YORK'S nightlife is rubbish. Who says so? We have no idea. The person, or possibly people, behind a website pithily but witlessly titled: www.yorkiscrap.org are too timid to be named.

They are probably ashamed to reveal themselves as the authors of an Internet page littered with mistakes.

Perhaps a shaky grasp of spelling is to be expected from dance music enthusiasts whose heroes have names like Onephatdeeva and Ruff Endz.

Nevertheless, it is a shame that they are nameless. Their campaign for better and later dance venues would be more valid if they were prepared to come off the dance floor and be counted. Anonymity does not make you enigmatic subversives, guys, but scaredy-cats.

Fortunately, some people were prepared to go on the record about York's nightlife when the Evening Press investigated the website's claims. Of the Friday night revellers we questioned, some backed the Internet opinion, saying a trip to Leeds and Sheffield was needed for a full night out. But others vehemently disagreed, arguing York had it all.

Our unidentified website authors clearly believe it is up to the council to provide more dance venues. They say "the council spends your taxes on completely useless ideas".

Ah, yes, those would be schools, old people's homes and social housing. How much better if councillors poured our money into a nightclub. Hey, they might even staff the place, earning a few quid to compensate for the cut in their expenses. Big shout for council leader DJ Roddy Rod 'largeing it' on the decks; meanwhile Lib Dem Steve Galloway is manning the door, keeping out undesirables.

Even someone like me who has deep reservations about capitalism can see that this is an issue best sorted out by the free market. York would have more nightclubs if someone could make money out of them. The demand does not seem to be there.

York's anonymous Internet critics do have a point about the opening hours, however. These days we live 24-hour lives. We can buy a pint of milk from Tesco in the middle of the night but not have a drink with friends. It doesn't make a great deal of sense.

York council has licensed the Clifton Moor club to stay open until 3am. That is a start. But what we really need is a wholesale change in Britain's attitude to licensing hours, so pubs and clubs away from residential areas can open until they want to close. Selby MP John Grogan is vigorously for exactly that.

Discussing York's nightlife, it is hard not to draw comparisons between the present situation and that of a generation or so back. The top venue then was the Rialto, on Fishergate, now a bingo hall threatened with demolition.

York folk flocked there to see films and live performers of the calibre of Louis Armstrong, Dusty Springfield and, of course, The Beatles (another of those pop groups that couldn't spell).

The Rialto was such a success because of the entrepreneurial dynamism of owner Jack Prendergast. There doesn't seem to be a modern-day equivalent. Perhaps his potential successors are too busy squandering their energies on silly websites.

I DO not like Valentine's Day. Lovers shouldn't need reminding that they are in love. All the blessed saint's day does is prompt another bonanza for the tacky gift industry while making lonely people feel lonelier.

A side-effect of this calendar Viagra is the outbreak of pet-names, as revealed in a thousand Valentine newspaper messages: snuggle-wuggles, lambkin and the like.

These names should be kept private, thank you very much. My suspicions about the sort of people who use them were confirmed when I read what Ronald Reagan called wife Nancy, while he was in the White House and before: Mommie Poo Pants.