I’M thinking of reporting the BBC to trading standards.
Not because I’m consumed by that ‘licence fee waste’ paranoia that obsesses some newspapers.
But I’m worried that many innocent people may be planning trips to Blackpool after the Strictly Come Dancing special from the seaside resort on Saturday.
The way the presenters Tess Daly and Claudia Winkleman spoke made it sound like a stunning Mecca where dreams come true.
And clearly the contestants also looked to have been brainwashed, their bids to get to Blackpool sounded like Dorothy and her companions in the Wizard of Oz in their quest to find the Emerald City.
It is a few years since I visited the Lancashire town with the tower but I remember a bleak, windswept wasteland that has got more in common with a Remainer’s post-Brexit economic outlook than the lush Oasis portrayed by Strictly.
The front is lined with tacky gift shops, fast food outlets and ‘fun pubs’ with nowhere in sight to get a decent meal or enjoy a relaxed drink without getting a karaoke mike shoved into your mitt.
Behind them are streets filled with guesthouses and B&Bs with withered palm trees in the front gardens and inside, behind the net curtains and china cats, are establishments that haven’t changed much since Les Dawson used to talk about landladies offering bed and breakfast and evening meal for a week for £10 with full use of cruet.
FROM the worst of tourism to celebrating the best of it.
The White Rose Awards which Welcome to Yorkshire holds to celebrate the best of Yorkshire tourism and hospitality are always an experience.
Getting 1,200 people together in black tie on a wet Monday night in November is impressive enough.
As is the fact that the vast majority are determined to enjoy themselves with many of the nominees for awards choosing to take along their staff, often using the evening as their Christmas night out.
This year’s event was held at the new £11m Hall 1 at the Yorkshire Event Centre and the theme was a night at the movies.
That was apparent from the moment I arrived at the drinks reception where the scrum around the Prosecco bar looked more like a scene from Gangs of New York.
Inside the hall, hosts Amy Garcia and Harry Gration from BBC Look North welcomed the audience and picked out celebrity guests.
The bloke from Channel 5’s Yorkshire Vet was there and also someone from Emmerdale on table 89.
I think I had a greater claim to fame in my blue velvet jacket that I treasure from tailors Berwin & Berwin.
You see when I wear it I have been compared to a movie star.
Yes, Peter Dodd, director of Welcome to Yorkshire, says I have the panache of a young Austin Powers.
My host, Caroline Pullich of Barclays was on good form, when presenting the Business Tourism Award, she pointed out that Barclays were the only bank who were a sponsor.
These banks are so competitive.
What I particularly enjoy about the White Rose Awards is that while many of the nominees are well known visitor attractions and eating and drinking places around the county, there are always a few gems which are unearthed.
The RSPB’s Bempton Cliffs reserve is now firmly top of my list of places to visit next year.
Every spring over 250,000 seabirds including puffins, kittiwakes and gannets flock to the cliffs between Bempton and Flamborough on the Yorkshire coast to find a mate and raise their young.
During spring and summer the cliffs are alive with nest-building adults or young chicks taking their first faltering steps.
It must resemble Planet Earth II but with a Yorkshire accent.
Paralympian Hannah Cockcroft and Yorkshire’s most successful Olympian, cyclist Ed Clancy, were given a rousing reception by the audience – almost as big a welcome as Sir Gary Verity, Welcome to Yorkshire chief executive, when he took to the stage.
Pin up boy of every landlady between Scarborough and Filey, Sir Big V roused the troops and energised them to go out and achieve another record-breaking year for Yorkshire tourism in 2017.
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TALKING of Strictly Come Dancing – and I only am because I was back visiting my parents’ at the weekend and was forced to watch it and at the same time discover my mother has developed a strange obsession with Ed Balls – it featured a brief appearance by comedian Peter Kay.
Dressed as a security guard, he stood alongside contestants and host Claudia Winkleman to read out the terms and conditions for telephone voting.
He was barely on screen for 30 seconds but the appearance drew accusations that he made homophobic jokes.
Standing next to Judge Rinder he jumped away from the TV lawman saying: “Hey steady, watch it m’lud, watch it m’lud.”
He then went on to say: “This case is firmly closed.”
Everyone laughed, including the Judge, but that didn’t stop critics airing their views on Twitter.
It struck me that had he done something similar to a female guest then he would probably have been accused of sexism.
Some humour does deserve to stay firmly back in the 1970s but this just seemed harmless stuff that had been seized on by politically correct zealots.
His antics aped those of Eric Morecambe who used to do something similar when chatting to a female guest on the Morecambe & Wise Show.
When he did it with Cilla Black, he said to her: “Don’t interfere with me young sir. For another pound we could have had Lulu.”
It always cheers me up to watch it on YouTube, and the duo’s hilarious Banana Boat routine with Danish singer Nina.
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MAYBE it’s my background in journalism, but often when I arrive at a meeting I’m asked what gossip I know.
Invariably I have very little, but dress up a bit of tittle tattle in a bid to make it look like I’m in the know.
It happened again last Friday when I turned up late to a lunch at Sous le Nez in Leeds.
I joined Richard Larking of Progeny Corporate Law, former Irwin Mitchell managing partner David Knaggs and Paul McIntosh of wealth management firm McIntosh James for a catch up.
At the table were two other blokes who both told me they were called Gary, but I think they only said that because they were afraid of getting a mention in this blog.
“So what do you know then David?” asked Richard.
Fortunately for me I’d bumped into former insurance entrepreneur turned bon viveur Dominic Schoffield at the bar and he whispered that the restaurant was anticipating the imminent arrival of Priscilla Presley.
Apparently she was staying at the Quebecs hotel above the restaurant while attending the Elvis in Concert show at Leeds Arena featuring the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra playing along to film footage of The King.
Now that bit is true but I don’t think my fellow diners believed it because I told them I wasn’t bothered about meeting Priscilla because I had to leave early for a night out with Beyonce and Jennifer Lopez.
Have a great weekend.