No, the venue for this pantomime, which we shall call Night-mayor On Bridge Street, is the town hall. There are a few villains, several stooges, but sadly no Prince Charming.

It is the tale of a deputy mayor who, having been convicted of fiddling housing benefit, is now in line to be the city's first citizen.

Watch out for Baron Shutup, who tries to gag the good fairy Telegraph, who simply wants to tell the townsfolk what's going on so they can make their minds up whether the new deputy mayor is a fit person to don the robes and chain.

Okay, that's enough whimsy – this farce is serious business.

We all make mistakes and in my book everybody deserves a second chance.

I have no problem with Cllr Gul Nawaz, who was imprisoned for benefit fraud, serving on the council. He has not sought to hide the past and has admitted his mistakes.

However, the role of mayor is a special one. It is an honour and key to it is promoting the city in a good light.

A previous conviction for this type of offence should preclude him from being mayor. A reformed drink-driver should be allowed back behind the wheel but not if it's steering a school bus.

Yet why did the leader of the council, Cllr John Peach, attempt to gag The Evening Telegraph (you can boo now, children)?

Even if The ET had caved in, the news of Cllr Nawaz's appointment would have been public knowledge 24 hours later.

Afterwards, Cllr Peach was asked if he understood why there were reservations about the appointment. He said: "I can understand those feelings. but there is a lot more to this story than meets the eye''.

Well, Mr Peach, how about sharing this information with the council taxpayers of the city?

A panto is not complete without some put-upon wretch who is booted from pillar to post. Step forward little Johnny Opposition. I say Opposition, but only in the loosest possible sense of the word (a bit like West Ham at Old Trafford).

Since the all-powerful Tory group broke with the practice of alternating mayors from the main political parties, the Opposition has whinged and whined endlessly.

Yes, they voted against the nomination but they hardly savaged the Tories over the choice of Cllr Nawaz.

Despite all this, I hope our new mayor, Cllr Pat Nash, has an enjoyable year and indeed, now he's there, I hope Cllr Nawaz does too.

The joys of gardening
My Special Friend has raised an eyebrow or two at my newfound enthusiasm for gardening, falling as it does outside my holy trinity of interests (which, I might add, I share with half the population) of birds, booze and footie or in my case women, wine and the whites of Leeds United.

I'm sure she's rigged up a CCTV camera in the shed. Not that she's the suspicious type.

In truth, I'm never going to be the next Alan Titchmarsh and a nice bit of grass, a few chunky vegetables and a sprinkling of pretty colours is the extent of my horticultural ambitions.

That was until I saw this picture of a flowery young lady at the Chelsea Flower Show.

I thought the only people who went were retired bank managers and coachloads of WI members.

Anyway, I've now ordered my ticket for next year – talk about the darling buds of May.

Mystery animal is driving me mad
Talking of gardens . . . I've got a problem at the moment which is driving me to distraction.

Sometime in the dead of night something has decided to use my lawn as its own personal toilet.

The usual suspect, of course, would be one of those stupid cat creatures, but bizarrely I've never seen a moggy within several hundred yards of my house, let alone in my back garden.

In any case, the deposit looks a little large for a domestic cat – and I don't think the beast of Castor/Bretton would make a special trip to my backyard.

It could be a dog, but my garden is pretty well enclosed and in any case I'm sure I would have seen it sometime.

I can only imagine it might be an urban fox.

Does anybody know if this is likely? And, more to the point, how can I dissuade it without having to stay up all night with a shotgun on my lap?