Boney and her merry band of madmen

With her are fellow Loonies like Lord Toby Jug, campaigning to clean up the fish industry "'cos it stinks", and the farinaceous Flying Pasty. They are the skeleton crew.

Campaigning under the ingenious banner "Vote for insanity, you know it makes sense", the Loonies may be the only party which regards the back bench as a piece of patio furniture and the cabinet as the place where grandad keeps the cherry brandy.

The party was formed by the late Lord David Sutch - some say Screaming, others barking - who fought more parliamentary elections than any man in history and lost his deposit every time.

The every-one-a-loser trail included the 1983 Darlington by-election, at which he won 374 votes and quite a lot of friends.

Other candidates have included Colonel Cocoa Bean ("shadow minister for chocolate") and Mad Cow, a young lady who, in 2001, milked 291 votes out of Sunderland South.

Among the more memorable policies were a portable rubber zebra crossing, useful for getting old folk across the road, until they rolled it out one hot day and saw it vulcanised beneath a seven ton lorry.

Ms Maroney, formally Melodie Staniforth from Holmfirth, polled 561 votes at Richmond in the 2001 general election, developed a soft spot for William Hague, despite referring to the old baldy as the fringe candidate - "he were brilliant, I were very sorry when he lost the leadership" - and will oppose Tony Blair next time.

Her policies will include heated toilet seats for old age pensioners, her Sedgefield watchword will be "Don't be phoney, vote for Maroney."

Lord Toby Jug, whose platform will feature fluorescent dog food - mercifully, memory fails to suggest why - will stand against Michael Howard in Folkestone. "I'm a big fan of his Uncle Frankie, " he says. "He's a lot funnier than Michael is."

They hope for 50 candidates, and thus the right to a first ever party political broadcast.

"It'll be the only time in history that people watch instead of going to put the kettle on, " says Jug. "We do it because we can't help it, " adds Boney.

David Sutch died five years ago. Alan Hope, the present leader, briefly shared the position with his cat - Mandu - until the poor creature perished also.

Old Boney, who insists that she got the skeleton outfit from America - "no one had my size over here, even this one's not tight enough" - has visited the Sedgefield constituency just once so far. "It seemed pretty grotty, " she says.

"I think Blair's beatable, partly because of all his problems and partly because they haven't seen my yellow skeleton suit yet. It's posher than anything Cherie has."

They were a jolly diverting bunch, anyway. The Monster Raving Loonies may yet be a farce to be reckoned with.

NOT necessarily loony, but still a large scale bit of daft, we came across the Hayngel of the North on the way homeward from holiday.

Manifestly baleful, it stands more than 20 feet high, has a wingspan of almost 50 feet and (unlike the more familiar version) has an ice cream cornet firmly in its grasp.

Latest of several straw-in-the-wind sculptures in the same field, it promotes the Snugbury's ice cream company at Hurleston, near Nantwich in Cheshire.

Other have included the Olympic Cone and a fearful monster called Coneastrawus. ("Ice scream when I see a dinosaur.") Snugbury's, another example of successful agricultural diversification - like the newly lauded Fishburn airfield, an enterprise which really took off - is run by Chris and Cheryl Sadler as a way of using surplus milk from their Jersey herd.

Forty ice cream flavours include Turkish delight, grand marnier and orange, lemon meringue, Christmas pie and something simply called yum-yum.

Hay fever, the column felt obliged to join the queues waiting to lick them into shape.

As probably they say on the southern approaches to Gateshead, A1.

Noble by name, noble by nature

BASIL Noble, a rich character, fine raconteur and true gentleman, died on Tuesday evening after a short illness. He was 90. "It was wonderfully peaceful. Like an old soldier, he just faded away," says Barbara Brown, his daughter.

Though long associated with Darlington - up to his neck in it, really - he was born in Newcastle, attended the Royal Grammar School, moved south in 1938 and became a frequently familiar figure, jaunty in black bowler.

A chartered surveyor and enthusiastic auctioneer, he was senior partner of Sanderson, Townend and Gilbert, became captain of Blackwell Golf Club, president of the Conservative Association, chairman of Round Table and president of Rotary; chairman of the National Federation of Property Owners and very much else. Had he turned his tireless hand to none of those things, he could instead have made a distinguished penny as a journalist.

When he was 70, the Echo sent him - Daniel into the lion's den - on assignments as diverse as to the Labour Party conference and to Toxteth, a troubled area of inner-city Liverpool. At the Labour conference, he found himself at a gay/lesbian fringe meeting addressed by NUM leader Mick McGahey - "The lesbians' struggle is the miners' struggle" McGahey told them - to Toxteth, he went prepared. "I remained unshaven for three days," he wrote, "thus achieving a passing resemblance to Yasser Arafat wearing a flat cloth cap."

A committed Maggie man ("intellect as well as beauty" he once observed), he also covered an Arthur Scargill rally at Easington and found himself unexpectedly impressed - "so at home, I could have called a committee meeting". Old Arthur seemed quite a good egg, too - the sort, concluded Basil in impeccable English, whom you'd welcome to a Saturday morning four-ball. His interests were enormous, his patriotism and his passions undying. They included Frosterley marble, milestones and magic to which friends might have added mischief, or if not mischief then the innocent merriment so tunefully championed by the Lord High Executioner. Basil leaves a widow, Leila, children Barbara and Christopher and a three foot seam of fond memories. Funeral details have yet to be confirmed.

Fond memories of a true funny man

PHIL Trusler, chip off a very rare block, died and was buried while we were on holiday. He was just 51.

As with his dear old dad, they'd asked that the service be a happy occasion. As usually is the contrary case, it overflowed with tears.

Bert and Philip were Shildon lads. Bert was a much-loved "old time" comedian and entertainer, Phil - truly delightful man - inherited his father's love of the stage and of those who trod the boards with dignity.

"He used to go crazy about all those new comedians on television, " says Maxine Raine, Phil's fiancee. "They called themselves alternative but for Philip, there wasn't any alternative, either they were funny or they weren't. It really used to vex him."

Max and Phil lived above Ireshopeburn in Weardale, the house rich with his music hall memorabilia. She's sub-postmistress at St John's Chapel, he was writing books about the laugha-minute days of summer shows in Blackpool and about Mancunian comedian Frank Randle, a sort of music hall Bernard Manning, whose touring company was called Randle's Scandals.

Maxine - old friend, great lass - has vowed to finish the Randle biography ("Philip had done an awful lot of research, it's what he'd have wanted me to do") and hopes also to complete the end of the pier show.

"I haven't even been able to find the manuscript yet, " she says.

"Philip's music room got a bit overcrowded."

His favourite may have been Ken Dodd, like Phil a regular at Darlington Civic Theatre. We'd last encountered Phil by the stage door in October 2002, en route to see the King of the Diddymen.

"He's clean, he's certainly not alternative humour, there are no nasties, no bitter satire and he's packing them in. What does that tell you?" he asked.

Phil's cancer was diagnosed a year ago, his last months made more bearable by the Freeman Hospital in Newcastle. "They filled him with hope, " says Maxine.

His private burial, at Cowshill, preceded the memorial service.

One of his favourites, a song by The Blind Boys of Alabama - "Lord take me home, the nights are long and weary" - was played at the graveside.

At the historic High House chapel in Ireshopeburn, friends and family listened to others among his favourites, like Eva Cassidy, Fleetwood Mac and - of course - Ken Dodd singing Happiness.

Maxine recalls the last time they'd seen Doddy. "Philip wasn't well but when Ken sang Happiness he was singing his head off, too.

"He turned to me and said it was what life was all about. He didn't want to be remembered for the last bit, but for really enjoying the rest."

TOM Musgrave, chairman of the North East Theatre Organ Association, has been having a hard time since last we met. After going to the doctor with a bad toe, he ended up with his foot amputated - the MRSA bug - and spent nearly a year in hospital.

Undaunted, Tom - from Hunwick, near Crook - is full of praise for Bishop Auckland General Hospital and particularly its "superb" rehabilitation unit, for which NETOA holds a fund raising concert on Saturday evening.

Leading organists Joe Marsh, Richard Openshaw and John Robinson all play the Mighty Wurlitzer at the New Victoria Centre in Howden-le-Wear, there's a finger buffet and a screening of the recently-made silent movie Off The Rails, with appropriate organ accompaniment.

Tom - "I'm 76, so I'm not doing so bad" - now has a prosthesis, is himself playing the organ again and hopes to raise £2,300 to buy equipment for the rehab unit.

The show starts at 7pm, tickets £10 from David Kirkbride, who'll hand them over on the door, on (01388) 762467.

OBSERVANT as always, the column on June 10 wondered about the purpose of the numbered "bird table" constructions which crop up at Croxdale and at sundry other North-East locations.

As many readers have kindly pointed out, they mark the route of an ICI gas pipeline from Teesside to Cumbria - the numbers so that the route may be followed and reported upon by helicopter pilots.

"The job was so well done, " says Ian Johnson from High Shincliffe, near Durham, "that the route couldn't otherwise be seen from above ground".

WHEN last the column took to the road, we also wrote of the rural delights of the Sunday bus service (Arriva number 830) from Darlington and over the Buttertubs to Hawes.

The company subsequently sent two complimentary Explorer tickets, after which kindness the column finds its way to another Arriva story.

Monday's plan was to catch the 7.37pm bus homewards, thus catching most of the match. It never arrived, without explanation but perhaps because the driver himself was sitting at home watching Wayne Rooney.

The next number 34 was due three hours later. While some of us can make alternative arrangements, two elderly ladies were left standing - a long way from home and from the 10.37 bus.

Just the ticket? Feel free to drive your own conclusions.