Deep in the bowels of the internet, there's a subterranean culture of anonymous beings communicating round the clock - about us.

These unrestrained insomniacs are chatting away about anything and everything, unfettered by normal laws. They can say what they like about whom they like as the mood takes them.

Bob Hoskins said it was good to talk. So it is, but these people let their fingers do the talking.

I'm talking about chat rooms where those hooked up to the worldwide web can enter at any time, post their electronic messages on any of a million different topics, and wait for a reply - also posted publicly - from anyone who is either likeminded or is spoiling for a fight.

You can converse with anyone in the world within minutes, but it is the local discussions that have fired my imagination.

The Evening Press website, thisisyork, has a new forum section which is suddenly raging with controversy, insults, bitterness, nostalgia and, of course, sex.

The contributors are almost always anonymous, hiding behind pen names such as the flagellator Whipmawhopmagate, the sturdy character Legs-Of-Oak, or Tackleberry.

There's york8ball, Eight Miles High, and Bullhead. Then there is an expat living in Germany and a lady from the United States who clearly wish to talk over old times in the old city.

In their anonymity they can say what they wish without recrimination.

It's extremely entertaining and lots of it is very literate, as if they were angling for a column in the Evening Press. But there's a lot of anger and insult.

The editor and I get a bit of stick but my poor, esteemed colleague Chris Titley gets it in the neck time and again for his contributions in The Diary. He is flattered by the interest.

The discussion topics range from local news and sport, York City and the Knights, a night out in Selby (a fairly short forum) and an intriguing section on which are York's most useful shops. The little electrical retailer, E. Roy in Patrick Pool, tucked behind York Market, is a clear winner so far but accolades go to Duttons For Buttons and Petergate Fish Shop.

Without reservation the chatsters say which parts of a sex offender's anatomy they would remove with rusty blades and which councillor should be strung up in the middle of town.

While these mostly faceless characters rant on, there is a whole army of voyeurs - like me - who regularly peep in without making a contribution but are breathless for the next thrilling instalment.

It doesn't matter what time of day, the forum foragers are there. Some even post a message before lights out, just like Samuel Pepys with his famous "and so to bed."

Wait a minute, though, two statuesque ladies have entered the fray, deflecting the discussion away from Chris Titley by raising the ugly head of sex. At least they claim to be statuesque. One says she is 5ft 8in tall and likes to wear four-inch heels. And these girls are angling for a blind date foursome with two of the other regular contributors.

But then are they really women? Under the cloak of a nom de plume, they could just as well be chrome-domed lecturers or hairy-arsed welders.

That's the fun of the forum - anything goes. It's intriguing stuff limited only by the constraints of imagination. So far they have not got round to discussing tattooes - the subject that earned me death threats when I raised it in this column - the price of fish or whether it's fun to watch the types of people who come and go at the Ann Summers shop.

And while I'm on the subject of worldwide chat paranoia, what about the email I've just had from a colleague of decades ago which said: "I had to get in touch. I was in a restaurant in old Havana and I overheard the name Bill Hearld mentioned by a couple in the corner."

It turned out not to be my old mates Fidel and Che reminiscing about our good old days, in fact I've never been within a thousand miles of Cuba and I hate cigars.

It was a couple from York who just happened to be Evening Press readers who just happened to mention my name when another journalist was eavesdropping. Spooky, eh?

Updated: 08:53 Tuesday, May 10, 2005