A quick one while on holiday in Wales with the celebrated Cynthia Payne, she of the liberal Luncheon Vouchers.

She seemed quite a little madam - and rather a bored one, sitting back and thinking of England perhaps - until the conversation turned to George Reynolds.

She'd met the former Darlington FC chairman while making a television programme, got on famously, was invited to stay at Witton Hall - George's sumptuous pad in Co Durham - but spent most of the time with Susan, his wife.

"She talks so fast I couldn't take it all in," said the woman once convicted of running a needs must knocking shop, though she had found time to ask George if he were looking for business. (Strictly on a commercial basis, of course.)

The lady, accent like a Clerkenwell costermonger, wants to open Madam Cyn's Show Bar somewhere up West and was hoping that - despite recent well publicised problems - George might be persuaded to bankroll it.

"Lots of people will want to see me," she enthused. "I'll make it into a bordello, lots of memorabilia of what happened, waitresses dressed as French maids and two old fashioned policeman in Dixon of Dock Green outfits."

The menu, as might be imagined, would offer lots of tarts with spotted dick - she seemed very keen on the spotted dick - for afters.

George proved less up for it, however. "He initially gave the impression that he might be, but nothing came of it," said Cynthia.

"I always thought of him as a bit on the daft side but he's a very careful businessman. There's now a slight possibility that someone else might be interested."

Though he made his excuses and left her still searching, she still has plenty of time for the old lad. "He had a poor upbringing, spent all that time in an orphanage and really had quite an unhappy life.

"He put all that money into Darlington Football Club because he wanted to feel loved. I sussed that out the first time I met him. We all need love in our lives.

"George had done really well for that club. It's terrible the way they've treated him at Darlington."

More improbable yet, we'd bumped into Madam Cyn in Llanwrtyd Wells - as impenetrable as it is unpronounceable - where she'd been unveiling a memorial to her old friend Screaming Lord Sutch, he of the Monster Raving Loony Party.

She herself may not be raving all, more of an associate Loony.

It was also the occasion of the 25th Llanwrtyd Wells "Man v Horse" race, a 22 mile challenge across the Welsh mountains in which horse and rider had hitherto always been first past the post.

"As pointless efforts go, there can be few that are quite as heroic but ultimately doomed as trying to outrun a horse," claimed the previous Saturday's Daily Telegraph.

Many take it very seriously. Neither the competitors in hoola-hoola skirts nor the Loony with a string of pasties round his neck who tried to do 22 miles on a pogo stick may strictly have come into that category.

He bumped along for 50 yards. "My pasties kept disintegrating," he wailed.

Perhaps the daftest of all were William Hill's, who not only offered £25,000 to any human who could win at a gallop but 16-1 against it happening and found themselves paying out to Huw Lobb, a 27-year IT consultant from Bedford who'd been fourth Briton in the London Marathon.

"Lobb smashed the equine hegemony," said The Observer. They talk of little else in Eldon Lane club.

"It's consolation for not being chosen for the Olympics," said Huw, and vowed to buy a pair of fell running shoes with the money.

Cynthia Payne both handed out the awards and presented Backtrack with her "Thank you for your custom" calling card.

This is the column which never sleeps - not euphemistically, any road.

Wales on Sunday, incidentally, reports a survey that 47 per cent of Welshmen want England to do well at Euro 2004. "Experts agree that it's a sign that Wales is maturing as a nation," the story added. (Or declining as a football team, perhaps.)

The County Echo and St David's City Chronicle, meanwhile, reports that the three cricket teams in Llanrhian, Pembrokeshire - there are 33 ambulant males in Llanrhian? - have won on the same weekend for the first time in 50 years.

The treble finally happened despite pitch problems at St Florence, where the seconds were strung.

"The St Florence wicket," reports the Echo, "might well have supported a flourishing crop of brassicas but a week since. The cricket in consequence was a little turgid."

Pretty unmissably, the Daily Mail has been overflowing with lurid revelations from Paul Gascoigne's autobiography. Another was buried amid the media section of The Guardian.

ITV sports producer Tony Pastor recalled that when Gazza joined the Euro 2000 panel, his inseparable mate Jimmy "Five Bellies" Gardiner offered to jump from Waterloo Bridge into the Thames in order to promote the programme.

The offer was coolly received. "I jumped off the Tyne bridge for Sky TV and lived," protested Five Bellies.

"I know," said Pastor, "but we don't want you dying on ITV."

The night before the holiday we presented the all-embracing awards at the Wear Valley Ladies Games League's annual do. This might be termed kiss and tell.

Based in Crook, the league includes pubs with improbable names like Dans Castle (Tow Law) and the Brewer's Droop (Willington, etymology unknown.)

It was the more conventionally named Golden Fleece in Crook which took the argonauts' share of the awards, however, followed by the Royal Sun (all of whom carried the message "Hiya Mickey" on their polo shirts.)

Ladies all, there was also an award for the worst team - won for the umpteenth year by the Surtees at Howden-le-Wear.

"We just enjoy the night out," they said, and that's what it should all be about.

Homeward, we looked into the North West Counties Football League's annual extravaganza in Buxton, where the comedian reported the startling late news that Wayne Rooney had failed a drug test. "Calpol."

And finally...

The two founder members of the Football League who still play at their original grounds (Backtrack, June 11) are Burnley and Preston.

Among the award winners at the North West Counties League dinner, incidentally, were Glossop North End. Their present status is rather humbler, however: in Football League terms, what's Glossop's claim to fame?

Home again, the column is back where it belongs on Friday.

Published: 22/06/2004