THE Yorkshire Dales Society, the august body which carefully pontificates and pronounces on all matters to do with the national park and the adjoining Nidderdale Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, celebrated its 30th anniversary this year and took the opportunity to carry out a subtle rebranding exercise.

Unfortunately, while the rebranding and the redesign of its quarterly review has been generally well received, one aspect – the new logo – was not.

The main symbol used by the society is the bird’s eye primrose, or primula farinosa, for the botanists among you, and, as part of the redesign, it was recreated by the designers hired by the society.

They based their work on a picture of the plant and that’s when the problem arose. The picture they worked from was of the four-petalled variety, not the more common five-petalled sort found in the soggier parts of the south-western areas of the national park.

Following the comments of two eminent botanists, the society has had to have the logo changed at an undisclosed cost.

Costly cleaning SPECTATOR was in Barcelona recently and a very fine city it is too. Notably pristine and tidy, the number of street cleaners and their high-tech equipment was remarkable. But watching a cleaner on the city’s Metro assiduously swabbing the concrete platform during the morning rush-hour, the thought did occur that perhaps this country, burdened as it is with massive debts, can’t really afford this level of civic tidiness.