolex had been approved for its "favourable benefit to risk ratio" and was an extremely popular product, she added, proudly.

I'll settle for a cold, it could be safer in the long run.

u One bewigged lawyer felt the sharp edge of a judge's tongue when his mobile phone rang out in court - twice!

The barrister, who was prosecuting, was hoping to impress on the judge the infamy of the two York men in the dock.

But mid-flow out rang a jaunty electronic tune, the court froze in horror and the red-faced lawyer was forced to explain away his own infamy. "I'm sorry, your Honour," he said. "But my chambers insist that I carry it."

When the phone had another go at entertaining Doncaster Crown Court, the judge told the learned counsel frostily: "I don't think much of your taste in music."

u KIDS! These days they don't seem know whether they are in the park or the pictures when it comes to time and dates.

I hear that justices at York Youth Court are regularly issuing warrants for the arrest of youngsters who fail to turn up to face the music.

One 15-year-old lad recently was an hour late for a 10.30am hearing, but told the bench he thought his case was listed for 11.30am. So they gave him a stern ticking off.

The following week when he was due to appear at 2pm on a new charge he turned up four hours early at 10am. The ticking-off worked.

So let this be a warning to the wayward... the courts have a nasty habit of fining or locking up latecomers.

u MIKE Jacobson is another Turpin fan with a weird sense of fun. Now retired and surfing the Internet in France, he zapped these two jokes over the ether.

So God asked Adam: "What's wrong, you look so down?"

Adam said he didn't have anyone to talk to.

God said He was going to make Adam a companion and that it would be a woman. He said: "This person will gather food for you, cook for you, and when you discover clothing she'll wash it for you. She will always agree with every decision you make.

"She will bear your children and never ask you to get up in the middle of the night to take care of them. She will not nag you and will always be the first to admit she was wrong when you've had a disagreement. She will never have a headache and will freely give you love and passion whenever you need it."

Adam asked God: "What will a woman like this cost?"

God replied: "An arm and a leg."

Then Adam asked: "What can I get for a rib?"

The rest is history...

And joke number two:

A group of chess enthusiasts checked into a hotel and were standing in the lobby discussing their recent tournament victories. After about an hour, the manageress came out of her office and asked them to disperse.

"But why?" one of them muttered, as they moved off.

"Because," she said, "I can't stand chess nuts boasting in an open foyer."

u HOMEOWNERS seeking a more unusual residence could consider the Dome - but it would cost £754,038.65 a month in mortgage repayments, says online mortgage broker Creditweb.

When the Japanese bank Nomura withdrew its bid in August, the Dome came back on the market with a price tag of £105 million. A buyer, with a ten per cent deposit, would need to borrow £103,905,000 to match Nomura's bid and with a standard variable rate mortgage (7.29 per cent) interest only payments alone would still be a staggering £631,496.25 a month.

All that to live in a giant tent, I don't think so, even if it were allowed.

u THE freshers settling in to universities just now were born in 1982/3. And it is a frightening thought for oldies but:

They have no meaningful recollection of the Thatcher era.

Their world has always included AIDS.

Vinyl albums are a mystery to them.

From their earliest years, a camera was something you used once and threw away.

Few, if any, have used a TV set without a remote control.

Who was it who said youth is wasted on the young?