Geoff Boycott's reputation is in tatters after the French judge upheld his conviction for assaulting Margaret Moore.

And the reputation of Yorkshire people isn't looking too good, either. As an ambassador for his county, Boycott has left a lot to be desired.

It can't have been easy for the judge in this case - or for any judges in any cases in which they find themselves confronted with two people contradicting each other's stories.

If they both produce convincing witnesses in support of their claims, who do you believe? It's obvious that one of the parties in the case is telling a load of porkies. But which one could it be? How do you decide?

Presumably you have to fall back on your instinct, on your own personal assessment of the characters of those involved. Judge Dominique Haumant-Daumas had to decide whether Miss Moore was a vindictive woman scorned and out for revenge, or whether Boycott was a bully who lashed out when provoked.

She obviously decided that when it came to characters, the one possessed by Geoff Boycott made him perfectly capable of giving his girlfriend a good thumping.

It's not hard to understand why she came to that conclusion. Boycott put on an appalling performance. He did himself no favours at all. All that bombast and bluster and outbursts of temper might have been reasonably well received in some parts of his home county.

Good old plain-speaking, straight-talking, single-minded Geoff, telling those Froggy lawyers to shut up. We Tykes don't put up with any of that foreign nonsense, do we? And fancy putting him up there in front of a woman judge! There was no way he could expect a fair hearing, was there?

That was the attitude Boycott typified throughout and after the trial. Ludicrously, he complained because the proceedings were conducted in French.

What did he expect in a French court? English, no doubt, with the odd "sitha" thrown in to make him feel even more at home. He angrily interrupted Margaret Moore's barrister.

It was not the conduct of a "perfect gentleman" - the image which, the judge said, he had tried to portray and which he had rounded up a collection of old friends to support. It was, in fact, the conduct of a bully who lashes out (albeit only verbally in court) when provoked.

If Geoff Boycott's intention was to present himself as the perfect gentleman, he managed instead to put himself across as a perfect prat.

He'll have to do a lot better in terms of self-control, when the case comes to appeal, if he's to stand any chance at all of restoring his reputation and, with it, something of the reputation of Yorkshire (the county, not the cricket club), let alone of proving his innocence.

Is Geri the right girl to be a role model?

Interesting, isn't it, how one-time Spice Girl Geri Halliwell keeps strengthening her image as Saint Geri and becoming a pillar of the Establishment.

Within weeks of her being made a goodwill ambassador to the United Nations, there are suggestions that she could be appointed an official Government role model for teenage girls.

It would apparently be her job to rescue them from the temptations of drink, drugs and the gang culture. For some reason, pregnancy isn't included, even though that seems to be one of the biggest pitfalls currently lying in wait for teenagers.

As Geri's job would be to show young women how they can make a success of their lives, I'd have thought it would be a good idea to have her telling them how much harder it would have been for her to become a success first as a Spice Girl and then as a saint if she'd been a single mother living in a council flat when she was 17.

Still, never mind. Good luck with the job, Geri, if it goes ahead. Teenagers need all the inspiration they can get.

But I do find it a little odd that a CV as a topless model, then a member of a Girl Power group and fondler of Royal buttocks, and now ex-member of a Girl Power group is considered to be enough to equip a young woman for such a responsible job. Still, she has style and confidence and the ability to re-invent herself, and that can take you far.

Despite that, though, interviews with young people in various newspapers this week suggested that Geri would not be their choice. One of them, asked to select a role model from the music scene, opted for Tina Turner - who is old enough to be Geri's mum and then some besides.

"She was really dominated by her husband," the girl was quoted as saying. "He beat her but she got out and she came back stronger. She's still going now and looks really good."

Whether Geri will still be strutting her stuff at 60 is anybody's guess.

My favourite quote was from another girl who admitted grudging admiration for Margaret Thatcher for being the UK's first female Prime Minister.

"But she didn't do anything for women when she got there," she grumbled. "She turned into a bloke."

That's rich, giving kids phones...

We live in strange times, do we not? This week a copy of Buttershaw Upper School's news bulletin the Weekly Reporter landed on my desk. It carried a request to parents to ensure that students don't bring mobile phones and pagers into schools. Apparently an increasing number of them are doing so.

"These items are costly and cause problems if they are lost or damaged," said the Weekly Reporter. "Additionally they cause considerable disruption when they are activated during the school day."

The question which springs most immediately to mind is: how on earth do these school boys and girls afford mobile phones?

I had to think long and hard before I splashed out on one, and I'm a working bloke of mature years who acquired one for two particular reasons: so my wife can call for help if the car breaks down when she's driving it, and so that I can call for help if I fall over when I'm out on one of my walks.

We pay £17.50 a month rental which includes £5-worth of calls (which we rarely use up). Yet I see teenagers all around the place - people who, unless they're lucky enough to have a part-time job, have no independent income whatsoever - talking away on their mobiles as if calls were free.

Who pays for them? Whose direct debit foots the monthly bill for all this small talk? Have they become the latest fashion accessory for the young, the latest fad for teenagers to nag and nag ("But I'm the only one who hasn't got one!") and sulk about until their parents give in and get them one?

Small wonder, isn't it, that a lot of young people grow up without any sense of the value of money or any awareness of the need to tailor your lifestyle to your means.

The boy racers police cannot ignore

It's encouraging that the Home Secretary has told the police to lay off soft targets such as motorists and concentrate their resources on catching serious criminals.

But I do hope they don't take it too seriously. In Bradford the other evening, I saw two motorists driving like boy racers. One roared past the Norfolk Gardens hotel in a battered Sierra, screamed round the roundabout by the library, then roared back along Hall Ings to disappear in the direction of Leeds Road.

The other, at the wheel of a packed car, took off from the traffic lights in Prince's Way by the Odeon, right in front of the Police HQ, and tore away up Godwin Street leaving a trail of sparks as the exhaust scraped on the road surface.

By all means lay off the motorists and concentrate on serious criminals, but don't go too soft on the motorists whose driving itself is criminal.

Enjoy Mike Priestley's Yorkshire Walks

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.