WASHINGTON — In the hush of his office, John Francis Seymour is working what he calls “the levers of power” like a 53-year-old kid running an imaginary earthmover.

His fists grip invisible levers, pushing them back and forth. He bounds forward in his leather chair. His voice rises until it cracks. All that is missing is the grind of an engine.

California’s appointed senator is explaining the thrill of maneuvering a bureaucracy, which excites this self-described real estate millionaire as much as buying and selling the California Dream.

“That is a fantastic challenge!” he crows. “I mean, you gotta be good to succeed in the private sector. But if you’re gonna succeed in getting things done in the public sector, you gotta be better than that! That’s the challenge!”

There is no doubt in Seymour’s mind that he is up to the challenge. Four months after he was wrenched from a Sierra vacation to assume the U.S. Senate seat vacated by Pete Wilson, the diminutive Republican is plying the elegant marble halls of the Capitol with an effusiveness unfettered by humility.

If most of Washington’s power is dispensed in cool and bloodless strokes, Seymour is playing the opposite game. His approach is a blend of gee-whiz and “let’s make a deal”–an assertive, bartering politics that spares no time on the notion that freshmen senators should be seen more than heard.

His is the ambition of a man who has chased success since childhood, sure enough of himself to have set his sights on high statewide office the night in 1978 that he was elected mayor of Anaheim.

His rapid rise in the Legislature in Sacramento left Seymour with the image of a politician who cut deals with relish–helping his supporters in the process–and switches alliances as the need arises. Now that the job of his dreams has been dropped into his lap, Seymour faces the grueling prospect of a contentious and costly campaign in 1992 to win it outright.

In the struggle, Seymour will be almost clinically dissected.

His friends say that he embraces challenges and is unafraid to admit when he is wrong. His foes call him self-serving and accuse him of selling out on principles. His friends say that he is stubborn and tenacious. His foes add that he is relentless and shrill.

Despite an admittedly stumbling start that has inspired his critics to doubt his chances next year, Seymour is brimming with confidence.

He dismisses his critics as jealous, scorning particularly those of his own party who disapprove of the deals he has spent a lifetime cutting. He says that he is a political pragmatist, a born optimist who believes that anybody, anywhere in California, can make it good, just like he did–that anyone can grasp the levers of power.

To most California voters, this man sitting in the U.S. Senate is unknown. Rarely, in his eight years in the California Senate, did Seymour surface amid the state’s telegenic political stars.

He came closest to the spotlight last year, when he fought unsuccessfully for the lieutenant governorship. That campaign broke into the news only occasionally and left Seymour with an image that dogs him to this day–that of a man who changed his tune on two defining issues, abortion rights and offshore oil drilling.

On both, he abandoned long-held conservative views, adopting positions that favored abortion rights and opposed offshore drilling. Because the changes came before an election year and put him in the mainstream of California voters, they inspired charges, which Seymour denies, that the moves were politically motivated.

Suspicion of his motives is a sore spot for the senator and those close to him. When asked what his father stands for, Seymour’s son Jeff, 24, launched into a defense of his integrity.

“People misunderstand who John Seymour is,” he said. They think indecisive, flip-flop. . . . Which just isn’t true. He’s been misunderstood.”

It is tough to see, on some levels, how Seymour could be misunderstood by anyone, for he can be unnervingly blunt.

If the subject is the influence of money on politics, he tells an audience that he qualifies “in that nasty group of millionaires.” Discussing negotiating techniques, he offers that he has angrily stomped out of rooms in attempts to intimidate opponents. His gestures are theatrical, his words expressed in exclamations.

But his statements and actions at times distort reality in a way that serves to protect the image of success Seymour has so carefully created.

Long after he was unceremoniously stripped of a party leadership position in 1987, he insisted that he had intended all along to quit. In a recent interview, he gruffly acknowledged that the job had been taken from him “before I was ready to go.”

He is, acquaintances say, sensitive to public knowledge that he smokes, a habit that he practices in private and has long tried to quit.

His campaign literature notes that Seymour has six children and that “he and his wife, Judy, have lived in Anaheim for more than 25 years.” They have–but not together. Until their divorce 19 years ago, Seymour lived there with his first wife, Fran, the mother of three of his children.

On occasion, Seymour’s directness appears to be an outgrowth of his political ambitions. In the throes of the 1990 lieutenant governor’s primary, he publicly asked to be allowed to watch the state’s planned execution of double murderer Robert Alton Harris. According to him, it had nothing to do with the publicity he would garner; rather, he argued that supporters of capital punishment should be prepared to see it. The request was turned down.

His open quest for success has sometimes put him in conflict with fellow politicians, particularly more conservative Republicans who see him as willing to sacrifice them to his upward climb. It has also earned him the friendship of Democrats, who appreciate his willingness to work with them on major issues.

“I would characterize John Seymour as a deal maker in both the good and bad sense of the word,” said state Sen. Bill Leonard (R-Big Bear), a conservative now second-in-command among GOP members in the upper house. “He wants to be productive. He thinks that people can sit and talk long enough about their cares and concerns that consensus can be built. . . . The bad sense is there’s a time to compromise and a time to hold fast.”

The art of the deal is bred into Seymour’s bones. From his youth, every job he has held has been in sales, following the steps of his father, his uncles and his grandfather. To politics, he brought tactics honed in real estate, selling legislation as he once sold homes and keeping in mind a real estate dictum: Make the sale, or there’s no commission.

“Never have been one to go around dying on my philosophical sword. That is not productive,” he said during a conversation in his office. “I have seen too many in politics go back home and beat their chests over how they fought the battle but they lost the war. And that’s not my idea of why people elected me.”

Seymour sells and compromises with a rare intensity, instilled by a family that valued tenacity.

“An ethic of work, an ethic of discipline, an ethic of positive thinking,” Seymour describes his youth. His father, Jack, and mother, Helen, who live in Garden Grove, moved from Seymour’s birthplace of Chicago to Toledo, Ohio, and then to Mt. Lebanon, Pa., by the time Seymour was in high school.

From the time he was a boy, he had set a goal–to make $1 million. It was his first definition of success.

Seymour recalls his father demanding, when he was merely 10 years old: “What are you going to do when you grow up? What are you going to do when you grow up? What are you going to be? What are you going to do?”

It left an impression.

“You can’t expect a kid to decide what their lifetime career is going to be,” Seymour said. “But I did know I wanted to go into business and I did know that I wanted to make a million. . . . So it was sort of in my head, you know, way back. It never left.”

Seymour says that he did become a millionaire–a claim that has not been independently verified–through his Anaheim-based business, which he started with his parents after a tour in the Marines and a business degree from UCLA. The Marines, he says, turned him around, transforming a poor student into a good one, proving to him that he could make it in the toughest of climates.

His four-year hitch began after his parents suggested that he was not ready for college, and his father, using some home-grown psychology, announced that the military would undoubtedly reject him. Seymour, 17, promptly signed for the maximum enlistment.

Asserting himself in the face of challenge is a Seymour theme, in part a defiant response to his 5-foot, 6-inch stature, those around him suggest.

“Short people fight harder,” his father said. “If you notice on TV . . . it’s usually the big, tall guy that’s successful. You’re always competing with someone tall. Which makes you fight harder.”

Seymour denied being teased because of his height, but sensitivity about it clearly left its mark. In the ninth grade, he was head and shoulders shorter than his teammates–”That was the end of my basketball career,” he said wryly. His football career had ended a year earlier.

“To be a Marine,” he said, his voice sarcastically deepening to mimic a military recruitment commercial, “You’ve got to be six feet tall and able to lift 450 pounds or whatever. And I knew I couldn’t do that.

“But what does that mean? In sports, I remember in high school, in order to compete I had to try harder. In college, in order to get good grades I had to study longer. It just took more hours for me. In order to succeed in business I had to work longer hours–and so it’s just sort of a natural habit. Anything I do, whether it’s recreational or work, it’s never at 80%. It’s always at 110.”

And 110% to win–or Seymour is tempted not to compete at all. “He doesn’t arm-wrestle me now, because he knows I’ll beat him,” said his son Jeff.

“He does not like to be defeated,” said Seymour’s mother, Helen. “He always loves to win.”

Politics did not present itself as a natural extension of Seymour’s drive for success. The way he explains it, he began volunteering for city commissions much in the same way he served on the boards of the Chamber of Commerce and YMCA. In 1974, he was elected to the City Council.

“At that particular point, I don’t believe I had ever contributed to somebody’s campaign, never worked in a campaign, was not active in the Republican Party,” he said.

That would soon change. In 1978, he spent more than $55,000 in an unopposed campaign for mayor, according to reports at the time. The same year, he helped negotiate the deal that brought the Los Angeles Rams to Anaheim. He also backed Wilson’s unsuccessful run for governor, which would both whet Seymour’s appetite for statewide politics and tighten links between the two that would pay off handsomely 13 years later.

By 1982, aided by strong name identification in central Orange County and by his fund raising–he outspent all competitors combined by a 40-1 margin–Seymour was elected to the state Senate. From the outset in Sacramento, it was clear that Seymour was not wasting time.

“He never went through the usual freshman period of being seen and not heard. And not everybody liked that,” said Robert Naylor, a Seymour supporter who was GOP Assembly leader when Seymour came to Sacramento. “He had the reputation of being a little abrasive because he was not willing to sit back.”

What ranks in many minds as a defining moment came little more than a year after Seymour joined the Senate, when conservatives led by state SenL. Richardson labored to oust Republican leader William Campbell.

“He was perceived as part of the Campbell group, but I needed the votes to put together the overthrow,” said Richardson, now a consultant to U.S. Rep. William E. Dannemeyer of Fullerton, who is opposing Seymour in his bid for a first elected term. “The only way to do it was to promise him the caucus chairmanship.”

The caucus chair is the second-ranking party leadership position and a heady role for a freshman. The political plum dangled before him, Seymour switched his vote and moved with the majority to strip Campbell of his power.

Shrugging off fellow legislators’ anger, Seymour said that he was simply doing business the way it is done in Sacramento. Whatever his motives, the move made it easier years later for Seymour to be accused of expediency when he switched to popular positions on abortion rights and offshore oil drilling.

Seymour said he decided to favor abortion rights and oppose coastal drilling only after the circumstances surrounding both issues had changed. His abortion switch followed the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1989 decision allowing states to regulate the practice. His decision that same year on drilling came after oil spills despoiled Alaska’s Prince William Sound and Huntington Beach.

His positions changed, Seymour said, after deliberative discussions with representatives from both sides–a contention supported by friends who consulted with him.

“Times change, people change, conditions change. And thank God they do,” Seymour said. “Changing the mind in a changing environment–I don’t know that there’s anything wrong with that.”

Whatever its repercussions among Republicans, Seymour’s flexibility made him a player in Sacramento. Early on, he was part of the team that framed SB 813, the landmark education reform bill of 1983. Democrat Gary K. Hart of Santa Barbara, a Senate powerhouse on education matters, said he found Seymour “easy to work with–and more than anything else, a good negotiator.”

Seymour’s support for increased money for teachers and his interest in special education and vocational education were not common among Republicans at the time. He also took on, early in his tenure, other issues that won notice on both sides of the aisle.

As early as 1983, he pressed for new programs in child care, ranging from cash payments to poor parents who could not take advantage of child-care tax credits to placing pressure on the insurance industry to offer liability policies to providers of child care.

“It’s not the kind of legislation that you would normally expect from a Republican male,” said Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Los Angeles), a former assemblywoman who engaged in some heated battles with Seymour on other issues.

“That stands out in my mind–and maybe one or two other issues–that seemed nonpartisan, almost like he was just truly interested in the issue. . . . He worked on them and he seemed sincere about them.”

But as often, Seymour aimed his attention at traditional Republican constituencies. Seymour, whose campaigns have been heavily financed by the real estate industry, pressed bills that would benefit developers and brokers, and was a particularly fierce opponent of rent control.

That Seymour trait–helping industries that helped finance his campaigns–recurred throughout his career. Seymour, in an interview, said he would only support a bill out of genuine personal belief, not because it could help his benefactors.

For eight years in Sacramento, Seymour rolled up reelection victories and built an impressive statewide fund-raising network. Still, few saw him as U.S. Senate material.

“Look, John’s where he is today because of one individual’s ability to put him there,” said Steven A. Merksamer, former chief of staff to Gov. George Deukmejian and a Seymour friend. “It could have just as easily been someone else. Politics is so much of a crapshoot.”

For months, Wilson pondered whom to appoint to the U.S. Senate. He interviewed several contenders and watched as others took themselves out of consideration. He and Seymour never discussed the Senate seat, Wilson said, not even in a 90-minute conversation held 10 days before Wilson offered Seymour the job.

Wilson said he based his decision on their similar views on issues, and on Seymour’s personal characteristics.

“He is honest, he is smart, he is tough-minded and he is tenacious,” Wilson said.

But none of those qualities fully prepared Seymour for his early days in office, he conceded recently as he strode through the Capitol.

“I felt like I was standing in the surf of a tidal wave, one wave after the other just crashing over my head and hardly being able to keep up, keep from drowning in all of it,” he said.

Sometimes it showed. More than a month after he was appointed, Seymour met with former President Ronald Reagan. Publicized by Seymour’s staff, the meeting was an opportunity for the senator to court, by extension, the conservatives who idolize Reagan and disdain Seymour.

After the meeting, Seymour bounded out of the elevator at Reagan’s Century City offices. Reagan, he said, deserved the credit for the military buildup that propelled the Persian Gulf effort–and in return, he suggested, the Strategic Defense Initiative that Reagan championed should be approved by Congress.

But the Bush Administration had significantly scaled back this so-called “Star Wars” initiative. Which version did he support–Bush’s or Reagan’s, Seymour was asked?

“Well, to be honest . . . I haven’t had the opportunity to review the details of it,” he said.

Occasionally, he still stumbles. Seymour’s bill to help the state deal with the drought would allow the secretary of the Interior to defer payments incurred by users of the federal water system. No interest would be charged to agricultural users, but others would have to pay interest at current rates.

Asked why he would hold farmers and urban areas to different standards, Seymour said he was “not aware” that that distinction was in the bill.

“It doesn’t sound logical to me,” he said. “Maybe I ought to check on that.”

As he has acclimated, Seymour has displayed increasing ease.

At a recent Capitol luncheon with other senators and reporters, he analyzed a host of measures, including the Endangered Species Act and the Social Security payroll tax. Often, he said, he had not come to a decision on particular issues, but he did grasp the arguments on both sides.

Seymour’s friends and political allies say that there can be no underestimating the overwhelming transition he has had to make into federal office, without benefit of a lengthy campaign to hone his positions and reflexes.

“Most people, when they arrive in the Senate, do so after seeking the post. He did not seek it. It was thrust upon him, without warning, and suddenly he was literally within a matter of days cast into an arena without having had any preparation,” Wilson said.

“He’d never dealt with SDI, never dealt in defense or foreign policy matters. These are new and they are complex, and John is not a hip-shooter,” the governor said.

Seymour is a product of the California where all seemed possible, where a young Marine could come West, set down roots and get rich. His view of the state virtually glows with possibilities. It is not a place of traffic jams and smog and urban chaos. Asked his vision of California, he cited “California Gold,” a John Jakes novel about the post-Gold Rush frontier.

“My dream, my vision for California, is the California Dream,” he said. “It is an environment in which the individual has the opportunity to become everything they’ve ever dreamed of–if they’re willing to try hard and if society is willing to give them half a chance. That’s the California Dream–it’s the epitome of the American Dream.”

His friends and political allies say that Seymour has consciously tried to broaden himself beyond the stereotype of Orange County Republicans, a mostly white, mostly male, mostly wealthy class. Seymour said he feels “very close” to the state’s poor and its minority populations. He points to his support of child care, vocational education and drug treatment.

Republican state Sen. Becky Morgan of Los Altos Hills, who served with Seymour on the substance abuse committee Seymour headed, said its hearings helped the senator understand poverty.

“While he does not live the life of the poor,” she said, “he has empathy.”

But Seymour has not always reinforced that image. He has long targeted welfare as a way to cut back government spending–most notably at February’s state GOP convention in Sacramento, where he came under criticism for appearing to equate welfare with a luxury item.

“Sometimes you lose your job,” he said. “Maybe you’ve got to sell your boat to keep your family going.”

Today, Seymour argues that he was unfairly criticized, and draws a distinction between yachts and mere boats.

“I wasn’t speaking of yacht owners,” he added. “ Boat owners! There’s hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions (of boats) in California.”

But Seymour’s son Jeff hints at a more personal reason for Seymour’s attitude toward welfare–and by extension, the poor.

“I think what he has said is–there are enough jobs out there. People just don’t want to take the jobs that are out there,” he said. “He can feel for the little man and the nobody–he was at one time a nobody. . . . He feels that anyone can do it.”

In 13 months, Seymour faces his first race for the U.S. Senate in the Republican primary. If he survives that, the general election will follow five months later.

At this early date, Seymour is feeling pressure from two quarters. On his right, Dannemeyer has already christened Seymour with a pejorative–”Senator Flip-Flop”–because of Seymour’s changed positions. From his left, Seymour is being challenged by Democrat Dianne Feinstein, who closely trailed Wilson in 1990’s tight race for governor. More combatants may follow.

What Seymour can accomplish before Election Day will be minimal, officials in Washington suggest, but he should be able to begin sketching his image for Californians.

Already, he has pushed for compromise on long-fought legislation to preserve millions of acres of California desert, which was ditched last year in a dispute between its sponsor, Sen. Alan Cranston (D-Calif.), and then-Sen. Wilson.

“I think he looks on this as a chance to show that he can accomplish,” Cranston said.

Moderate moves on some social issues, along with conservative positions on crime and foreign policy, seem likely to achieve the same sort of image for Seymour that Wilson enjoyed through two Senate elections.

“I have to say, I think he will be more formidable than some have estimated he might be,” said U.S. Rep. Vic Fazio (D-Sacramento). “He is not going to be, however, at any time, unbeatable. He is not a guy with a great deal of visibility even now.”

Seymour is trying to change that, traveling to California virtually every weekend, visiting a military base here, a schoolyard there, talking to farmers about the drought, and to business leaders about the recession.

Sometimes, in the subtle sweetness of a spring afternoon in the capital, the sun glinting off the Washington Monument down the Mall, he floats on the “constant high” the Senate has provided him.

“I tell you, I love it!” he said. “Love every minute of it! All of it!”

BASEBALL

CITY SECTION

Chavez 15, Grant 1

Discovery 20, Central City Value 19

Fremont 10, Harbor Teacher 0

LA Jordan 15, Washington Prep 0

Lakeview Charter 17, Valor Academy 3

Maywood Academy 18, Elizabeth 1

Maywood CES 7, Marquez 1

Port of Los Angeles 14, King/Drew 8

Roybal 9, Hollywood 1

San Fernando 3, North Hollywood 2

Sun Valley Magnet 11, Valley Oaks CES

Sun Valley Poly 5, Verdugo Hills 2

Sylmar 11, Granada Hills Kennedy 3

Torres 6, Sotomayor 4

Triumph Charter 18, Bert Corona 3

Troy 15, Fulton 0

Van Nuys 14, Arleta 4

Vaughn 13, VAAS 2

SOUTHERN SECTION

AAE 11, Silver Valley 1

Alta Loma 5, Los Altos 3

Animo Leadership 6, HMSA 2

Arrowhead Christian 8, Ontario Christian 4

Bishop Diego 10, Villanova Prep 2

Buena 5, Saugus 4

Cajon 2, Citrus Valley 1

California 18, Schurr 2

Canyon Country Canyon 11, Burbank Providence 2

Corona 6, Norco 4

Corona Santiago 7, Corona Centennial 0

Damien 6, Chino Hills 3

Dunn 6, Santa Clara 0

Eastvale Roosevelt 10, Riverside King 7

Etiwanda 3, Rancho Cucamonga 1

Faith Baptist 9, Valley Torah 3

Gabrielino 3, Arroyo 1

Liberty 5, Cornerstone Christian 4

Mary Star of the Sea 6, South El Monte 5

Mountain View 15, El Monte 4

Nuview Bridge 10, SJDLCS 1

Oak Park 12, Fillmore 11

Pacific 13, Entrepreneur 0

Palm Desert 19, Xavier Prep 1

Rancho Mirage 9, Palm Springs 1

Redlands East Valley 6, Beaumont 3

San Dimas 5, Colony 1

San Gorgonio 8, Rim of the World 7

San Jacinto Valley Academy 13, San Jacinto Leadership 0

St. Bonaventure 2, Foothill Tech 1

Troy 15, Fulton 0

Upland 4, Los Osos 3

Western Christian 4, Jurupa Valley 3

Whittier 5, Hoover 3

Yucaipa 9, Redlands 1

YULA 10, de Toledo 6

INTERSECTIONAL

Cathedral 17, Stella Charter 1

Loma Linda Academy 17, Public Safety Academy 4

SOFTBALL

CITY SECTION

Animo Venice 15, Stella 2

Animo Watts 21, AHSA 6

Carson 24, Gardena 0

Discovery 27, Valor Academy 16

Dorsey 9, Fremont 5

East Valley 18, Grant 8

Garfield 6, South East 1

LA Jordan 12, Washington Prep 9

Legacy 15, Bell 0

Mendez 19, Belmont 2

Middle College 20, LAAAE 6

Narbonne 7, Rancho Dominguez 4

Panorama 24, Vaughn 24

San Pedro 8, Wilmington Banning 2

SOCES 20, VAAS 0

Triumph Charter 15, Lakeview Charter 5

USC-MAE 21, Animo Bunche 4

West Adams 16, Manual Arts 2

SOUTHERN SECTION

Arroyo 13, Gabrielino 0

Bishop Amat 8, Lakewood St. Joseph 6

Bloomington 16, Rim of the World 6

Castaic 15, Golden Valley 5

Duarte 12, Nogales 2

Jurupa Valley 14, RSCSM 4

La Quinta 6, Shadow Hills 2

La Salle 8, Crescenta Valley 3

Long Beach Jordan 21, Century 12

Ocean View 16, Estancia 0

Orange Vista 5, Arlington 3

Rancho Mirage 16, Palm Springs 1

Rosary 14, Sonora 12

Riverside North 6, Rancho Verde 4

Sacred Heart of Jesus 15, Pomona Catholic 0

San Marino 14, South Pasadena 6

Santa Paula 24, Nordhoff 2

Segerstrom 26, St. Pius X-St. Matthias 0

Sunny Hills 17, Oxford Academy 0

INTERSECTIONAL

El Camino Real 10, Calabasas 2

LA University 15, Long Beach Cabrillo 4

Laton 17, Valley Christian Academy 16

Sherman Oaks Notre Dame 11, Birmingham 2

The Mexican military released footage of an operation resulting in the capture of Audias Flores, a high-ranking commander in the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG). Flores was considered a potential successor to former cartel leader El Mencho, who was killed in February.

CHRISTINE McGUINNESS has revealed she is closer than ever to Paddy – even though their marriage ended four years ago.

In fact, the former model claims Paddy has even checked out the women she is dating, branding herself a “five star lesbian” in her most revealing interview to date.

Mum-of-three Christine, 38, who finalised her divorce from ex-Top Gear host Paddy, 52, in 2024, spoke of her decision to date men and women last year.

And, with the pair still living under the same roof as their three children in leafy Cheshire while they wait for it to sell, she says Paddy is fully supportive of her choice,

But now she is looking to the future — and plans to have a woman by her side as a life partner.

“I would love to have a wife one day,” Christine explains on new podcast It Started With A Kiss out today.

NO KIDDING

How celeb mums including MIC star cash in on their kids BEFORE they’re born

DOUBLE LIFE

Love Island star’s abusive ex ‘on run for attempted MURDER’ before his death

“Not like a legalised marriage, but like a blessing, a celebration of love.

“I’ve been there, done it, spent an absolute fortune and probably aged about ten years throughout it all.

“I don’t want to do that again.

“I would love to just be saying, ‘This is my wife.’”

Christine’s unusual set-up with Paddy means the pair juggle dating outside of the home.

“I love a double life,” Christine added.

“It’s ideal for me because I don’t want to bring somebody into my personal life too quick.

“I like the separate life.

“My family, my kids, my home is up there, then I come to London, step off that train and I can work, have fun, sleep in and I don’t need to worry about everything.”

It is the freedom of Christine’s new lifestyle, and the support of Paddy, which she says has allowed her to start again.

Although her openness with Paddy may shock some.

On the podcast Christine is asked: “Are you showing him pictures like, ‘Oh look at her, she’s fit. What do you think of her?’

And Christine tells the hosts Amy Spalding and Gareth Valentino: “There’s times where we have, yeah.”

For now Christine insists she is still dipping her toes into the dating pond and has yet to properly settle down.

“I’m just seeing how things go, just figuring it out.

“I’m trying to not plan too far ahead,” she explains.

“I’ve dabbled in people who are in the industry.

“I’ve been trying to think what really works better.

“I quite like that people that aren’t in it are usually a bit more . . .  they’re happy to just take it slow and they understand that I don’t want to just put you on Instagram the next day because of my work and everything.

“So that’s usually quite nice.

“But I tend to just meet people out and about, at events and stuff.

“I’m quite lucky that I mix in circles with a lot of gay, bi, pansexuals.

“I’ve never gone too serious with anybody in the industry, it’s always been more of a fun fling type thing.

“I’ve spent time with a lot of women in sport.

“I’ve spent time with women in music.

“I’ve spent time with actresses.

“With me, I can panic and I can pause if I think of the future too much.

“So I’m just trying to enjoy the now.

“Enjoy the moment.”

Christine chose to speak about wanting to date men and women after signing up to E4 TV series Celebs Go Dating in April last year.

It came after Christine and Paddy announced their separation in 2022.

At the time, the pair released the news in a joint statement and said: “A while ago we took the difficult decision to separate but our main focus as always is to continue loving and supporting our children.

“This was not an easy decision to make but we’re moving forward as the best parents we can be for our three beautiful children.

“We’ll always be a loving family, we still have a great relationship and still live happily in our family home together.”

The couple first crossed paths in 2007 at the Liverpool International Tennis Tournament when Christine was working as a model for boutique shop Cricket.

Months later they started dating and in June 2011 they married at Thornton Manor in Cheshire.

After being married for just over a decade, Christine said it was her late diagnosis with autism that gave her the courage to admit their marriage was not working.

She documented her diagnosis in a BBC documentary, Unmasking My Autism, in 2023 and said at the time: “Starting life on my own is scary, I struggle making decisions.

“I was only 19 when I met Patrick and for the last 15 years my role has been wife and mum.

“When I was diagnosed, I set out on a journey to find out who I was.

“I have separated from my husband in the process, I’m shedding my old identity and finding out who I am.

“I’ve only ever had this one man in my life, I don’t know what it is like to date.

“I can’t imagine being single or with another man.

“But I’m going into a new chapter on my own which is petrifying for someone who doesn’t like change.”

Two years later, she started to date both men and women and now says she has found her type.

“I’m a sucker for a stud and a masc,” Christine explained, suggesting she prefers more masculine women.

“I swear they come for me.

“This one date, well, it wasn’t a date, it was when I did the whole hotel thing and not the whole date thing.

“Because I didn’t want to ever just meet someone and it just be sex, but then kind of did find myself in a place in life where I was like, ‘Do you know what? I actually do just want to do that.’

“I’ve been married, I’ve had situationships, I was single, I was celibate for six months, and with all of that, I just had a moment of, ‘Do you know what, I wouldn’t mind just meeting up with someone and just seeing how it goes.’

“So I got to this hotel and I’m thinking, ‘This is just sex, it’s fine.’

“She was very, very beautiful, like that perfect, pretty, handsome, like masc stud type woman, really gorgeous, dark skin, like she had everything.”

Christine adds: “We’re just chatting away and she said that she was a Gold Star Lesbian.

“So I’m like, love that, love a Gold Star Lesbian.

“I went, ‘Stop . . .  because you might be a Gold Star Lesbian, but I’m a Five Star Lesbian.’”

Of her first kiss, Christine is just as open, saying: “The first time I kissed a woman, again after my husband and no disrespect to him, it had been a while.

“I remember that first kiss just being so soft and so nice and so feminine.

“I knew I always felt it and it wasn’t something that I was worried about never doing again because when I married, I married for life, genuinely.

“But I was really happy that I was doing it again.

“And I’m really happy that now I am dating women again and that I am having fun.

“I’ve got some of the best stories, some of the wildest memories, like the craziest experiences that only I and one other person would ever know.”

During the episode of It Started With A Kiss, Christine said she has drawn the line at introducing a partner to her children early.

Joking that women in same sex relationships move forward quicker when it comes to love, Christine says: “It’s two weeks and you’re moving in, you’ve got a cat and a flat . . .

“For us two, if we ever end up in something where it progresses and it turns into a relationship and then they want to live with you or whatever.

“I don’t want any more children because a lot of the women that I meet usually don’t have children and they want children, whereas I’ve had them.

“So that’s something that I try to be honest about at the beginning to anybody that I’m even talking to.”

Of settling down for good, Christine says neither she or Paddy are in a rush.

She adds: “We know it’s going to take a while because we’ve got children.

“Going back home, we both kind of get that reality check of we can’t just go and move in with somebody just yet.

“But we’ll talk, we’ll have a laugh, we don’t go into too much detail about anything.”

• Christine’s full interview on It Started With A Kiss is available on YouTube and all podcast platforms now

RICHMOND, Va. — Virginia Supreme Court justices on Monday questioned whether the state’s Democrat-led legislature complied with constitutional requirements when it sent a congressional redistricting plan to voters, in a case that could help decide the balance of power in the U.S. House.

The new districts, which could net Democrats four additional seats, won narrow voter approval last week. But a Republican legal challenge contends the General Assembly violated procedural rules by placing the constitutional amendment before voters to authorize the mid-decade redistricting. If the court agrees that lawmakers broke the rules, it could invalidate the amendment and render last week’s statewide vote meaningless.

The Virginia court proceedings mark the latest twist in a national redistricting battle between Republicans and Democrats seeking an advantage in a November midterm election that will determine whether Republicans maintain their narrow majority in the U.S. House.

President Trump kicked off a tit-for-tat round of gerrymandering last summer when he urged Texas Republicans to redraw districts to their favor in an attempt to win several additional House seats. That set off a chain reaction of similar moves in other states, leading to the voter approval last week of Virginia’s new map.

Next up is Florida, where Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis has included congressional redistricting on the agenda for a special session of the GOP-controlled Legislature beginning Tuesday.

Virginia arguments focus on what counts as an `election’

During Monday’s arguments, the Virginia Supreme Court focused on whether the new congressional districts should be invalidated because of the process used by lawmakers. The justices issued no immediate ruling.

Because the state’s redistricting commission was established by a voter-approved constitutional amendment, lawmakers had to propose an amendment to redraw the districts. That required approval of a resolution in separate legislative sessions, with a state election sandwiched in between, to place the amendment on the ballot.

The legislature’s first vote occurred in October — while early voting was underway but before it concluded on the day of the general election. Judicial questioning focused on whether that was too late, because early voting already had begun.

Attorney Matthew Seligman, who defended the legislature, argued that the “election” should be defined narrowly to mean the Tuesday of the general election. In that case, the legislature’s first vote on the redistricting amendment occurred before the election and was constitutional, he told judges.

But an attorney arguing for the plaintiffs, Thomas McCarthy, said “election” means the entire period during which people can cast ballots, which lasts several weeks in Virginia. If that’s the case, then the legislature’s initial endorsement of the redistricting amendment came too late to comply with the state constitution, he said.

Attorneys argue over the rights of voters

The purpose of Virginia’s two-step amendment process, with an intervening election, is so voters can know whether legislative candidates support or oppose a proposed constitutional amendment, McCarthy said.

He pointed to the case of Democratic voter Camilla Simon, one of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit alongside Republican state lawmakers, who cast an early vote last fall for Democratic Del. Rodney Willett. After she voted, Willett sponsored the Democratic redistricting amendment, and Simon wished she could have undone her vote, McCarthy said.

“None of these voters had any idea this was coming, and that’s not how this process is supposed to work,” McCarthy told the justices.

Those defending the Democratic redistricting plan also contend that the voters’ will should be respected.

The people voted to ratify the constitutional amendment, “and the challengers are asking to overturn that democratic result,” Seligman told reporters after the arguments.

Nationwide redistricting battle has no clear winner so far

So far, the two major parties have battled to a near draw in the states that have redrawn their congressional maps for this year’s midterms.

Republicans think they could win up to nine more seats under revised districts in Texas, Missouri, North Carolina and Ohio. Democrats think they could win as many as 10 additional seats under new districts in California, Utah and Virginia. But legal challenges remain in both Virginia and Missouri.

Virginia currently is represented in the U.S. House by six Democrats and five Republicans who were elected from districts imposed by a court after a bipartisan redistricting commission failed to agree on a map after the 2020 census. The new districts, which narrowly won voter approval on April 21, could give Democrats an improved chance to win 10 districts.

Some candidates already have begun campaigning based on the new districts in advance of the state’s Aug. 4 primary election.

More court battles could remain in Virginia

In January, a judge in rural Tazewell County, in southwestern Virginia, ruled that lawmakers failed to follow their own rules for adding the redistricting amendment to a special session last fall. Circuit Judge Jack Hurley Jr. also ruled that lawmakers failed to initially approve the amendment before the public began voting in last year’s general election and that the state had failed to publish the amendment three months before the election, as required by law. As a result, he said, the amendment is invalid and void.

The Virginia Supreme Court placed Hurley’s order on hold and allowed the redistricting vote to proceed before hearing arguments on the case.

During Monday’s arguments, justices also raised questions about the ability of lawmakers to expand the agenda for their special session and whether the three-month public notice requirement was important enough to thwart a voter-approved amendment.

Republicans have filed at least two additional legal challenges, which also are winding their way through the courts.

Robertson and Lieb write for the Associated Press. Lieb reported from Jefferson City, Mo. AP writers Allen G. Breed in Richmond and Nicholas Riccardi in Denver contributed to this report.

Dodgers closer Edwin Díaz said Monday that he’s known about the five loose bodies in his elbow — which were removed in an operation Wednesday — since he was drafted in 2012.

Last week in Colorado was the first time it affected him. He gave up three runs without recording an out on April 19. And the next day, he told the team his arm felt “weird.”

On Monday, he described the feeling as “tired and tight.”

Before his arm started giving him problems, Díaz was unavailable for four straight games because of fatigue in his knee. His legs felt “good” in Colorado, Díaz said.

Results from an MRI scan suggested that the loose bodies in his elbow were to blame for the discomfort in his arm. Díaz said he was confident the operation would resolve the problem.

“The tightness and the soreness was where the loose body was,” Díaz said. “So that’s why we ended up getting the surgery because it was in the same spot I’ve always had them.”

He’s hoping to return after the All-Star break. So, the Dodgers will have to come up with an alternate ninth-inning plan for the next two-and-a-half months.

“That sucks to miss the first half with the team,” Díaz said. “I’m new with this team. But that’s something I can’t control. Everyone here is supporting me. All of my teammates they’re supporting me, they’re happy that I’m doing way better than before. They just can’t wait to see me on the mound in the second half.

“They say, take your time, we need you in October. But I want to come back as soon as possible and help this team to win games.”

Díaz is still waiting to have his stitches removed, but he expects to start playing catch in a couple weeks.

“My arm is feeling way better than it did on Sunday,” he said. “That’s a good sign. Right now, just a couple days after surgery, I can move my arm really good. My range of motion is coming back to normal. So that’s something I like. And just get stronger and be ready for the second half.”

April 27 (UPI) — An industry group that represents budget airlines has reached out to the Department of Transportation about creating a $2.5 billion pool to help keep them in business as the price of jet fuel remains high.

The Association of Value Airlines — which represents Allegiant Air, Avelo Air, Frontier Airlines, Spirit Airlines and Sun Country — said Monday that it has approached the Trump administration about the pool because an 88% increase in the cost of jet fuel is endangering their ability to do business, The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times reported.

Spirit Airlines itself has been negotiating a possible $500 million bailout from the federal government after warning that it is running out of cash that is separate from the AVA request.

Airlines worldwide started raising fees in March after the United States and Israel started the war in Iran, which led the country to blockade the Strait of Hormuz in response and has caused the price of gas and oil to increase significantly.

Fuel expenses account for about 30% of airline operating costs and even a sustained $1 increase in per barrel of oil can increase those costs by millions of dollars.

“Since February, jet fuel prices have increased by nearly 100% and are placing significant financial pressure on value airlines,” the industry group said in a statement.

It also said that the “liquidity pool” would be used “exclusively” to offset fuel costs that are expected to stay above $4 per gallon in North America for the rest of the year.

The AVA also has approached Congress about waiting a 7.5% excise tax and $5.30 per-segment fee that airlines pay the government for each passenger they transport for the same reason it asked the administration for the emergency pool.

President Donald Trump acknowledged last week that Spirit has been in conversation with his administration for a bailout as it has struggled to exit its second bankruptcy filing in a year.

Trump said that the discussions are ongoing, but that he would like to help keep Spirit in business because competition is good for consumers and he is concerned about job losses should it go out of business.

A booking trick can help ensure you are covered as many UK airlines face chance of disruption or cancellation this summer due to Middle East conflict impacting air travel

Due to ongoing conflict in the Middle East, Europe is facing a fuel crisis, causing concern about the likelihood of summer holidays going ahead.

The International Energy Agency has warned that supply issues could kick in in the next five to six weeks with the owner of British Airways commenting that flight tickets may increase in line with skyrocketing fuel costs.

The fuel crisis comes as the Strait of Hormuz has been blocked throughout the conflict, meaning energy is not able to be distributed at a normal rate.

The strait is the shipping passage for 20 per cent of the world’s fuel and has seen the costs of petrol rapidly increase since the outbreak of war.

For travel, this has caused disruption to many flights, with prices changing and traveller’s fearing cancellations.

According to EU energy commissioner Dan Jorgensen it’s “very likely that many people’s holidays will be affected, either by flight cancellations or very, very expensive tickets”.

If your flight is cancelled it is covered by UK law if it was set to depart or arrive at a UK airport on a UK or EU airline, or arrive at an EU airport on a UK or EU airline.

Popular UK airlines Jet2, Ryanair and easyJet are all covered by this rule.

If you are covered and your flight is cancelled, the airline you are travelling with must provide you with a refund or book you on an alternative flight.

The Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) says that you can get all of your money back for your tickets or for the parts you haven’t used.

With return flights, if outward travel is cancelled, you are entitled to a full refund.

The CAA added: “If you are a transfer passenger and you have already completed part of your journey, you are also entitled to a flight back to your original departure point when your connecting flight is cancelled and you decide not to continue your journey.”

Experts gave a £100 flight booking warning, advising to pay via credit card as this gives you Section 75 protection under the Consumer Credit Act, legally protecting you for purchases costing between £100 and £30,000.

The situation is currently so unpredictable that travellers should be aware of all the cover they are entitled to, as flights may be cut at any point.

Global aviation expert Geoffrey Thomas told the Daily Mail that flights could be cut at the last minute.

Thomas highlighted that Europe is particularly impacted, especially when it comes to long haul travel.

“Europe is more exposed at the moment than Asia is, which means trips from Australia are obviously a challenge.

“For airlines like Qantas, who operate the Perth to London service, at the moment, they have to fly additional distance to refuel in Singapore.

“Any airline that operates through the Middle East is also exposed if the conflict widens or the Iranians decide to resume random drone attacks.”

Amid the conflict, travel experts reiterated the importance of travel insurance.

“To not travel with insurance these days is pretty crazy,” Dr David Beirman told the Daily Mail.

“Most policies will cover cancellation or major changes to an itinerary from a number of causes.

“If your airline is being difficult about a changed flight, and they’re only prepared to give you a credit or something like that, the travel insurance company will usually come to the party and help financially.”

BBC Morning Live’s legal expert, Gary Rycroft said he thought he was suffering from asthma

A BBC star has explained how he was horrified to be ‘hours’ from a potentially lethal heart attack after undergoing a surgical procedure. BBC Morning Live’s legal expert, Gary Rycroft, told hosts Rick Edwards and Helen Skelton that he had been suffering from a few chest pains, but put it down to just getting older.

He decided to do the Couch to 5k challenge – and said he had never felt better in many ways. He said: “I think it’s typical of dare I say men of my age, where we ignore things. We think we’re getting old. I didn’t wear glasses till I was 50. My hearing really is not as good as it used to be.

“So when I started to get chest pains walking my dog, I live on top of a hill, so I’m up and down the hill two or three times a day walking to work, walking my dog, and I’d say every fortnight or so I’d get a chest pain and it would it would pass really quickly. So I didn’t really think anything of it. I put it to the back of my mind as people tend to do.”

Mr Rycroft said whatever people do they should get any symptoms checked out. He only got it checked out because he was doing the Couch to 5k and thought he’d like to hear from a doctor.

He said: “I actually did feel a lot better and I lost quite a bit of weight. So, I was feeling really good, but I’d started this diagnostic journey with my GP. So, I’d had an ECG. They checked out the electrics of the heart. That was fine. And then in January, I went to have a cardiac CT scan, which is kind of an X-ray of the heart to check out the structure and check out the plumbing.

“And when I got the result of that a couple of weeks later, it was really quite bad news which floored me, which was actually the main artery to your heart is pretty much blocked. And of course, you start googling and it was called the left anterior descending artery. Not very helpfully on the internet, it’s often referred to as the widow maker. So, suddenly I was in quite a dark place to be honest, and it was quite stressful for my partner Jenny and the kids.”

It was when he had the straightforward operation to put in a stent that the full extent became clear. Gary said: “The next thing to do is called an invasive angiogram, where they put a little tube up your wrist, and they fit what’s called a stent.

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“So, I had that procedure. It was all done in about 40 minutes. It was pretty remarkable. And you know, thank goodness for medical science. When I came round from that, the cardiologist was kind of, you know, you’re a very lucky person, because you were probably hours or days from having a massive potentially fatal heart attack. So, that was that was quite a lot to take in.“

Doctor Xand van Tulleken said: “If you’ve had this procedure I mean they are safe. They are very common and Gary’s risk you know it is traumatic having these things. You get much closer to death than you would want to. But if you can manage your blood pressure, your cholesterol, quit smoking, manage your risk factors, your GP will help you with all of that afterwards, you you you know Gary’s life expectancy is pretty much the same as it was before the procedure, which is fantastic. That’s the reason to go and have it done.

Gary added: “This is a silent killer for people in their 50s and 60s and people will have lost people. And I wanted to talk about this because I wanted to say to people, don’t wait as long as I did. I had a very close shave. Don’t wait as long as I did. And if you’re living with someone who’s concerned, encourage them to have that conversation. If something’s not quite right, it’s well worth checking it out.”

At the peak of the crackdown, carloads of masked immigration officers were a common sight in the streets of Minneapolis, while thousands of people were being arrested every week in Texas, Florida and California.

“Turn and burn,” top Border Patrol commander Gregory Bovino called the strategy, with relentless displays of force and teams of agents descending on restaurant kitchens, bus stops and Home Depot parking lots.

In December, arrests by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents peaked at nearly 40,000 nationwide and were nearly as high the next month, according to data provided to UC Berkeley’s Deportation Data Project and analyzed by the Associated Press.

In late January, the killings in Minneapolis of two American citizens by immigration officers and growing concerns over the government’s heavy-handed tactics led to a shake-up of top immigration officials. In the weeks that followed, ICE arrests across the country dropped on average by nearly 12%.

Polling has found the public felt the immigration enforcement operation in Minnesota went too far, a factor that may have contributed to the abrupt firing of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem in early March.

The numbers don’t follow the same pattern everywhere

Bovino, who swaggered through raid scenes in tactical gear and was the public face of the Trump administration crackdown, was pushed aside following the killings in Minneapolis of Renee Good and Alex Pretti. Border advisor Tom Homan was then sent to the Twin Cities to chart a new course for immigration enforcement, and he announced the drawdown of immigration agents in the state on Feb. 4.

An AP analysis of ICE arrest records show the department averaged 7,369 weekly arrests nationwide in the five weeks after Homan’s drawdown announcement, , the most recent period for which data is available, down from 8,347 per week in the previous five weeks. Those arrest numbers were still higher on average than during much of the first year of President Trump’s second term, and were dramatically higher than during the Biden administration.

The numbers were not, however, uniform across the country.

ICE arrests rose significantly in Kentucky, Indiana, North Carolina and Florida during those five weeks, in some cases hitting their highest weekly count since the start of Trump’s second term.. In Kentucky alone, weekly arrests more than doubled, reaching 86 by early March.

Those increases were offset by steep drops in a handful of large states, including Minnesota and Texas.

Many arrested were not Trump’s ‘worst of the worst’

The Trump administration insists it is targeting the most vicious criminals living illegally in the U.S., and the president has referred to them as “ the worst of the worst.”

In some cases the description is accurate, but the reality is complicated.

Many of the toughest criminals taken into ICE custody were already in prison, but many others who were arrested have no criminal history.

Nationally, some 46% of the people ICE arrested in the five weeks before Feb. 4 had no criminal charges or convictions, dropping to 41% in the five weeks that followed.

Yet that’s still above the 35% weekly average for the time since Trump returned to office. And in a number of states, even after Feb. 4, the share of noncriminals being arrested went up, not down.

Has there been a change in approach?

Across the country, thousands of federal court filings offer an imperfect window into how the Trump administration’s deportation tactics remain in high gear, even if activity has waned.

Like the 21-year-old Honduran man with no criminal record who has filed a petition for release after being arrested Feb. 22 in a suburban San Diego traffic stop. The father of three U.S. citizen children — ages 5, 3 and 10 months — had been under ICE surveillance, the petition says, before officers in tactical gear pulled him over.

Or the 33-year-old Venezuelan woman, a well-known south Texas doctor who worked in a region designated as medically underserved, who was arrested earlier this month with her 5-year-old daughter, a U.S. citizen, on her way to her husband’s asylum hearing.

She was arrested, officials said, for overstaying her visa.

Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, a senior fellow with the research and advocacy group the American Immigration Council, says he sees signs of change in lower arrest and detention numbers but warns it’s too early to know if those shifts are permanent.

“The Trump administration says: ‘We’re not slowing down,’ ‘Nothing has changed,’” in immigration enforcement, he said. “But it’s very clear that they have pulled back from some of the tactics of Operation Metro Surge,” the crackdown that swept Minneapolis.

Kessler and Sullivan write for the Associated Press. Kessler reported from Washington and Sullivan from Minneapolis. AP reporters Elliot Spagat in San Diego and Gisela Salomon in Miami contributed to this report.

Former world champion Neil Robertson has called for a controversial chalk used by Ronnie O’Sullivan to be banned, saying most other players “hate it” and that it “makes an absolute mess of the table”.

O’Sullivan, 50, is one of only a handful of players on the World Snooker Tour (WST) to still use the traditional Triangle Chalk.

Critics say it causes more poor contacts, leading to ‘kicks’ when the cue ball hits the object ball, often resulting in players running out of position or missing pots.

Almost all players use Taom Chalk, which reduces kicks and leaves no marks on the table.

There are currently no restrictions in place on what chalks can be used in WST events so O’Sullivan, who lost a thrilling last-16 tie 13-12 to John Higgins earlier on Monday, has not done anything against the sport’s rules.

However, there was a noticeable kick in the deciding frame when the Scot was taking a shot on a red.

He could be heard saying “oh my god” when the cue ball did not run through as expected. That red was potted, but, out of position, Higgins then missed the following black, although it did not prove crucial as he sealed an incredible victory, having trailed 8-3 and 9-4.

Robertson won 13-7 in his last-16 match against Chris Wakelin to set up a meeting with Higgins, with the Australian pleased to avoid O’Sullivan – and his chalk.

“I would prefer to play John so I don’t have to contend with the chalk that Ronnie uses, which should be banned from the game,” Robertson told BBC Four.

“I don’t know how you are allowed to even use it.”

Coordinated attacks by armed groups and Tuareg rebels in Mali is threatening the ruling junta, driven Russian mercenaries from key northern areas, and left the defence minister dead. Al Jazeera’s Nada Qaddourah explains how the groups appear to be joining forces.

One travel influencer has suggested three places in the UK which people should consider visiting instead of more popular destinations. “It’s not about skipping any of them… just travelling a little differently,” she said

The UK is full of incredible places to visit, from historic sites dating back thousands of years, to bustling towns and cities. Whether you want to spend some time in the countryside or on a beach, or if shopping in high-end boutiques and eating in Michelin-star restaurants is more your speed, we’ve got it all.

There are plenty of places in the UK which are famous across the world as destinations for tourists, from the ancient mystery of Stonehenge and the historic streets of Edinburgh, to the spectacular countryside of the Cotswolds and the iconic Big Ben. But what if you want something a bit more off the beaten path?

One travel influencer has suggested three places in the UK which people should consider visiting instead of the more popular destinations. Apryl, who has 47,000 followers on Instagram and regularly shares tips for travel in the UK, shared the advice on social media. Writing in the first slide of the post, Apryl said: “Three places everyone plans in England but I wouldn’t… where I’d go instead.”

Writing in the caption, she said: “Everyone goes to the icons, and you probably should too. But if you’ve already done them, or want something a little less crowded, here’s what I’d add to your England itinerary.” She added: “It’s not about skipping any of them… just travelling a little differently.”

Ely instead of Oxford

Firstly, she said people planning to visit Oxford should instead consider the Cambridgeshire city of Ely. She said: “Fewer crowds, cathedral views, medieval streets.”

Nestled in the Cambridgeshire countryside, the city’s most iconic feature is the spectacular Ely Cathedral, with its incredible octagonal tower. Tourism site Visit Ely describes it as “the destination city with something for everyone”.

It said: “From the monastic buildings of the city past, the vibrant food scene and the scenic majesty of the Riverside, Ely packs a great deal into a pocket city. With Ely Cathedral, independent shops around the city centre, places to relax and replenish both body and mind, there has never been a better time to enjoy this quintessentially English jewel in the heart of East Cambridgeshire. “

Hastings Old Town instead of Brighton Pier

Next, Apryl said people planning a visit to Brighton Pier should instead consider travelling 36 miles east to Hastings Old Town in East Sussex. Apryl said: “Fishing huts, antique shops, and a slower seaside.”

Hastings Old Town is famous for its 19th-century Net Shops, tall, black wooden sheds originally built to provide weatherproof storage for fishing gear. Today the huts are Grade II-listed, while one serves as a free museum.

The area itself comprises the part of the town of Hastings which existed before the 19th century. Today it is the easternmost valley of the current town.

Chester instead of York

Apryl’s final tip was directed at people planning a trip to the historic city of York. She said people should instead visit Chester in Cheshire. She said: “Timbered streets, Roman walls, and fewer crowds.”

Steeped in history, Chester has the most complete city walls and the largest Roman Amphitheatre in the UK, as well as a 10th century cathedral. Chester Zoo is also home to 35,000 animals, and is reportedly the most-visited attraction in the UK outside London.

Visit Cheshire said: “Visit Chester, for its bewitching beauty and unique atmosphere which make it one of Britain’s most popular places for an unforgettable short break. The ancient city is a breath-taking experience with each chapter of Chester’s history etched into the very fabric of the city. Walk where Roman Legionnaires marched to war, Viking raiders wreaked havoc and Norman invaders conquered Anglo Saxons.”

Concluding, Apryl clarified she wasn’t suggesting people shouldn’t visit Oxford, Brighton, or York, but that they should consider other lesser-known destinations too. “Don’t cancel your trip… just try these too,” she said.