Nick who? Join the pub queue like rest

YORK'S reputation for offering its visitors a warm welcome has suffered something of a blow, Turpin is saddened to report. Last week, Stoke City brought all their famous supporters to York - and he was totally ignored.

Comedian Nick Hancock is potty about the Potters - a sad affliction that team members of his laddish BBC quiz show They Think It's All Over mock mercilessly.

A week ago, he was in town to watch Stoke take on the mighty Minstermen. Before watching his team he understandably felt in need of a stiffening drink.

He chanced upon the Maltings, Tanners Moat, which was so busy it was operating a one out, one in system. But surely star Nick would be able to jump the queue?

Not so. Maori barman Woody was on the door and did not recognise the diminutive wisecracker. "I didn't know who he was," the York RI player admitted. "He doesn't play rugby."

Hancock patiently waited for 15 minutes before being ushered in - only to dive straight back out, muttering that it was too busy. And thus it was All Over for Nick. He may have no trouble getting into Cuba for BBC 2's Great Railway Journeys... but at The Maltings' security is tighter.

IT'S ONLY fair that I share my secret of how to win on the Lottery. Well, I nicked it off a professor of economics at Keele University.

Ian Walker has calculated that players who choose the least six popular numbers of the 49 stand to rake in an average weekly return of 11 per cent on their stake money.

The winning numbers are: 36, 41, 46, 47, 48 and 49. Apparently they have an expected value of £1.11 compared with the most popular numbers - 17, 18, 19, 23,27 and 28 - which are only worth a miserly 22p.

Prof Walker, who has never had a flutter on the great get-rich-quick gamble, admits there's one big drawback. "You would have to live a very long time to be sure of making the 11 per cent return," he says.

So long he hasn't even bothered to work it out mathematically.

So it's back to your house number, Uncle Albert's birthday and... On the plus side, our collective greed is making the nation £1 billion richer every year. Wonder if Gordon Brown does the Lottery?

WERE you Ian Kelsey's fifth-year librarian at Lowfields Secondary Modern in York in 1983? If so, Kelsey, the former soap pin-up Dave Glover in Emmerdale, had a thing for you. How does Turpin know? The York-born actor revealed his crush in an amusing series of answers in his biography for Kes at the West Yorkshire Playhouse, where the 32-year-old is playing brutal, drunken miner Jud.

At school Kelsey was known in the register as Ian Terry, of Almsford Road, Acomb, when he lusted after the librarian. What did you most like about being at school, the Kes programme asks the actor.

Answer: The sexy fifth-year librarian.

Q: What did you hate about being at school?

A: End of library period.

Q: Was there a pupil who you particularly hated or feared?

A: The sexy fifth-year librarian's boyfriend.

Q: Did you ever get called into the headteacher's study? If you did, why?

A: Looking for a book on the bottom shelf while the sexy fifth-year librarian was up her ladder.

Q: Was there an animal which was particularly important to you as a child?

A: The sexy fifth-year librarian.

So if you were the librarian of Ian Terry/Kelsey's dreams, or you can confirm her identity, write to Turpin. Better still, send a photograph from that time.

ADVERT in the Evening Press from Londons of Heworth, York: Toys For Summer - Swings, climbing frames, sandpits, paddling pools, cricket sets... sledges. Bet they are snowed under with customers in Bermuda shorts, snorkels and... ski boots.

IT'S just what hordes of hungry shoppers have been waiting for all these years - the latest revolutionary eating experience. No longer will footsore housewives and lines of pensioners with wrinkled stockings have to stand in long queues and wait for their cold meat sandwiches at ASDA's Monks Cross store.

The supermarket giant has proudly announced that, as from next week, customers will be greeted by "a new concept restaurant" offering a "new in-store eating concept".

And the nature of this amazing new concept? It's goodbye self-service and hello... er, sitting at tables and being waited on.

Or, as ASDA describes in its press announcement: "A new style of operation." An ASDA spokesman added: "We're very excited".

TORN between work and spending time with the kids? Try this schedule on for size and stress. Prime Minister Tony Blair said he'd be back to help his son with his French homework that night. Not before he had a Nato briefing, followed by a photocall with Bobby Charlton, gruelling hours of Northern Ireland peace talks and to cap it all a reception in Downing Street with 50-odd editors busy guzzling down free booze. Tireless Tony gamely got through it all on Monday, managing to speak to most of the editors at the evening reception before telling our own Liz Page: "I've got to go. I've promised my son I'll help him with his French homework." Then whoosh he was gone... before flying to Brussels at 8am next day for yet another Nato briefing. War is hell.

LIFE must be a blur for Tony Blair, MP for Sedgefield. At the same reception he got into a lively conversation about football with Peter Barron, editor of our sister paper, The Northern Echo about Newcastle United's chances in the FA Cup final and North-East football in general as Liz Page began to look a bit glazed. "You must find this fascinating?" joked the PM. "It's all right, I'm used to it. I'm married to a Middlesbrough fan," she replied lamely.

MALE chauvinism is alive and well in Yorkshire. Around 350 members of the Confederation of British Industry in Yorkshire and Humber attended their annual dinner in the illustrious surroundings of the Majestic Hotel, Harrogate.

Talk about a lads' convention - a Turpin spy spotted only about 30 women among the 'penguins.'

Perhaps the somewhat old-fashioned after-dinner jokes have something to do with it. They went along the lines of: "Always employ a large lady as a secretary - she'll give you shade in summer and keep you warm in winter."

Laugh? I nearly signed on the dole.

24/04/99

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.