I have no reason to dispute this figure.

After all, in his recent divorce hearing Mr McCartney was judged by Mr Justice Bennett to be "consistent, accurate and honest."

OK, so I know the former Mrs Macca might beg to differ but then it would appear these days that she's prepared to argue that black's white if the mood takes her.

So where is this taking us?

Well, let's rewind to the subject of holes.

We may know how many holes there are in Blackburn, Lancashire, but just stop for a minute and consider with me how many holes there are in West Yorkshire's road network.

I cannot be the only driver who is fed up to the back teeth with banging and bumping my way along our under maintained and badly managed public highways.

Let's take the road which runs past the end of the leafy cul-de-sac which is home to Normanton Towers, for example.

You might, on looking at it, adopt the mistaken belief that it has just been subjected to a mortar attack.

The "sleeping policemen" that the council put down a few years ago to slow traffic down are completely unnecessary – nobody in their right minds would consider driving at speed along that road unless they fancied running up a big garage bill for repairs.

The road is full of holes and ruts and, apart from the odd half-hearted attempt to patch it up with a bit of haphazardly slapped on tarmac every few years, Wakefield Council, if indeed it is their responsibility, seems happy to leave it at that.

I suppose the one good thing is that this seems to be putting off the young lunatics who used to bomb up and down, helmetless, on their ramshackle home-maintained motor bikes.

The only biker, I reckon, who would consider such a feat, at speed, would be Evel Knievel – and he's no longer around to try it.

But enough of the road outside our home.

This is a far more widespread problem.

We pay our road tax – or at least the right thinking majority of us do – and we stump up ever increasing amounts of fuel tax every time we visit the pumps.

But where does this money go?

It certainly doesn't seem to get spent on making our roads any better to drive on.

Maybe that's the hidden agenda.

Maybe they just want to let the roads get so bad that we'll all just give up driving in the end.

Who knows.

But I think we all know that the number of times our poor old cars bang and bump their way over what should be flat, smooth roads is increasing all the time.

As for those who prefer to spend the cash they collect from us motorists on things other than making the streets fit for us to drive along, I know what I'd like to do with them.

Yes, you're right. It would involve a very large hole in the road and dropping them into it.


New York here we come?


I'M not one for gambling or making rash predictions, but if you were to push me I'd go as far as suggesting that it won't be too long before we see flights from Leeds Bradford International Airport to the US.

And if you were to push me further, I'd hazard a guess that the destination in question could well be New York.

It may well be that I'm putting two and two together and making 25 but a number of factors have convinced me that such a possibility is now more of a probability.

When private equity firm Bridgepoint splashed out £145.5m to buy the airport last year it certainly didn't do so with the intention of maintaining the status quo.

Chief executive John Parkin, parachuted in from Newcastle airport by the new paymasters, admitted to me last year that longer-distance routes were being sought from Leeds, adding: "From an infrastructure point of view we can certainly operate New York and we can operate Dubai."

At this point, throw into the mix the words of Philip Meeson, boss of Leeds-based low cost airline Jet2.com, who said last summer that his company had ambitions to fly transatlantic services from Leeds Bradford in the future.

"We have aircraft that can fly over the Atlantic and we would like to. That is in our plans," he said then.

The feeling that a Leeds-to-US route is just around the corner is not all my own invention.

A quick glance through various industry related internet chat forums quickly reveals a great deal of background chatter in support of such a move.

Interestingly, Leeds Bradford announced a new senior management team this week – and it includes a chap called Tony Hallwood who, as aviation development director at Bristol Airport, secured flights to New York through operator Continental Airlines and managed to convince a host of other key operators to fly from Bristol.

He'll be banging the drum in similar fashion for Leeds Bradford when he takes up his new job on Monday and I think there'll be some significant announcements going forward.

A word of warning, however.

The above speculation is entirely my own and is not based on any "inside" information.

Added to that, my track record as a punter has included wild flights of fantasy in the past.

I did once write a story in this very newspaper announcing the fact that The Rolling Stones were going to play a concert at Roundhay Park.

I thought I had it from very reliable sources.

Unfortunately for me, two days later it was announced they were playing in Sheffield.

I do reckon, though, that this time I might be a little closer to the mark. We shall see.


A night to forget

A FRIEND, who shall remain nameless, had rather a good night of it on Saturday.

He'd been out with his mates and when I saw him on Sunday morning he was, by his own admission, distinctly the worse for wear.

He was in the doghouse with his better half as well for, despite having a house key, he had, in that way drunken men do, failed to make a successful solo entry into his home at 3am and woken everyone up instead.

Still, as I've said, he had quite a night of it.

So good, in fact, that when he got out his mobile phone to make a call on Sunday morning he realised that he'd actually brought his Sky TV remote control instead.