Don't faint (or splutter coffee over your keyboard) but Blackpool has applied to join the Pyramids and the Taj Mahal as a World Heritage site. And why not I say. The application is based on providing 150 years of seaside fun and being the first mass marketed working-class holiday resort in the UK. Fingers crossed for a decision later in the year. It shouldn't be too difficult to get our hands on some of that £3bn that Heritage tourism brings to the NW of England. I mean, Paris is a World Heritage Site and their tower doesn't even have an exquisite ballroom (with huge organ) at it's base. None of the other sites offer donkey rides and Venice can't hold a candle up to Blackpool's illuminated tram gondolas. Support for this application shouldn't be too hard to come by as 700 billion* visitors have frolicked in the town over the last century and a half. Sigmund Freud visited Blackpool twice and on his second trip he sent a postcard home with a picture of the Tower on it (obviously a nod to his 'theories'). Bill Clinton left a glowing endorsement following his dirty weekend there with Kevin Spacey a few years ago - "I like Blackpool. The weather is great and the town's kinda....sleazy isnt it!" Don't forget that Harry Corbett bought the original Sooty at a shop on Blackpool's Golden Mile and that Sarah Bernhardt performed at the Winter Gardens 100 years ago in French! Of course, she was boo'd offstage which illustrates Blackpool's exacting entertainment standards. I shall wash our front step and windows next weekend when I'm there just in case the judges pop round.

*I made this number up. It's probably more.