Playing with words

Your efforts came in by email, on neatly-typed paper and on hand-written scraps in green ink!

Shakespeare and I have only two things in common - our Christian names and our hairstyle. His words made plays. I just play with words (according to my legion of critics).

So I let the editor decide if any of the offerings were worthy of my prized position in The Press every Tuesday. Alas, poor Yorkies, no one quite made the grade.

I disagreed. I thought there were some fair attempts and I'll get to them later.

What the challenge did do, however, was stimulate some reasonable debate, both in The Press's Readers' Letters pages and on our website. For once it was not only two-word invective.

I know I'll never please all the people all the time (ask my wife). Life's not like that. But at least it helps if people indulge in some constructive criticism.

Even Viper, a harsh critic previously, weighed in with an excellent argument, though he refused to take up the challenge. "I couldn't write an article for a paper/magazine for all the reasons Mr Hearld said. You're always going to get someone taking the pi** and poking holes in the subject," he wrote.

"Sorry, still never going to post my real name on the internet!"

One Sue Nelson posted her comment: "Criticism? Is that what you call it? Do you mean the mindless, vitriolic, bigoted, ill-informed, ill-educated and poisonous rubbish that all too often is seen on the websites masquerading as readers' comments? Such keyboard cowboys are wrecking it for those who do have legitimate comments and concerns.

"The amount of crass, malicious and often racist comments simply illustrates that the Jade Goody factor is alive and kicking viciously in York."

But I'm still waiting for Jack. He's the anonymous fellow who fires off one-worders like "piffle" and "crap" at my columns and those of my colleagues. I thought I'd won him over during the week when he sent an email saying: "Re: Your Come And Have A Go challenge. Will knock something up and mail it to you within the next day or two. Cheers, Jack."

Nothing has arrived to date, perhaps because I reminded him he had to put his real name to it - and I asked for his address and telephone number to check it out. Jack also posted a comment on the website saying he'd have a go. His post script was "putrefying cack."

I did receive some serious efforts at writing a column, though. Thanks to Joan Paley, who submitted an amusing, touching piece about how she suddenly became invisible to the masses when she tried collecting for charity on the streets of York.

Brian McCusker did well, too, though after a promising start with his column about the changing streets of York, got side-tracked on to several other topics.

Frances Rourke, of Haxby, typed on her "steam-driven" machine about religion and life without a computer.

Phil Shepherdson, of Woodthorpe, was not sure whether my offer to offload the column was serious or not (it was, honestly). But he submitted a piece anyway. It was an interesting yarn about rediscovering the city and its suburbs after an accident which meant he had to walk instead of drive.

As I said, I thought there were some pretty good stabs at column writing. So as it's not a good idea to argue with the editor (especially if I've not plied him with enough alcohol) I've come up with an ingenious plot. We're going to publish all these submitted columns in a "Guest Columnist" section on our website (Frances Rourke, you are going to have to get a computer to see it, I'm afraid).

If after reading them, anyone else wants to contribute a column, we'll consider adding it. Remember: Legal, decent and honest.

Thanks again to everyone who contributed - and helped make writing this week's column such a doddle.