Editor’s Pick of the Week: Dildos and anti-climaxes eclipse hard news

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You can spend hours slaving away on stories about new schools not being built, a funeral scam and delays to the Kex Gill bypass, but nothing beats a bit of sex.

This week’s revelation that Harrogate people buy the country’s largest dildos was easily our best read story. 

Most people took it as the gentle fun intended, and full marks to reader Alan Huddart for devising a picture that proudly incorporated the news on town signs, but one subscriber was so appalled he threatened to cancel his subscription.

The dildos, hopefully, did not provide the same anti-climax as the eclipse. I was driving around Pateley Bridge when it happened and probably wouldn’t have given it a second thought had everyone on the radio not been screaming that it was the most amazing thing ever. A kind of summer madness descended as half of Harrogate headed to Almscliffe Crag with their pinhole cameras and colanders to see it, causing chaos on North Rigton’s roads.

Those canny people at North Yorkshire Council have found a way of avoiding traffic problems on the new Kex Gill bypass: don’t open it!

The bypass, which was supposed to be ready last year but has since been delayed multiple times, is now expected to open next month, according to Tory highways chief Councillor Malcolm Taylor, who continues to trot out the line that the road is a “huge achievement by everyone involved in its delivery”.

Cllr Taylor found time in his busy schedule to visit the site this week, and talk to the BBC. Any chance he might reply to our requests for an update on when work will start on that other over-budget, delayed council scheme, the Harrogate Station Gateway? Or will we all wake up one morning and find the tempietto on Station Square has been bulldozed?

In Ripon, the battle to raise a Ford Fiesta from the River Ure gathered pace, amid anger that none of the authorities seem particularly fussed about a load of steel in a waterway.

On the cultural front, Harrogate hosts its biggest gig tonight (August 15) since Sir Elton John played in the town in 2012, when the Great Yorkshire Showground hosts Symphonic Ibiza, and a fab exhibition about flowers got underway at Harrogate’s RedHouse gallery. A few miles away in Knaresborough, Feva has begun with its usual diverse offerings, ranging from a town crier competition and a Queen tribute act to the free Party in the Park.

After some of the recent slightly salacious goings on, perhaps a more wholesome week of news awaits.