IN response to J Dalby's letter (April 30), I should like to make one or two points clear.

He wrote that I had a 'sly dig' at Bar 38 etc. Obviously, J Dalby did not understand the statement that I made. People come to the Frog Hall to play darts, dominoes, pool, enter quizzes, sing karaoke, play musical instruments and watch live bands perform.

Most of these facilities are not available in the type of bar to which I referred.

I totally agree that a wide choice of bars and pubs of different styles and themes is complimentary to the drinkers of York. I have 'done the Micklegate Run' many times and spent many an evening in the Coney Street area of York.

The point we are trying to make is that by taking away the Frog Hall you are taking away an option of where to spend your leisure time.

Secondly, if J Dalby would care to come down to the Frog Hall now, while I am still here, I would gladly serve him a pint of shandy, whatever his sexual orientation may be.

W Allan,

Landlord,

Frog Hall,

Layerthorpe, York.

...I AGREE with your correspondent J Dalby (April 30) that there can be few organisations more irritating in their self-righteousness than the Campaign For Real Ale. For years the media has given CAMRA free rein to pontificate on drinking matters, and promote themselves as the last bastions of a dying tradition. They are, in fact, boorish beer bores, never happier than when lamenting the current trends in drinking behaviour - real whine connoisseurs.

What a pity the voice of criticism had to come from readers' letters. Entirely predictable, because the Evening Press's beer articles, usually written by Chris Titley, always slavishly toe the CAMRA line.

It is perfectly proper for a local paper to throw its weight behind one side in a local issue, as it is for a columnist to express a personal opinion. But it is not acceptable for a local newspaper to be so uncritical that its one-sidedness borders on being propaganda, or for a writer to abrogate the journalistic responsibility for even-handedness.

Eric Ransome,

Dren Way,

Clifton Moor, York.

Updated: 10:25 Thursday, May 03, 2001