THE village hall in Swainby, near Stokesley, was packed. Many there had already put pen to paper to protest about the issue that now brought them together - closure of the village post office.

Except for a PO man, all present, including a phalanx from the county and district councils and the North York Moors national park, agreed that the closure would be a Bad Thing.

No doubt it would. However... on the opposite side of the Moors, the shop and PO in the village of Coxwold had just been quietly closed because no one was willing to take them over.

Across in the Dales, similar indifference to the survival of a local post office is evident at Bainbridge, Wensleydale, whose sub-postmistress has resigned. Not one member of the public attended a parish council meeting that discussed the situation.

It's hard not to think that if the closures at Coxwold and Bainbridge were being imposed by the PO the story would be "packed village hall". I leave it to you to draw conclusions, perhaps aided by a final pointer from Rounton, near Northallerton.

Surprised that her part-time PO, which also provides newspapers, has escaped closure, the sub-postmistress says some of her customers spend only the price of their weekly paper.

None of this, of course, lessens the brass-necked hypocrisy of MPs who have endorsed the closure programme while campaigning for a local office.

Ludicrously, each one argues that the threatened POs in their constituency are exceptions to a wellfounded policy. Humbugs galore.

AMID fears of financial apocalypse, banks and buildings societies are addressing a matter of prime importance: directors' bonuses.

HBOS, for example, is halving the performance targets of its "long-term incentive plan". Perhaps there's a case, since the plan failed to trigger a bonus last year and, says the bank, probably won't do this year.

But at Bradford and Bingley, bonuses have helped double the remuneration of chief executive Steven Crawshaw - to £2.02m. And the maximum bonus directors can earn has now been raised from 120 per cent of salary to 200pc. Credit crunch notwithstanding, this should keep bonuses level pegging at least.

Breaking my self-imposed ban on listening to Humphrey Lyttelton's long-running The Best of Jazz Radio 2 programme in its graveyard slot, I tuned in for his farewell broadcast.

Book-ending his final selection with Count Basie and George Lewis (antique New Orleans) Humph showed where his preferences lie. Only two singers made his favoured ten - Billie Holiday and (happily still in the prime of life) Stacy Kent.

I've seen Stacy at numerous North-East venues, including Darlington Arts Centre, where, embarrassingly, she sang a request for me, secretly submitted by my wife. Most memorably, though, we saw her at the Friendship Rowing Club, Whitby, right by the harbour. The rapport between her, her saxophonist husband Jim Tomlinson and guitarist Colin Oxley, was magical, and the classic American songbook, Stacy's exclusive field until a recent unwise departure, has rarely been better served.

Humph emphasised he was bowing out by his own choice. Still, his programme had been sidelined.

Yet Ken Clarke, ex-Chancellor, currently has a prime-time Radio 4 slot for his Jazz Heroes.

Most are the kind of screeching, caterwauling player who gives jazz a bad name. Humph scarcely ever played John Coltrane. . .