POLITICALLY aware, as ever, the column three weeks ago held forth on the impending Middleton Tyas by-election. The Liberal insisted on campaigning for "bus shelter's" and for misuse of the apostrophe was automatically disqualified; the Conservative needed a haircut, the Independent would align himself - he said - to the Independent Group on Richmondshire District Council.

How, we asked, could anyone vote for an oxymoron?

An oxymoron, literally translated from the Greek as "pointed foolishness", is a figure of speech which combines two apparently contradictory terms - like bitter sweet, perhaps, or (as Juliet observed) sweet sorrow.

Lynn de Prator, an American living in Darlington, has now provided from the Internet a list of her homeland's "top 35" oxymorons, of which "state worker" can only loaf its way in at number 35.

Some imply matters of opinion, like airline food, Amtrak schedule, rap music or government organisation. Others are less arguable - small crowd, pretty ugly, business ethics.

Act naturally and passive aggression are particular favourites.

Alone among that contrapuntal collection, America's number one oxymoron may fall foul of the British libel laws and must therefore remain under voluntary arrest.

Though Gadfly voted for the long-haired one, the intending Independent groupie will henceforth represent Middleton Tyas and North Cowton, and good luck to him. In the working of local government, however, "Independent group" may be the truest falsehood of all.

RELIGIOUS tolerance" tries hard to be another. Last Wednesday evening in Richmond Town Hall - a building far more attractive within than without - Gadfly was the first of four after-dinner speakers at a Lenten exercise organised by local churches working together.

Echoing John the Baptist, the collective theme was to be A Voice in the Wilderness. Since subsequent speakers were to include the celebrated Prof Ian Fells from Newcastle University; the scripture about latchet and sandal sprang irresistibly to mind.

There was a danger, we told them, that - again like the Greeks - the churches tended to blame the messenger simply for bringing the news. Whereas the Greeks might prescribe a hemlock shandy, church folk simply cancelled the paper.

An example might be the present row in Ireland - an almighty row, it might almost be said - over whether Roman Catholics should be allowed to take communion in the Church of Ireland, as Anglican bishops wish.

Two thousand years, and that's as far as we've got?

A prominent Richmond Catholic became very upset, suggested that the column had been grossly offensive and that there was a link (though it was hard to understand what he meant) between that and speculation over the cause of the Great Heck rail disaster.

The zealot proved impossible to placate. With luck he'll do no more than cancel the paper.

TOFT Hill Methodist church, meanwhile, held its final services at the weekend.

Toft Hill's on the A68 above West Auckland, one of those places where only a fully licensed local might know where Toft Hill begins and Etherley ends, or what precisely divides High and Low Etherley.

Beyond argument, at any rate, Etherley and Toft Hill Methodist churches stand within a quarter of a mile of one another. One was Wesleyan Methodist, the other Primitive Methodist and though the strands were nationally united in 1932, around Toft Hill they chose to stay 400 yards apart.

Almost within earshot of one another, the two churches have continued that way for 73 years - the Toft Hill chapel ever more outgrowing its needs.

Though the closure may owe more to financial necessity alongside the A68 than light on the road to Damascus, it may at last mark union. There could be Methodism in the madness after all.

TEMPTED to Toft Hill, this Saturday's At Your Service column will instead report upon the humanist funeral in Durham of our old friend Don Wilcock, the "incorrigible wit and raconteur" whose passing we noted last week.

Last Wednesday's column also reported the death of Countess Tisa von der Schulenberg, who grew up in Prussia, finally became a nun but found artistic inspiration in Spennymoor. The story, by happy coincidence, is taken up by Arnold Hadwin.

Arnold, Spennymoor lad and very proud of it, was our first editor, in 1965. "Her real life story makes most epic film plots look like a Noddy tale," he suggests. Their link was the Spennymoor Settlement, the "pitman's academy." It was in Spennymoor, Tisa would say, that the door to England slowly opened.

Sister Paula, as she became, stayed with the Hadwins in Bradford when she re-visited Britain in 1975. "At all times she carried a little bag, containing a crust of bread, on a string around her neck," Arnold recalls. "She would never go hungry."

It was also in Spennymoor, he says, that the Countess realised that an artist had to live among the working class and that she discovered British radio. "This is the BBC Home Service... it was like meeting a lover."

IT was whilst in Arnold Hadwin's journalistic junior class that we met Peter Eddy, then a detective sergeant in Spennymoor and a good and tolerant friend to wet-eared reporters. He rose to become head of Durham County CID, continued to drink in the Eldon Arms at Ferryhill Station and to be every bit as affable and approachable. Peter, who has died at 72, was what old-fashioned policemen called a good thief-taker. He would recognise that there was no higher compliment.

WE'D also suggested a couple of weeks back that tourist information at Darlington railway station was so whiskery that Information Darlington might be renamed Out Of Date Information Darlington.

A Gadspy now draws attention to bus stand T on Tubwell Row where the board advises the departure point for Service X24 to Stockton and Hartlepool.

A pity, therefore, that the last X24 left two months ago.

Still, the patient passenger can always pass the time with the timetable for services to Scarborough and Flamingoland - none of which have run since September last year - or, best of all, details of the Moorsbus to Osmotherley.

It's to be hoped that he also reads the small print: Valid until September 1999.

...and finally, a note of sympathy from Kevin O'Beirne in Sunderland following our comments (February 21) on the pedestrian perils of Washington. Kevin's a necessary walker, too, reckons the secret's not to follow the road signs - "they're to send cars around the long way" - and to take bearings from Penshaw Monument.

"Washington New Town was planned around the time of the Cold War and I've often wondered whether the general layout and quaint name/number sign posting wasn't some cunning civil defence strategy.

"When the Soviet hordes came marching into Washington, perhaps having confused it with Washington DC, they'd find themselves going round and round and winding up, as you did, on unexpected industrial estates. Enough to make anyone pack up and go home." So, for now, must we. Clearly misunderstood, we return seven days hence.