Top marks to whoever named the country bus whose services to Hadrian's Wall start tomorrow, Good Friday, and save endless hassle with traffic jams and parking. It's called the AD122, the year when Hadrian gave the order to seal off Scotland following the eerie disappearance of the 9th legion.
I watched the gruesome saga about this, The Eagle, based on Rosemary Sutcliff's brilliant The Eagle of the Ninth, at the Leeds-Bradford Odeon this week. There were just six of us in the multiplex which stands on the site of the English Electric works where my grandfather slept overnight during the war when he was doing the audit. How do these cinemas make money?
Still, my wife and I enjoyed it and the story made me want to revisit the wall, which I last saw when beacons were lit along its length a year ago. We'll definitely get the AD122 which runs a shuttle between Newcastle upon Tyne and Carlisle and has Rover tickets which connect to other bus and train services. Numbers of users have risen every year and reached 42,000 last summer. Let's beat that.
Meanwhile, there's a similar drive to get visitors out of cars and into public transport at Fountain's Abbey, the World Heritage Site in North Yorkshire. The National Trust has met a funding shortfall to run an hourly service from Ripon to the picturesque ruins with the added incentive of half-price entry to the site for anyone who arrives by bus.
See all, sup all, say 'owt
I'm a Yorkshire Patron, an honour which entitles me to receive a monthly email of three facts redounding to the glory of England's biggest county. The West Riding of Yorkshire, may I remind you, is the second biggest, just on its own. It dwarfs Lincolnshire or Devon or Northumberland, as I never tired of telling anyone when I as a boy. Still don't.
Anyway, here are my April Facts, sent by the Yorkshire tourist people who are keen to get you, and everyone else, to come and enjoy the glories of our county:
Enonymous, an online mystery visitor company which identifies the top 25 UK travel websites, has put Welcome to Yorkshire at 5th place, three places above Lastminute.com and ten places above 'Visit London'. Ha!
Yorkshire won gold at the Enjoy England Awards for Excellence held on 15th April. The Deep, in Hull, got the 'Access for all' prize and The Dovecote Barns, near York, was voted England's best self-catering holiday. Yo!
Finally, the Archbishop of York, the very excellent Dr John Sentamu, is getting the Minster's carillon to play Rule Britannia and other patriotic tunes on the May Day bank holiday. All part of his campaign to get us another holiday in honour of St George. A shoe-in, I'd have thought, for the coalition to adopt in its present rather wonky state of popularity.
Keeping it terse
That's enough Yorkshire, quite enough. Let's bob over the border into Cumbria now, and news of an odd electoral row in little Kirkby Lonsdale.
The capital of that lovely, lonely, lost land between the Dales and the Lakes, has forfeited its chance of a town council election on 5 May because two of the candidates were too verbose.
George Taylor and Michael Cunningham ignored the Twitter-like restriction which limits candidates to only six words describing themselves on the ballot paper. Easy for, say, Conservatives or Greens, but George and Michael are independents and wanted a bit more explanation.
Taylor who runs a pub in the town he wrote something on the lines of 'Born in Kirkby and want to help'. Whoops, that's seven words and the law only allows six. Both men were disqualified.
It seems a shame when Kirkby hasn't had an election for 12 years and the town council chair had persuaded all his colleagues to resign so that there could be one. There were 11 candidates for nine places, which will now be filled unopposed yet again. But rules are rules and you do have to read the small print, as both South Lakes district council and the Electoral Commission regretfully point out.
Robin Hood's big bat
Actually, one final bit of Yorkshire after all: I was once driving on the A1 in Lincolnshire when a vast grey triangular bat flew what seemed inches over my head. It was an RAF Vulcan bomber, an extraordinary sight in the sinister manner of 'stealth' planes and the like.
The last one capable of flying is on show at Robin Hood airport from Good Friday to Monday, 2 May, between 11am and 4pm. It's quite a sight, especially for aircraft enthusiasts such as Robin Hood's director Mike Morton. "We're delighted to have her," he says. "Since she arrived, the sun hasn't stopped shining."
.png?w=600)
