"I've had a brainwave!" The Assistant Editor With Special Responsibility For Reviving Old Ideas beamed with satisfaction from behind his desk as The Scribbler and Thelma Gusset (pronounced "Gussay"), the T&A's fragrant women's editor, stood before him last Wednesday morning.

"So what's the big plan this time?" asked your columnist, trying hard (but failing) to hide his cynicism.

The other man looked at him coldly. "Although you tried hard, you failed to hide your cynicism, Scribbler," he said. "It won't go unnoted on your file." And he tapped the side of his nose.

"Anyway," he said, "today being Yorkshire Day, the idea is for the two of you to go to Bridlington, a grand old Yorkshire resort. Now that summer's arrived there'll be loads of Bradford people there. You, Scribbler, must come back with Yorkshire-type interviews about the happy time they're having. And Thelma, I want you to do a review of the sort of beach fashions the ladies are wearing and see how they've been influenced by holidays in Foreign Partsbikinis, topless, thongs, that sort of things." His eyes took on a faraway look.

"OK, go and get on with it," he said when he finally pulled himself out of his reverie. "I want you to get them to say they love the Yorkshire seaside. And take a photographer with you. You can both go with Bradley Crutchings in his car"

"It's years since we did anything like this," said seasoned campaigner Crutchings as his aged Reliant Robin laboured throatily up Garrowby Hill. "It used to be Morecambe we went to, when it was still Bradford-by-Sea. Every year the same, finding people from Bradford and taking their pictures."

"I came in at the end of that era," the Scribbler told Thelma. "The idea was that you went onto the beach, yelled ANYBODY HERE FROM BRATFUD?' and the stories came to you. We'll see if it works in Brid."

Crutchings refused to demean himself, him now being no mere snapper but a modern, digitalised image gatherer. The Scribbler had no such reservations. By lunchtime he had a notebook full of cliché quotes about the great time people were having and how it were smashing that that t'sun had come out at last and how Brid were t'best place in t'world if only tha could guarantee t'weather (nobody had actually spoken in such a broad accent, but the Scribbler knew what was expected of him).

Thelma had discovered that while lots of people wore bikinis and thongs (several of them ill-advisedly, in the Scribbler's opinion), no-one went topless.

Bradley, who had harvested images galore, put in a quick call on his mobile to the Ass Ed, fibbing to him that the job was only half done and they'd not be able to get away for a couple of hours.

"Well don't be too long," he was told. "We've left three pages for this."

And with that the three of them settled down in deckchairs on the beach with a hot dog and an ice cream.

It was the Scribbler who woke first, when the incoming tide reached halfway up his calf. He let out a girly scream, waking the other two. Bradley gave a cry of anguish. His multi-mega-pixel all-singing, all-dancing digital camera was under water. He picked it up, shook it, and switched it on.

"Nothing!" he groaned. "It's dead. The Ass Ed'll kill us."

"Not us. You!" said Thelma reaching into her bag. "But maybe I can save your life. I always carry this with me." She produced a battered, trusted Canon Sureshot 35mm camera. "Old technology to the rescue. You'll just have to take some more pictures. And Boots'll process them on their one-hour service before they close."

Crutchings grabbed it gratefully. As the other two returned the deckchairs, they looked back to see him wandering forlornly among the fast-dwindling teatime crowd crying "ANYBODY HERE FROM BRATFUD? Pleeeease!"