The White Swan at Pickering may be pricier than average but its Sunday lunch is second-to-none.

ON April 23, 2001, the Daily Telegraph reported atop its front page that an American businesswoman called Claudia Niera had got her Internet in a knot.

Having flown to China, the lady attempted to check in at the fully booked White Swan, Guangzhou - on the old Silk Road - only to discover that her reservation had mistakenly been made with the White Swan in Pickering, North Yorkshire.

She never did ride the White Swan at Pickering, and thereby missed a veritable treat.

Pickering has lots of pubs, including a Black Swan, though not necessarily birds of a feather. In Ryedale with the At Your Service column, we adjourned, birds and stones, for Sunday lunch.

A caveat - a qualification, anyway - should first be nailed to the mainmast, however.

There are some very good Sunday lunches which offer change from a fiver, and some exceedingly ordinary ones, too. It is possible to be mesmerised into supposing that anything over £7.50 is a Sabbath handbagging, a chariot and horses through the eighth commandment, and it's emphatically not so.

This one was £15.95 for three courses with coffee - dishes are also individually priced - and was terrific, Sunday best, an immaculate and almost unimpeachable class act.

Once a coaching inn, the Swan dates from the 16th century, its brochure boasting a "best available" team with a "can do" attitude.

What they can't do, like so many more, is spell. "Vichyssoise" may be understandable, "Caesar" - as in salad - isn't. Caesar was paddling around even before the Swan was.

The mistakes were also noted by a party from Tyneside, school inspectors or something, who subsequently (as folk will insist upon doing) fell to comparing surgical procedures recently undergone. We, in turn, were still dissecting the comedienne we'd heard at a dinner two nights earlier and it was hard to suppose which was the more gruesome.

The cosy little bar offers four real ales, including something from Cropton, the brew-pub in a village up the road. The handsome restaurant has flagged floors, room dividers of the sort much-loved by eavesdroppers and by amateur dramatic societies and a handsome fireplace at the far end.

This was a splendid July afternoon, however, and the White Swan the perfect summer place.

The only problem with summer days is that men will insist upon wearing shorts. Whilst the column would not wish for a return to the days when dining rooms insisted upon jacket and tie, it would be helpful if they showed who wore the trousers.

Nor does such shorts shrift suggest an element of envy. The bemoaned Betty swore that her son-in-law's legs were his two redeeming features, and that was even before the varicose vein job.

In an attempt to discover if it tasted better than it was spelt, we began with the vichyssoise - chilled leek and potato soup, basically. As the bairns might say, it was cool.

The Boss started with Galia melon with Yorkshire ham and fresh garden mint and thought the mint an original and refreshing touch.

Main courses included three roasts, mushroom risotto, smoked salmon with lots of fresh herbs and a dish of baked cod topped with Yorkshire rarebit and served with a crab and mustard sauce.

The Swan clearly relishes Yorkshire rarebit. There was a Yorkshire rarebit toastie - sandwiches are enormous things, served in the bar with salad - Yorkshire rarebit with the cod and as is the Tyke-it-or-leave-it savour, Yorkshire rarebit as a pudding.

That the cod was like we'd never tasted before it was probably because it's usually been next to 18 square inches of batter, but it was superb for all that. The sauce was perfectly pitched, the vegetables crisp, clean and colourful and though The Boss thought the roast potatoes incongruous, they were enjoyable in their incongruity.

Nor was there any piped music to inflict a sour note, though up on Smiddy Hill the Bilsdale Silver Band was doing the Floral Dance, a hugely jolly experience.

The Boss finished with a sharp summer pudding, we with a strikingly good strawberry and marscapone tart. The young waiting staff were admirable, the setting civilised, the restorative occasion damn-near idyllic. A Swan song at its sweetest.

* The White Swan Hotel, Market Place, Pickering, North Yorkshire (01751 472288.) No problems for the disabled; North Yorkshire Moors Railway on the doorstep.

W HILST there is this spelling bee in the bonnet, let us roll over to Coopers, a very pleasant surprise in Darlington.

It's in Post House Wynd and recently refurbished. The setting is convivial, the menu international, the black and white clad service exceptional.

Because most of the food is home-made and freshly prepared, there may also be slight delays. "We thank you," says the menu, "for your patients." (What's called bedside manner, no doubt).

Pastries range from Danish to Coopers fat rascals, cut-above sandwiches from hoi sin duck to bacon and brie - there's also a banana and marshmallow toastie - main courses might be parsnip, sweet potato and chestnut bake, Mediterranean risotto or cod and pancetta fishcakes. Little is more than a fiver. Lots of teas and coffees, too.

It's run by Martin and Tracey Elliott, he once familiar at the Hallgarth at Coatham Mundeville. Among the waiting staff is the delightful Carole Archer, who for 25 years had the Station in Hurworth Place - three miles away - with her husband Keith.

They retired to The Wayside in Hurworth, memorably naming their new house Fellby.

We had a bowl of fairly mild French onion soup with toasted brown bread and a vividly creamy salmon and dill lasagne. "We want it to be a bit more than just a coffee house," said Martin. With or without patients, they are clearly succeeding.

L AST week's piece on the Saltgrass in Deptford, Sunderland, suggested that the chips were vegetarian. Sunderland football fan Paul Dobson isn't so sure. "They're excellent, but we always thought they were cooked in rendered down buffalo," he says.

The same piece noted the sculpture across the River Wear - in front of the Stadium of Light - which appears, Sisyphus-like, to be of men forever rolling boulders up the hill.

Mrs E Sayers in Spennymoor thought there was a sporting connection - "boys retrieving footballs kicked out of the ground by the mighty Quinn" - until taking a pleasure boat ride up the river.

"It's miners bringing up coal from the bowels of the earth," she says. "Nothing to do with football at all."

...and finally, the bairns wondered if we knew what's purple and burns like mad.

The grape fire of London, of course.