THE B&B trade at the Beggars' Arms is beginning to slacken off at this time of the year although, in all truth, with just three letting

bedrooms, it is never all that busy.

It is even less busy this weekend after the latest altercation over the North-South divide.

The Innkeeper was none too pleased, in the beginning at least, for Bow Bells and his girl friend have been regular visitors for the past two or three years, taking a last week for walking and touring before they go back to one of those new-fangled universities in London that used to be the local tech.

These two are not students but lecturers, in subjects so arcane that no-one in the Dale really understands what they do. We don't understand much of what they say, either, 'cos they speak such broad cockney, hence the name: the fella not only sounds like Janet Street-Porter but he actually looks like her too (she, on the other hand, more closely resembles Bob Hoskins)

Now that's all as it may be for, to be fair, they can't understand a lot of what we say either and I have no complaint about that: regional accents are one of the great attractions of this nation of ours and people who try to suppress them to talk semi-posh Oxford are letting their roots down (and not doing Oxford much good, either).

However, their last weekend coincided with yet another national outcry over the Millennium Dome, which is now so boring that I wouldn't mention it all if it weren't for the fact that Bow Bells decided to extol its virtues after several pints of Ram's Blood (abv:5.5%) last Saturday night.

He didn't know, of course, that the National Lunacy had refused to buy a wooden toilet seat in the ladies at the Institute, nor would it replace the goalposts that mysteriously disappeared from The Meadow before last year's annual Beggarsdale V Crookedale rugby match.

So when he began to praise the fact that the Dome had done much to regenerate an area of London just down the road from where he lives, he was at first met with a curtain of silence. Being a Southerner, and not used to good ale, he was too far gone to notice the chill than had descended.

"An' what abaht regenerating the hill farms on yon fells," said Owd Tom, nodding towards the window.

"And what about that stupid bridge across the Thames that will be closed for two years," said Cousin Kate.

"And that great bleeping' ferris wheel that didn't work for the Millennium?" said Ben the Bucket.

"For all that money, we could have built 30 hospitals," said Teacher Tess, surprising us all as she usually goes against village opinion as a matter of course.

She did, however, add: "We could set up thousands of skill training courses for single mothers..."

"Time, gentlemen please," cried the Innkeeper, for the first time in living memory. "Think it's time for bed..."

They checked out the following day, BB and his Bob Hoskins look-alike, vowing never to return. The Innkeeper has now got over his initial loss. " It would appear that the truth still hurts," he declared philosophically the following day.

l The Curmudgeon is a satirical column based on a fictitious

character in a mythical village.