In another era it could be a wagon train of settlers out to tame the Wild West.

Nothing so exciting or so fast - it is the A64 between York and the East Coast on Easter Monday.

Pamela Ross, of Cawood, Selby, sent us this photograph taken by her passenger as she crawled home in convoy after a weekend away. She blames it all on car drivers.

"Noon tends to be 'chucking out' time at campsites, so by 1pm the whole of the area leading from the coast will be seething with caravans and trailers going home," she writes.

"We hit the traffic queue just after Malton after 1pm, and crawled along for about an hour before escaping using a detour.

"The traffic jam might not have been quite so horrific, had it not been for the desperate determination of cars to get into the outside lane, past the caravans, and move forward to push in front of the queue in the left-hand lane before the road became single file.

"As you can see from the photo, by this time the left hand lane is virtually only populated by caravans, as far back as the eye could see.

"Had the two lanes of traffic been able to filter properly, the traffic would probably have flowed better and faster."

The Highways Agency should sign her up without further delay(s).

YORK'S newest, flashest, biggest tourist attraction is getting our visiting tourists in a spin.

The National Railway Museum reports that some visitors have requested a recorded commentary to point out York's notable landmarks during the big wheel ride.

A "spoke" person for the Yorkshire Eye said they were wheelie sorry and were looking into it. They pointed out that they do have a recorded commentary in the VIP pod. Just one problem - it's in Dutch!

No doubt it has street organ music playing Tulips From Amsterdam in the background.

We are also indebted to K Barnes, of Catterton, Tadcaster, for taking on - unasked - the role of guardian of the Diary's grammar. But there's no need, honestly.

K Barnes spotted our piece about the two Evening Press senior reporters who wimped out of a ride on the big wheel because of their "serious vertigo" and left it to a trainee to go up instead.

The very proper K Barnes sent the following email (which we have not corrected grammatically): "Who got it wrong, the Diarist or the senior reporters. If they do indeed suffer from "serious vertigo" they will do so sat at their desks as well as in the gondola on the wheel. The fear of heights is "acrophobia". Whoever was it, who in their ignorance, described reporters as "Wordsmiths" ?.

Thank you, K Barnes, but who mentioned heights? We didn't. And according to our Oxford dictionary, "vertigo" is "giddiness, dizziness; condition with sensation of whirling and tendency to lose balance."

Updated: 10:38 Thursday, April 20, 2006