ONE of Spectator's colleagues, suffering from the inevitable winter blues, drew comfort from feeling like his screen hero Clint Eastwood during the early part of last week.

For days he had been struggling to shake off a cold which he firmly believed was caused by those miserable days of glowering skies and unrelenting rain.

Come Monday and Tuesday and there was truly a transformation in the North Yorkshire weather. Dry and cold, clear and crisp with strong sunshine, blue skies and only the remains of snow on the ground, he found that the change worked wonders for his congested inner tubes when he went out on jobs.

He was irresistibly reminded of similar conditions in one of his favourite Clint Eastwood films, the 1985 Pale Rider. The Western star and director transported cast and crew to an elevated American location, unidentified but strongly reminiscent of a snow-sprinkled Tan Hill area in winter, to bring to justice a corrupt sheriff and his enforcers, all shaggy beards and long coats concealing guns. The fresh, bracing climate in which it was made must have come as a health tonic after daily life in Los Angeles.

Spectator's colleague was mentally comparing the two scenarios last Tuesday when Coun Michael Heseltine, of Scorton, breezed into a centrally heated committee room at County Hall, Northallerton, to tell those present: "Beautiful morning. People are saying it's so cold, but this is just what you need in January. It would be lovely to be up in the Dales today."

Somehow there was nothing more to be said after that apposite observation. Spectator's colleague couldn't agree more, Michael. Perhaps there is something to be said for the vagaries of the English weather after all. Mr Eastwood, would you care to make a film in one of our snow-sprinkled national parks?

WI shocker

SO INGRAINED is the D&S culture in its staff that one of them, reading the Sunday papers, saw the headline "Tolkien's real message is pure WI". Goodness? Decency? Battling for right against wrong?

Halfway down the column and rather puzzled, a a second reading showed that it actually read "WWII" and Tolkien's hordes were being likened to the Nazi threat. Moral: read headlines more carefully.