STEPHEN LEWIS enjoys a quirky new book of wise Yorkshire sayings

SAY what you like about Yorkshire women, but they've got a great line in put-downs.

How about this, from Louise, a nurse in Hebden Bridge? "He's one of those blokes who's thankful for something to whine and moan about, because he'd have bugger all to say if things were always fine and dandy."

Or this, from Edna in West Yorkshire: "Butter wouldn't melt in her mouth, it would boil."

Or even this, from Wakefield waitress Gina: "I know a few two-faced people but I know more multi-faced people."

Yorkshire blokes, however, also have their own way with words – often quite a self-mocking one.

Barnsley firefighter Chris once tweeted this, for example: "If a man speaks in a forest and there is no woman there to hear... is he still wrong?"

David Hockney's not a man known for withholding his opinion. And sometimes very wise the artist can be too, like here: "Always live in the ugliest house on the street – then you don't have to look at it."

Felix, another artist, this time from Harrogate, surely takes the cake for pithy words of wisdom, however: "They say live every day as if it were your last? You'd be in a permanent state of panic!"

Too true, Felix...

All these, and many other little gems, come from a splendid new book, Yorkshire Wisdom.

It has been put together by Sheffield firefighter Joe Moorwood, who a year ago wrote The Yorkshire Meaning of Liff, a wonderful compilation of bogus definitions based on Yorkshire place names (example: "Blubberhouses - the holding area used by guests waiting to appear on the Jeremy Kyle show").

Joe, 36, was asked by his publisher to come up with an idea for a second book. He set to work racking his brains, and started compiling a list: no nonsense, flat caps, bitter, under-achieving football clubs, Yorkshire pudding, whippets. "I soon had a long list of clichés and not much else," he admits.

Eventually, he settled on what should have been blindingly obvious from the start: a book of Yorkshire Wisdom.

This being Joe, however, he hasn't settled for just quoting the words of the Yorkshire 'great and good'.

There are plenty of pithy sayings from such people – Hockney, Jarvis Cocker, Dame Judi Dench, Alan Bennett, the Brontes, and Brian Clough notable among them. But you also get to hear the voices of authentic, ordinary Yorkshire people, too: people like Ian the plumber, Elaine from Rotherham, database administrator Bob, and many many more.

What they reveal is that, yes, there is a good deal of wisdom as well as humour to be found in Yorkshire.

"If you give up anything, give up excuses. We're all addicted on some level," says Tom, a South Yorkshire sales rep.

"Only two things are certain in life: Death, and the outcome of an England match when it goes to penalties," adds Matt, from York, rather pessimistically.

My favourite, however, comes from seven-year-old Sheffield lad, Joe, speaking to his grandmother with a wonderful combination of sweetness and hard-nosed reality.

"Grandma," he says. "You're so lucky because you're so very old but you're not dead yet."

* Yorkshire Wisdom by Joe Moorwood is published by Great Northern, priced £5.99