I did look back through the letters pages of the past couple of weeks intending to create a bumper post as compensation for my hiatus but there was a lack of staggeringly chumpish submissions. I really should have collected the paper editions.

Ah yes, the election in which the British public will elect a well-meaning political party with absolutely no corrupt politicians in its midst. I won’t hold my breath.

Numbers start at zero, not at one. I don’t care if Anno Domini missed out year zero and started at 1AD; that’s a stupid, illogical mistake so let’s just rectify it by beginning this millennium at 2000 and this decade at 2010.
Nick Bond: just fuck off.

Seriously? You must have a very innocent idea of porn.

Hmm, except that the police have denied that this ever happened and have stated that it wouldn’t have been against the law to do what she did. It looks as if this may have been a publicity stunt aimed at gullible idiots like you who are guaranteed to start huffing and puffing about ‘POLITICAL CORRECTNESS GONE MAD’.

No, it’s not bloody required. People are massively wasteful in developed nations and it is perfectly possible to consume less. I can’t believe that people will refuse to take responsibility for their actions to the extent that they would rather suggest a hypothetical cull, however jokingly. If there is a cull, I hope Terry’s one of the first to go, the useless bastard.

‘I’ve always been aware that Scotland is sickeningly socialist. But one thing Scotland has got right is its law to protect property owners from those no-good, dole-scrounging squatters. I feel sorry for our English neighbours, who have to put up with unwashed chancers claiming squatters’ rights over their private homes. An Englishman’s home used to be his castle.’
Get off my land! Glasgow

A word, Get off my land!. You know when your friends in the pub were telling you about how people in England can’t move for squatters popping out of the cupboards, sleeping in the bath and emptying all of the plastic bottles so they can turn them into bongs? I think they may have been playing a game of ‘Wind Up the Daily Mail-Reading Chump’.

New year, same old twattery.

This sounds suspiciously like a layperson with no knowledge of science hinting that snow means that global warming can’t exist. No. Don’t fucking start.

Oh, right, I see! The vast number of scientists who have discovered evidence for global warming are all just government puppets! It’s a good job we’ve got these mavericks like Rick bravely marching out of the shadows in their tinfoil hats, waving Wot Oi Fink About Science by Jeremy Clarkson, to tell us what’s really going on. I bet if scientists started saying that SUV fumes were the secret to eternal youth the same nutters would start falling over themselves to praise them.

I’m already tempted to resign from this decade.

DING DING DING DING! And we have the first humourless, verging-on-the-hysterical mention of Political Correctness Gone Mad of 2010!

Oh, for the love of – look, a group of people banding together to make a stand and protest about something they believe in is not the same as people just doing it because they’ve been told to. Point successfully missed. This is also nothing to do with pissing off the record label, it’s about the music itself and removing the monopoly over the charts. This also raised thousands of pounds for Shelter and therefore helped many people. I hope someone bought you a dictionary for Christmas so you can look up ‘irony’. Unfortunately, I don’t think ‘boring twat’ is in there, though. Oh, just lighten the fuck up and listen to some Prince or something.

When you actually suggest a new song which will have the same cultural impact as this ‘old’ song, perhaps I’ll listen. Until then, I’ll happily rock out to my old music.

Really, I think ‘Lighten the Fuck Up and Listen to Some Prince’ is going to be my motto for the coming year. Merry Christmas!

Late late late, but to be fair, I’ve been in a good mood over the past few days and was reluctant to ruin it by exposing myself to the views of the general public. Enjoy!

I don’t do all of this nonsense and neither do most people I know. Why is it that people complain in the letters page about the nanny state, then start whining about how Christmas ruins their lives because they apparently can’t take responsibility for themselves? Here’s a novel idea: spend what you can afford on people you like, eat what you want and chill the fuck out.

What the hell are you talking about? For a start, shoplifters try to be sneaky. They don’t try to draw as much attention to themselves as possible by putting their hoods up, tiptoeing around and carrying a bag marked ‘SWAG’. And hoodies are ‘generally worn by’ millions of people! My mum owns a hoody!

THANKS FOR SHARING.

How do you know that she was one of the ones who voted for the strike? Fucking idiot mobs. I hope if she had to serve any of you on her flight she booed in your faces. But if we do allow this perhaps I can start booing people who read tabloids.

You again! From a different location! Unless there are two idiotic Julian Selves! No, it wasn’t just about ‘annoying Simon Cowell’, it was about creating some diversity in the music charts, bringing back the old excitement about the Christmas number one and removing this new-found assumption that the X-Factor winner MUST have the number one single at Christmas. Royalties from Killing in the Name will also go to Shelter. But thanks for yet another carefully-considered opinion – no, wait, you decided that you know all about the situation from a cursory glance at it, didn’t you? Whoops!

So what about people who work for essential services, such as in hospitals? Should they be prevented from working on Sundays for no apparent reason? I’m sure some of them have children they want to spend time with. What if there’s an emergency and someone needs to go out and buy medication or first aid equipment or something to stop a leak in their home on a Sunday? I don’t think ‘organising your lives better’ is really a valid response in that situation. What about students who need to work to support themselves and can’t work during the week? You would be denying them vital work hours. I’m a low-paid worker and I have never minded working on a Sunday. Think on.

‘Eating meat and animal cruelty are two entirely different things’ – is this a fucking wind-up? The majority of people do not eat organic, cruelty-free, pseudo-hippy-crap meat. Most meat is produced from animals which are kept in horrible conditions. It’s all about profit, baby, not ‘look at us we’re all happy down on the farm oo-arr’. Meat is a part of most people’s diet but not a strictly necessary one, unless you have a medical condition. Millions of people do not eat meat and do not immediately keel over and die. I’m not eating meat right now and I’m not dead. In fact, I’m doing a little jig! LOOK AT ME GO! It might do you some good to invest in a dictionary and look up the definition of the word ‘vital’, too. Hint: it doesn’t just mean ‘useful’. And yes, well done, we are omnivorous, which means that we have the option of not eating meat!

‘I’ve enjoyed reading the letters from all you poor deluded fools, however, I have to point out that, just as with Santa Claus, there is no evidence that the man called Jesus Christ ever existed. Please do not answer this with the usual flood of angry affirmations. There simply isn’t any. Don’t you think that if there was the Catholic Church would have produced it for all to see? Christmas is another event dreamed up by those who would control you and used to fleece you all of your hard-earned cash. So do yourselves a favour and buy nothing this year.’
Rationalist, Edinburgh

REAL HISTORIANS have produced evidence for Christ’s existence, just not that he’s the son of any god, and if you would put your Saint Dawkins bestseller shite down for one moment and pick up a history book instead you would know this. I think I’ll do myself a favour, take a holiday from soul-crushing employment, buy nice things for and enjoy myself with people I love and not listen to smug cretins who babble on without having the education to back it up. Poor deluded fools, indeed. Nice incomprehensible grammar in your second-to-last sentence, by the way. Your superiority seems to be getting in the way of your English skills.

‘To everyone who thinks Jesus was born on December 25: The Gregorian Calendar was adopted in the UK in 1752 and the start of year date was changed to January 1 by the same Act of Parliament. So He was in fact born in the month of October. Christmas is another means to get us up to our eyes in debt.’
William, Edinburgh

Your ‘fact’ about Jesus being born in October is likely to be wrong since the only reason Christmas is celebrated in December is because the new Christian religion sought to take over the old midwinter Pagan festival, but anyway, Christmas has never plunged me into debt. Perhaps you sould take control of your spending instead of blaming your financial woes on a concept.

‘Craig, countless turkeys will not be “mindlessly slaughtered” this Christmas as you put it. Millions of people enjoy eating this wonderful meat (providing it’s cooked properly). Don’t let memories of your mum’s bad cooking act as an excuse for you to spout your nonsense on these pages.’
Chocolate Shepherd, in a field near Edinburgh Park

Enjoying eating something is highly intellectual, yes. Well, if millions of people enjoy it, that must make it okay. Like witch-burning.

‘Who drinks alcohol-free beer anyway? It’s not really beer. It’s as hypocritical as minced quorn!’
Emma, Edinburgh

It would be hypocritical to say that you’re tee-total but drink real beer, or say that you’re a vegetarian but eat real mince, but how exactly is it hypocritical to drink hops without alcohol in them or eat crushed-up protein? Oh, okay, ‘hypocritical’ is the new ‘pretentious’, with people throwing it around without understanding what it means. Gotcha.

Cool, I’ll go and take a big shit in the street, then. It’s only unhygienic if you lick it, remember!

What a nice way to talk about children. How’s your sense of entitlement getting along? Does it feel as heart-warming as your superiority complex?

It’s always nice to hear from people who are interested in expanding their interests and learning new things. I’m sure your life’s a fucking riot as you arse about writing in to the shitting Metro.

You’re right, you must be superior to the rest of us because you use a different medium to contact your friends. That was worth writing in to the Metro about.

Yeah, I bet it was really pleasant being called a ‘nig nog’ or being refused employment because you had a womb and might get pregnant.

My wife just pointed out the ironic contrast between Amanda Knox prosecutor Giuliano Mignini and Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi. While Mignini reaped the rotten fruits of his distorted moral play against Amanda Knox, a million demonstrators took to the Roman streets asking for their corrupt leader’s political head. An excerpt from an Agence France-Presse report:

Former minister Rosy Bindi said she took part as a “simple citizen” and not as a representative of the Democratic Party (PD).

“It is significant that a large part of the country is reacting against and getting angry at a prime minister who doesn’t want to be judged and isn’t solving problems,” she told AFP.

Antonio di Pietro, a former anti-corruption judge and now leader of the Italy of Values party, denounced “the Berlusconi government’s great electoral, political, judicial and media swindle”.

Participants ranged from film director Nanni Moretti, who condemned Berlusconi’s domination of Italian television, to ecologists opposed to a planned bridge across the Straits of Messina and immigrant defense groups.

Protesters shouted “mafioso” at effigies of the billionaire prime minister, referring to a Mafia hitman who testified at a trial in Turin that his boss alleged Berlusconi had aided organised crime.

In league with the Italian mafia, Berlusconi recently vowed to strangle his detractors:

If I find out who is the maker of the nine seasons of ‘The Octopus’ and who has written books on the mafia, which give such a bad image to Italy across the world, I swear that I will strangle them.

Injustice.

If you have a daughter or son in college who may spend a year studying abroad, you’re likely shaken over the Amanda Knox case.

Perugia prosecutor Giuliano Mignini is himself under investigation for serious transgressions regarding abuse of power, which includes heavy-handed tactics against journalists. Florence prosecutor Luca Turco recently called for his judicial colleague Mignini to be jailed for ten months, according to a report in Britain’s The Daily Mail.

In fact, weigh in with most any American journalist who covers the case — Vanity Fair’s Judy Bachrach and West Seattle Herald’s Steve Shay, who appeared recently on CNN or Seattle Times reporters — and you’ll discover disturbing practices of jurisprudence. It becomes clear that the fathers of Perugia, a conservative city in central Italy, had it in for a free-spirited American who simply didn’t act like the locals. Couple that with a veracious tabloid press, an unvetted jury that is permitted to read and view all manner of whacky media accounts, and you have a formula for disaster. Oh, throw in the fact that the defense was not permitted to challenge suspect DNA evidence with its own experts. Talk about having the jury stacked against you.

At this point, the Knox family and Washington State Sen. Maria Cantwell are making entreaties with the state department via Hillary Clinton. The appeals process will likely commence in October. The likelihood of an appellate turnover Italian-style depends on who you talk to. I spent time in Italy as a college student. While I didn’t run up against the law, I did run into a bureaucracy that makes Washington look like a walk in the park, and I was just registering my Fiat 500.

Hopefully, appeals and pressure from the U.S. State Department and European diplomats will help tip the scales of injustice.

Fast forward to the past, the American South of old: small town justice, small town sheriff, justice by prejudice. Only now it’s Perugia, the conservative, provincial Italian town, and the victim is Amanda Knox, the “angel faced” American college student plowed under by a railroad of bad press, bad judgment and bad practices in jurisprudence.

Here are a few good sources for this disturbing story:

1. Vanity Fair contributing editor Judy Bachrach, who lived in Italy for four years and covered the Knox trial gavel to gavel. As she explained last night on CNN, the small-town Italian justice system derives directly from “the ancient inquisition.” The Knox prosecutor is himself the subject of an inquiry regarding other recent heavy-handed practices. Also, the Italian trial system is devoid of jury vetting and defense challenges to evidence, among other primitive processes.
2. Such Knox family members as aunt Janet Huff. Huff has an astute understanding of the Perugia phenomenon, which includes gross prejudices fueled by a paparazzi-style Italian tabloid press that distorted innocent behavior and drew false conclusions from the get-go. See Huff’s video statement.
3. West Seattle Herald reporter Steve Shay, who draws the same conclusions as Bachrach and Knox, from his independent investigation. He commented last night on CNN, with Jim Moret who was sitting in for Larry King.

Meanwhile, as Knox’s family pursues the painful appeals process overseas, Maria Cantwell, a U.S. senator from Knox’s home state of Washington, issued the following statement:

I am saddened by the verdict. I have serious questions about the Italian justice system and whether anti-Americanism tainted this trial. I will be conveying my concerns to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

Never heard of a Coelacanth? You suck. What did you spend your childhood doing if you weren’t reading about dinosaurs and extinct species (not that all Coelacanths are extinct, of course)?

How many people make the decision to have or not to have children based on Sara Foss’s number of children, really? Name them, go on.

Ooh, intrigue! Seriously, why the FUCK do you care? Yours is the most unimportant question ever asked in the history of the universe.

If you liked the Stasi, you’ll love the new DNA database! I just can’t believe that, despite all evidence to the contrary, there are still people out there who profess to believe that those in authority are competent/incorruptible enough to be trusted with our DNA. And you know what? Even with this database, rape survivors will still be told that they were ‘asking for it’. Perhaps what would help even more would be for society to stop perpetuating this idea that if a woman is drinking or wearing clothes of which the Daily Mail disapproves or walking by herself instead of in a pack a man can’t be entirely to blame for not controlling himself, assaulting her and forcing his uninvited dick into her.

‘Muttering Nutter, there are a great deal many more Tories in Scotland than you might want to believe. The reason why we tend not to get as much attention as Socialists or Wee Nats is that we are well bred, have good manners and tend not to have to resort to shouty, abusive belligerence or indeed, as in your own case, threats of violence, to get our point across. And no, I am not ‘to the manor born’. I was brought up in a Glasgow high-rise.’
Dr Japes, Glasgow

Ah, those well-behaved, well-bred, mannerly Tories! This idea of Tories having almost zero political presence in Scotland as a result of Tories being shrinking violets has more than a small whiff of bullshit.

Of course, soldiers are never drunken idiots. As soon as someone joins the army, they become a little saint.

This is what I hear when I listen to Chris Moyles:
‘Bwwaabaaabwaaah gahhbwaahhbabwaahh bwahbwahbwaaah!’
You’re right, that is top-notch.

Well, no. You’re assuming that everyone calling for the re-introduction of National Service is a male who was eligible for National Service prior to 1960, when it was abolished. I’m guessing from the name that this does not apply to Anne from the Isle of Wight.

‘Yet another massacre in the US. When will people learn that the answer to violent crime is not to place ever more restrictions on victims? Shooting massacres of this magnitude only happen when the gunman’s victims are disarmed by the state. For example, Dunblane and Hungerford etc. The answer to rising crime is to allow ordinary people to keep and bear arms. Britain’s gun laws desperately need to be overhauled so that, at the very minimum, people can once again use self-defence as a valid reason to apply for and receive a firearms certificate. I would like to see a system where anyone in the UK, over the age of 18 and without a serious criminal record, can obtain a concealed carry permit. I read recently that gun crime had risen by nearly 90 percent since the 1997 gun ban. The reason for this is that criminals will always be able to obtain and use illegal firearms. Allow ordinary citizens to carry firearms and broken Britain’s violent crime rate will plummet within the week.’
Not a victim, Glasgow

Let’s take a deep breath here.
1. You have stated yourself that this massacre took place in the US, where people have the right to bear arms. So why are you telling us that massacres only occur when the victims aren’t allowed to have guns and complaining about gun laws in the UK?
2. I’m assuming that you’re talking about the recent shootings at a US army base, where there are plenty of guns.
3. If I’m walking down the street with a gun and somebody shoots and kills me, my possession of a gun doesn’t give me an extra life with which to get up and shoot the killer.
4. Handgun restrictions were introduced after the massacre in Dunblane.
5. Most of the victims in the Dunblane massacre were children. Are you saying that primary school children should all be armed?
6. Bans on semi-automatic rifles and shotguns were introduced after the Hungerford massacre.
7. Don’t bother talking or writing again.

‘I wondered how long it would take for a student to reply! Wow 30 hours! Try adding council tax to that too! I bet you’re one of the students who puts your £1 down, stares at the driver and doesn’t even tell him where you’re going. Or are you one of those who asks if the bus is going into town when you’ve stared at the front of the bus for ten minutes and it says Dunblane on it! Do you have to study for common sense these days? In future, be thankful that you get a bus every ten minutes especially for you – and at a discounted rate!’
Helga, Alloa

If there are buses to the town centre every ten minutes, it seems unlikely that students are standing staring at the Dunblane bus for ten minutes. You don’t have to study for ‘common sense’ these days, but you do have to study to know how to put across an argument without shrieking unfounded accusations and sounding like a hysterical thicko.

There is absoutely no evidence to suggest that the legalisation of cannabis would cause a ‘mental health meltdown’. But, you know, fuck science with its in-depth studies and genuine sources. You must be a ‘Nutty Professor’ to believe in that nonsense. Let’s just believe in good ol’ Common Sense! Get a griiip!

No, the goverment sacking advisers who criticise them is not called ‘democracy’, you absolute fucking moron. You have failed Political Theory 101. Come back when you’ve read a book.

Of course! If you’re a scientist, you can’t possibly ever leave your laboratory. David Nutt, in his research into drugs, depression and addiction, will obviously not have any education when it comes to society at large (despite having written an article on drugs and society). Only politicians (and the highly enlightened public who write in to the Metro) know anything about society. What’s that? There are ‘Social Scientists’? Who aren’t politicians? *head explodes*
Perhaps, just perhaps, we could tackle the social problems which lead to this ‘tendency to excess’ rather than sitting back and assuming that it is ‘hard-wired into our national psyche’. I wonder why our ‘expert’ politicians haven’t really succeeded in doing this?

You know, it probably wasn’t cannabis’s ‘fault’ that your brother died (I assume that’s what you mean). I’ve known plenty of alcoholics, but again, aside from addictive properties it’s not alcohol’s ‘fault’ that they feel the need to abuse that substance and live their lives in a continual state of unreality. There are far, far wider and deeper reasons and I think mentally stable people should make more of an effort to understand this rather than scapegoating everything they can think of in order to avoid facing up to the situation.

Okay. Because you, personally, don’t normally get your post until after 1pm this means that no postal worker in your area could possibly have an early start? Have you stopped to consider that it might take some time for the person who delivers the post to work their way around your area, or that there might be a lot of post to sort in the first place, which also takes time? No, you haven’t, because you’ve decided that you’re an automatic expert on the postal system because you receive letters sometimes.

Thanks for filing this ‘what people are holding and wearing’ report with the Metro, Del. Since when were listening to music and wearing high heels considered to be vices? Having a coffee isn’t necessarily a vice either, unless you’re caffeine-addicted. For all these people love to complain about the Nanny State and PC-gone-mad, they really do love to poke their noses into other people’s business.

Wait wait wait. According to the Terrance Higgins Trust ‘the majority of people actually diagnosed with HIV in the UK in 2007 (55%) had been infected through heterosexual sex’. They state that since 1999 there have been more diagnoses of HIV acquired through heterosexual sex than through homosexual sex. They do say that ‘the overall risk of acquiring HIV through heterosexual sex in the UK remains relatively low’ since most cases of heterosexually-transmitted HIV occur overseas and therefore gay men having sex in the UK are more vulnerable to HIV transmission, but this situation is nowhere near as black-and-white as some would make out. Surely there’s a better way of dealing with this rather than just sitting back with your complacent common sense?

‘T. Bradley, what part of Glasgow do you stay in where people actually smile? I must know! And they can speak too! Amazing. The Glaswegians I’ve seen are very primitive and nothing like these specimens you mention. Although you must come from England to call Glasgow a ‘friendly’ place. Only in England, the pit of misery, are people more torn-faced than here. Oh, yes, I just went there. Bring on the Scotland v England debate!’
ShutYerGob, Glasgow

When ShutYerGob writes that they live in Glasgow, it’s only natural to assume that they live in Glasgow, isn’t it? But something isn’t quite right…

‘I love your paper, I really do. I’m so loyal to it that I refuse to buy any other paper (this could partly be because I’m a stingey Scot), so I reckon it’s about time we award the area with the most obsessive Metro fans. I’m nominating the folk at Whitecraigs train station – even when the train doors are about to close, crazy Metro addicts (who are always late for the train, I might add) run to fetch your wonderful paper before jumping on. And yes, Whitecraigsers. This is indeed a hint. Stop delaying the flipping train.’
ShutYerGob, Glasgow

You get the train from or through Whitecraigs in the morning? But ShutYerGob, Whitecraigs isn’t in Glasgow! You don’t live here! When T. Bradley wrote about people smiling in his part of Glasgow I’m sure he meant a part of Glasgow, not a distant suburban town. I’ll tell you what, I’ll fucking smile at you when you pay some tax towards the amenities in the city that you use every day. Anyway, from the look of most Metro letters pages most of the miserable cunts you see walking about the centre of Glasgow are commuters from Ayr or Paisley. And as for ‘oh, yes, I went there!’ – what, a debate that every other thick pleb has brought up at some point? Well fucking done.

‘ShutYerGob, you are so right. Glasgow is so simliar to England in its total rubbishness that it is the only place in Great Scotland that still wants to be part of miserable, oppressive England. This is clearly a result of the evolutionary dead-end that these ‘weegies’ have followed, leaving them with an inferior intellect and very poor grasp of what we humans call language.’
Mikalos Furios, God’s Country

Well, Govan has an SNP MSP and Glasgow East has an SNP MP. Let’s have a look at the rest of Scotland, shall we? Edinburgh? Hmm, it’s represented by a fully Unionist set of MPs and only two SNP MSPs – the rest are also Unionist. The constituencies in the Borders? Every MP is Unionist. Aberdeen and Aberdeenshire? Their Scottish Parliament constituencies are half SNP and half Unionist. In fact, Glasgow has one of the few constituencies in Scotland with an SNP MP. So what the fuck are you babbling about? Your superlative intellect and grasp of language really haven’t come into play when attempting to understand politics. It’s best not to insult people’s intellects when you don’t have a clue about what goes on outside ‘God’s Country’ (presumably just ‘Fantasy Land’).

‘I agree with Steve that Nick Griffin has managed to take the heat off the deceitful, greedy politicians at Westminster, but what is going to happen when they realise that he also leads the only party that has been out on the streets asking people what they want changed in this country instead of sitting in a middle-class ivory tower just deciding what might look good in the press? No wonder support for his party is growing while the other parties stagnate.’
Bananabananabanana, Thrusk

Perhaps his party is going out and asking people what they want. However, I think it’s obvious to anyone with a scrap of intelligence that the BNP aren’t going to be interested in any answers which aren’t ’send the bastards home!’.

Perhaps all of the non-smoking people I see throwing their litter around and spraying their mucus onto the pavement are just hallucinations. What sort of mentally regressive idiot uses the word ‘litterbug’ past the age of ten?

I wish people would regard your no-doubt smug face as their personal toilet.

Was your son supposed to have been going on a guided tour of the sorting office for his birthday? I mean, I assume that all of his presents and cards would have been posted well in advance, rather than friends and relatives leaving it as late as possible and taking it for granted that the post would arrive on the precise day that they want it to.

This isn’t all that bad, apart from the line ‘all of us use the postal services and are grateful for them’. I think it’s pretty obvious that the public are grateful for nothing. In my dealings with the public it is apparent that the majority of them expect people to be grateful for having a job, yet won’t return that gratitude when workers help them and provide a service. It’s because they know it all, you see.

I wish I could put myself in a box in order to avoid the general public. Perhaps the next time anyone encounters Marianne from Brighton on a train they should stare at her for the whole journey.

Oh, no! Not disintegrated ash! How unsightly! Let’s all get worked up about invisible particles, which are definitely the worst litter on our streets!

Oh dear, yet another person who doesn’t realise that tax money isn’t some sort of sacrifice to a vengeful god.

Probably the people who find pink cowboy hats and t-shirts which say ‘IF FOUND PLEASE RETURN TO THE PUB’ endlessly amusing.

People get undressed when asked to by a doctor because they need the doctor to look at their bodies and help them with their problems. And who the hell has naked conversations in changing rooms? With the exception of my boyfriend, if anyone wants to have a conversation with me one of my basic demands is that they are clothed. But okay, let’s all have a big naked orgy because people have their bodies examined by the doctor.

‘The continued demonisation of the BNP gives them power. I can buy lefty papers without a problem, attend lefty public meetings if I so wished. My assumption is the “left” isn’t a threat to the establishment hence they’re tolerated. The worry will be if the “right wing” has appeal or resonance with the working class.’
Andrew, Edinburgh

If you think you’re unable to walk into any newsagent in the country and pick up a right-wing paper espousing many of the same views as the BNP then you’re fucking deluded. Also, the BNP do hold public meetings, though if you’re not white you probably would have trouble attending their public meetings if you so wished. But sure, Andrew, everyone who disagrees with the BNP should jolly well stop criticising them and ‘demonising’ them. But obviously it would be curtailing their freedom of speech to stop them from demonising large swathes of people. Oh, and you’re right, the BNP just love threatening the white male middle-class people who make up the vast majority of the ‘establishment’.

‘Did you know the greedy postal workers are on strike? I’d write to my MP to complain if I could!’
Steve, Drylaw

I just can’t tell if this is satire or not. Surely if Steve was able to figure out how to use this electronic mail thing to fire off a couple of lines to the Metro, he would be able to do the same to contact his MP? Surely?

‘So a Commons committee gave Brown and Cameron a grilling on the number of females, coloureds etc in the Commons. Frankly, I do not give a damn whether my MP is male, female, white or any other colour. Equally, I have no preference as regards the sexual orientation but what I do want is an MP to represent me and my area who is 100 per cent honest and dedicated to the needs of the constituency Is that too much to ask?’
Jock, Ayrshire

Well, Jock, I’m sure you’re very noble in your determination to see past the fact that someone running for parliament might be a ‘coloured’ (the British ability to use adjectives as nouns is remarkable), but traditionally this country has never been quite as tolerant and prejudice-free as you and still isn’t, hence the need for scrutiny and I can’t believe that this has to be explained to a person with any experience of the world.

Send an e-mail or look at their website, find out where your nearest donation centre is and go along. You live in a fucking city; it really shouldn’t be difficult for you to find a blood donation centre. Or do you think that you can only give blood over the phone?

PERHAPS YOUR ANCESTORS WERE NOT ENSLAVED BY BLACK PEOPLE AND DIDN’T HAVE TO SUFFER YEARS OF PREJUDICE, DISCRIMINATION AND ABUSE. ‘Lighten up’ does seem like a fucking horrendous choice of words here, too. Oh, to go blundering through life with no self-awareness and not a care in the world. And, Steven? Someone who thinks that White Chicks is ‘fun’ in any way doesn’t have the right to social commentary.

‘X Factor fans deserve to know who they are voting for’ – sorry, since when did slobbing in front of a reality television programme give people the right to know everything about someone’s personal life? And here I thought X Factor was a simple programme focusing on people with no charisma wailing over backing tracks.

‘Now reporters are saying Stephen Gately’s death was a result of choking on his own vomit, maybe people will take heed of the dangers of weekend binge drinking. Just because you make it home every drunken weekend, it doesn’t mean it’s okay to do it every weekend. Tragic accidents like this happen.’
Brytak, Irvine

Ooh, the ~reporters~! They are SUCH an authority on everything, of course. These would be the same reporters who decided that they knew how Stephen Gately had died before any forensic tests had been carried out. They are so clever! I do love believing everything I read in the Sun. Wait, what? Stephen Gately didn’t die of choking on his own vomit? Natural causes, you say? You mean… the Sun was… making shit up? HOW CAN THIS BE? Now my petty moralising just looks fucking stupid!

‘I was delighted with the massive response from readers wishing to join PARP (People Actually Resembling Places) but also was saddened to hear of wee Jimmy’s catherine wheel capers which he blames on my bad advice. Jimmy it seems you have learned a valuable life lesson the hard way; don’t trust everything you read in the papers! By coincidence Catherine Wheel presides over an offshoot of PARP called Folk Actually Resembling Things. We don’t tend to abbreviate that one, but members include Tommy Gun, Paddy O’Doors, Shaun D’Leer and Carol Vodaphone.’
Devon J Buckfast, cyberspace

F… A… R… oh, FART! That’s absolutely HILARIOUS*! Go on, abbreviate it! You’ve been pretty damned wacky so far so why don’t you just throw caution to the wind and be really fucking risqué! FART? PARP? Oh, my aching sides! I’d better not go and read Nemi now or my sides might split altogether!

*Horrifically Inbred Laughing Arseholes Reigning In Odious Uncouth Shitpile

A note to Jan Moir: let’s be clear about one thing. You are stupid. Very stupid indeed. I don’t know who on earth has been encouraging you to think that you are anything other than stupid but I imagine that they were laughing at you. All of your back-pedalling and claims of being a ‘victim of an orchestrated attack’, as if people who follow Stephen Fry on Twitter are some sort of hive mind, will not fool a single intelligent person and you are merely making a further disgusting display of your own lack of wits. I find it hard to believe that any sensible, compassionate person who read that article could feel anything but loathing for the sentiments contained within. You do not deserve the career that you have, but if there is any decency left in this world it will surely come to a swift end.

Now, onto your repugnant article.

The sugar coating on this fatality is so saccharine-thick that it obscures whatever bitter truth lies beneath. Healthy and fit 33-year-old men do not just climb into their pyjamas and go to sleep on the sofa, never to wake up again.

Actually, this is entirely possible. You have no medical training whatsoever. You critique restaurants. Don’t make uneducated speculations.

Whatever the cause of death is, it is not, by any yardstick, a natural one. Let us be absolutely clear about this. All that has been established so far is that Stephen Gately was not murdered.

So the only thing which has been scientifically established is that Stephen Gately was not murdered, but you, a restaurant critic sitting roughly 834 miles away from his body, can conclusively reveal that there was nothing natural about his death? Please tell us more!

And I think if we are going to be honest, we would have to admit that the circumstances surrounding his death are more than a little sleazy.

Cowles and Dochev went to the bedroom together while Stephen remained alone in the living room.

All of these events are completely irrelevant to a person dying as a result of fluid in the lungs, so kindly stop clouding the issue. Though ‘kind’ is not an adjective which I would ever apply to you.

What happened before they parted is known only to the two men still alive. What happened afterwards is anyone’s guess.

So you admit that you know nothing about the situation but you refuse to sit back, shut up and allow the experts to carry out their jobs.

A post-mortem revealed Stephen died from acute pulmonary oedema, a build-up of fluid on his lungs.

Nevertheless, his mother is still insisting that her son died from a previously undetected heart condition that has plagued the family.

From the website Patient UK (‘comprehensive health information as provided by GPs and nurses to patients during consultations’):

‘Pulmonary oedema occurs when fluid leaks from the pulmonary capillary network into the lung interstitium and alveoli. It forms when there is:

It is frequently caused by disease affecting the left heart but there is a wide range of other possible causes that should be considered.’

Therefore, according to medical professionals, Stephen Gately’s mother’s hypothesis is quite likely.

Another real sadness about Gately’s death is that it strikes another blow to the happy-ever-after myth of civil partnerships.

Does it really? I don’t remember hearing any myth about gay people in civil partnerships being immortal.

Gay activists are always calling for tolerance and understanding about same-sex relationships, arguing that they are just the same as heterosexual marriages. Not everyone, they say, is like George Michael.

Of course, in many cases this may be true.

Well, how generous of you to concede that, possibly, every gay person might not be a raging slut!

Yet the recent death of Kevin McGee, the former husband of Little Britain star Matt Lucas, and now the dubious events of Gately’s last night raise troubling questions about what happened.

Kevin McGee is a man who committed suicide as a result of personal problems. Stephen Gately is a man who died from acute pulmonary oedema. I fail to see how the two deaths are related. Just being in or having been in civil partnerships isn’t much of a link. Could you explain exactly what you mean by this?

It is important that the truth comes out about the exact circumstances of his strange and lonely death.

For once again, under the carapace of glittering, hedonistic celebrity, the ooze of a very different and more dangerous lifestyle has seeped out for all to see.

Apparently not. At this point you end the Stephen Gately article and begin whittering about Tara-Palmer Tomkinson’s dress. I also don’t understand why you began the article by saying that Stephen Gately was, on the surface, a clean-living, lovable individual, and end it by saying that he lived ‘under the carapace of glittering, hedonistic celebrity’. And what is this ‘very different and more dangerous lifestyle’ to which you refer? It surely can’t consist of smoking a joint on holiday in Mallorca. Why are you talking about civil partnerships and ‘a very different and more dangerous lifestyle’ in the same metaphorical breath?

I have finished reading your ridiculous article. Now I shall turn my attention to your pathetic response to its critics.

the point of my column – which, I wonder how many of the people complaining have fully read

I’ve fully read it several times! Do I get a prize for enduring this filth?

Yes, anyone can die at anytime of anything. However, it seems unlikely to me that what took place in the hours immediately preceding Gately’s death – out all evening at a nightclub, taking illegal substances, bringing a stranger back to the flat, getting intimate with that stranger – did not have a bearing on his death. At the very least, it could have exacerbated an underlying medical condition.

According to some unknown source who leaked information to The Sun (which is the subject of a new documentary concerning how tabloids accepted and printed fake stories about celebrities, incidentally), Gately had smoked one illegal substance. There was no mention of any further illegal substances being present in his body. Also nobody has said that Stephen Gately was intimate with this stranger. Nobody has even said conclusively that Stephen Gately’s partner was intimate with this stranger. You know nothing about the situation, which you admit in your article (‘What happened before they parted is known only to the two men still alive. What happened afterwards is anyone’s guess’), so why exactly do you feel qualified to comment on what went on and how this could perhaps have had an effect on any hypothetical medical condition? Nobody with a brain in their head, and without an agenda to push, would have written this article.

In writing that ‘it strikes another blow to the happy-ever-after myth of civil partnerships’ I was suggesting that civil partnerships – the introduction of which I am on the record in supporting – have proved just to be as problematic as marriages.

Nobody has ever said that civil partnerships would not have the same problems as heterosexual marriages (you wrote in this very article that ‘gay activists are always calling for tolerance and understanding about same-sex relationships, arguing that they are just the same as heterosexual marriages’) and the fact that you said ‘gay activists are always calling for tolerance and understanding about same-sex relationships, arguing that they are just the same as heterosexual marriages. Not everyone, they say, is like George Michael. Of course, in many cases this may be true. Yet the recent death of Kevin McGee, the former husband of Little Britain star Matt Lucas, and now the dubious events of Gately’s last night raise troubling questions about what happened’ clearly shows that you did not intend to suggest that civil partnerships and heterosexual marriages have the same trials and tribulations. You appear to doubt the gay activists’ claims that civil partnerships are the same as heterosexual marriages.

In what is clearly a heavily orchestrated internet campaign I think it is mischievous in the extreme to suggest that my article has homophobic and bigoted undertones.

I don’t ’suggest’ that your article has ‘homophobic and bigoted undertones’. I, along with many more educated people and several companies who have demanded that their advertisments be removed from the vicinity of your article, am saying emphatically that your article has homophobic and bigoted overtones.

I’m very interested in seeing the upcoming documentary Starsuckers which reveals conclusively that tabloid journalists print stories given to them without making any effort to research the claims, and shows how this lazy, unprofessional, gossipy style of journalism is affecting the entire industry and the impact this has on society at large (two Guardian articles on the documentary are here and here). I just think it’s unfortunate that as of just now it’s only being shown in independent cinemas, and therefore is unlikely to be seen by the sort of people who actually believe the tales they read in the tabloids.

This week the fine, upstanding citizens who write in to the Metro have been giving those dreadful cripples a kicking. It’s terrible, they’re always gliding through the streets on their golden wheelchairs and beating people trudging to work in rags with their diamond-studded sticks. Sticks made of thousands of compacted £100 notes.

‘Those on benefits are expecting the rest of us to pay for them’ – NO SHIT! It’s as if we have a system where people in a position to help others who are less fortunate pay some sort of, I don’t know, tax or something, to… help… support them?
‘I have no problem supporting those who are genuinely disabled’ – liar. Your previous sentence makes it quite clear that you’re not happy with that at all. What would you prefer? Gas chambers for the ones who can’t contribute to society?

Firstly, ‘common sense’ is only ever used by slack-jawed cretins who can’t be bothered to engage their brains. Usually slack-jawed cretins who have a vague feeling of being victimised in some way by somebody and who lash out at the first available target.
Secondly, it is blindingly obvious to anyone with any experience of the benefits system (i.e. not the cotton-wool-swaddled, pursed-lip-wielding denizens of the Metro) that the Tory policy of continuing Labour’s drive to remove as many people as they can from Incapacity Benefit is far more likely to harm genuine claimants than the people who are determined to cheat the system and have plenty of experience doing so.

No, the ‘genuinely needy’ DO need money, you tit. They use it to pay for things. If being disabled is such a ‘cushy lifestyle’, chop off your fucking hands and be done with it.

Apologies for my absence last week. I’ve been running low on physical and mental energy and as it turns out both are required in order to trawl through two weeks of slavering outrage. Here’s a nice big bundle of idiocy to make up for it.

Yes, once you’ve squeezed a baby out of your vagina it’s offensive to wear short skirts. Don’t female tennis players all wear shorts under their skirts anyway? If not, why does the world of tennis make them wear skirts if they’re freaked out by the sight of their pants?

Sacked for being an idiot, eh? Does anyone know the name of Jen’s employer?

The Stonewall advert didn’t say that all straight people are homophobic. It was aimed squarely at the ones who are. I fear it may speak volumes about you that you found it offensive.

Yes, because everyone who earns less than you is an underachiever. Some people achieve a hell of a lot in their jobs but get paid sod-all. You also really have no idea how Council Tax works (how surprising!). It’s not based on the size of your house. I used to live in a tiny one-bedroom flat for which I had to pay higher Council Tax than the large three-bedroom flat I live in now. It’s based on the relative value to the other property in the area. Also, you freely admit that you CHOSE to spend all of your money on a large house, so it’s your own fucking fault that you can’t afford anything! For all of your apparent success you certainly underachieve in terms of intelligence.

I dunno, Dave. Perhaps you just haven’t been paying attention when an old man gets on, as evidenced by your statement that you always offer your seat to old ladies rather than older people of both sexes. Yes, your double standards are a bit shit. You should work on them.

Perhaps because they’re not as tediously idiotic as you are.

Because they’re entitled to free travel to school?

STEREOPHONIC SOUND, PAUL. STEREOPHONIC SOUND. YOU KNOW, THAT THING THAT WAS INVENTED OVER A HUNDRED YEARS AGO.

And this is the reason I always carry a book around with me. So I don’t have to talk to some pious arse who whinges to the Metro about things.

What? Only the vote of the first person in the queue at the polling station counts? Were there some drastic changes in the democratic process while I was out of the country?

Well, no. You’re completely wrong. If the licence is on a yearly basis there’s nothing to stop people from binge-drinking. ‘Binge-drinking’ isn’t the same as alcoholism, contrary to what a lot of people seem to think because they can’t be bothered engaging their brains. The idea of binge-drinking is that people drink a lot of alcohol in one go, so under your scheme people could easily refrain from drinking alcohol most of the time and still be able to have a blow-out every now and again.

‘Fraz was right to be irked because religion is elevated over Darwinism. This happens because we allow religious indoctrination to dominate society, particularly an education system that irrationally promotes creationism while ignoring evolution. In a secular Scotland, children would be taught side-by-side about all beliefs in a culture of mutual respect and understanding. Once properly educated, they could make up their own minds as to what to believe.’
Just Jack, Musselburgh

Our education system doesn’t promote creationism and ignore evolution. That’s a complete lie. I studied evolution at school and it was taught on the basis that it’s the most likely explanation for the creation of the world as we know it today. I thought belief in Creationism was confined to a few ruddy-faced blowhards in the US until I left school. But you know, it’s wonderful that the great forces of organised atheism are resorting to the hysterical tactics of the proponents of organised religion that they despise so much. Really. It’s highly respectable.

‘Robert the Bruce, you’re wrong. Alcohol is cheaper now than at any time in history, and never has society had so many problems with alcohol abuse. If you think the two facts are unrelated you are kidding yourself. Also, every time you hear someone argue they use alcohol sensibly, why should they be penalised as they drink responsibly, just replace the words ‘alcohol’ and ‘drink’ with ‘handguns’ and ’shoot’ and you have just made the argument for allowing everyone to have a gun.’
Paul, Edinburgh

No, alcohol abuse was rife in the Victorian era, Mr Temperance. About two-thirds of Parliament was pie-eyed at any given time (note: this may be an exaggeration. But it’s not too far off the mark). And of course if you replace words in a sentence you could change the argument to a completely different one. The thing you don’t seem to have realised is that there is a difference between largely non-lethal liquid that you pour down your throat and a contraption which can fire deadly pieces of metal into people’s vital organs.
Here’s another one. I suggest that nobody should be allowed to use their hands to write or type letters to national newspapers because too many don’t know what the fuck they’re talking about. You complain that you use your hands responsibly. I reply ‘just replace the words ‘hands’ and ‘write’ with ‘handguns’ and ’shoot’ and you have just made the argument for allowing everyone to have a gun’. You weep, hoisted by your own petard.

‘So Fraz, Darwin’s theory of evolution is bang on is it? Don’t think so. A species cannot evolve into another species. Don’t go ape now (as if you could).’
Tam, Edinburgh

WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT? No, really! You seem to have it all figured out, despite obviously having never opened a book.

Germany´s biggest tabloid paper “Bild” came up with a significant change of its cover page in June 2009. People called it a “naked revolution” or even a “cultural shock”. What it was?

Instead of naked females in form of “Bild Girls” an attractive man was presented to the readers on the title page: Alexander, the first “Bild Boy” in the history of the paper.

Bild Boy Alexander

versus various Bild Girls

After huge turmoils and discussions of ambitious Bild readers, the newspaper started a survey amongst their audiences whether the Bild Boy should remain on the title or not. According to BILD.de almost 50,000 readers participated in the poll. The result: 54 per cent voted for him. With only a very small majority the readers decided, that once a week Boys instead of Girls are shown on the title page.

Regarding Coca Cola´s gender specific communication strategy (‘Coca-Cola Zero’ for the boys and ‘diet Coke’ for females) do you think the Bild Zeitung´s new “equality” plan was  desired/overdue or completely redundant?

Yeah, it’s not like political theory is studied as part of Sociology. It’s not as if Sociology and Politics are heavily and unavoidably interrelated. It’s not as if the human detritus who send their drooled-upon, crayon-scrawled missives to the Metro could benefit from a few lessons in exactly how society works. What exactly does Mr Anonymous think Sociology is? Stupid fucking uneducated people should really stop judging things they know nothing about. But then we wouldn’t have a Metro letters page!

The damage to the environment from a small stick of tobacco is rather negligible compared to the larger problems we face, the people who litter with their cigarettes would throw other kinds of litter on the ground anyway if they are that way inclined, littering is rife amongst non-smokers as well and your house is on an area which would benefit more from growing food for people. Stop pretending that you know anything about life and go back to dribbling soup down your chest.

Why is this such a massive fucking outrage for people? Why the fuck shouldn’t we allow prisoners to follow their own diet? It doesn’t cause any problems for anyone. Does S Elliott really think that the food people would have to eat whilst in prison is the only deterrent? Has S Elliott seriously never committed a crime? Does S Elliott honestly have nothing else to be angry about?

Did you sit your exams fifteen years ago by any chance? I have met a great many people who sat their exams fifteen years ago or more who have trouble writing basic sentences. I think you may be kidding yourself a little, Matthew Roach.

You know the editors are becoming desperate when they print completely obsolete jokes. How many children know what a VCR is these days?

Has Matthew Wilson really never heard of addiction to alcohol? Does he think that alcoholics don’t commit crimes? Has he never heard of how alcohol-related prohibition in the US resulted in exactly the kind of crime he is talking about with regards to cocaine?

‘Nicotine-free Dave, I agree! But the injustice is eased by the fact they will all suffer down the line while our lungs are nice and healthy!’
Smoke hater, Edinburgh

Yes, but good luck with that stomach ulcer caused by being a miserable, sour-faced cunt.

Lots of tourists on their summer holidays go to the beach and suddenly this means that we’re going to die of overpopulation? No, really, where is this coming from? Is it something to do with David Icke?

Um. Is this some kind of razor-sharp political allegory which is soaring over my head, or is Joyce just talking out of her arse?

If you’d bothered to follow this story properly, you would know that some of the families have already stated that they don’t mind him being released (because they don’t believe that he was necessarily guilty due to a vastly flawed trial). I find it interesting that you are happy to use the word ‘allegedly’ in reference to the US authorities’ actions but don’t extend that to prisoners who have been held without trial and therefore haven’t been convicted of anything either.

I’m sure all of the US citizens who are denied health insurance precisely because they have chronic conditions would disagree with you.
‘The state has invaded the realm of charity’ – what Dickensian nonsense is this? Do you think that hospitals should be run on charitable contributions? Are we supposed to scrap all of the 20th Century’s progress and go back to sending people to workhouses and people with mental health problems to asylums like Bethlehem? Nah, I’m okay with paying some tax and knowing that I can receive treatment rather than relying on people’s charity, thanks all the same.

I’ll probably just continue walking everywhere and putting on an extra jumper. What an amazing justification for the deaths of thousands of people, though.

Right, except that presumably people who don’t eat certain foods as a result of religious beliefs aren’t ‘forced to eat what is on the menu’. Do you think that’s more acceptable? What if someone has an allergy to something on the ‘menu’? Next you’ll be smugly patting that stick up your arse, never having committed a crime in your life, of course, and demanding that prisoners be fed nothing but bread and water.

… oh.

‘Nothing worse than females putting their slap on on the train. There were two this morning. Get up earlier.’
Rachel, Glasgow

Are you really struggling to think of anything worse than complete strangers doing something harmless which has nothing to do with you? I take it you’re fine with concentration camps, AIDS, massacres and U2, then?

‘Having dedicated years of personal research into pretty women with different colours of hair, I can confirm two things. One: Blondes aren’t more fun. Redheads are. This is scientific fact. Here is one example. Your pretty blonde is ten a penny, they all look more or less the same, especially when you throw in the botox and fake boobs. Find a pretty, red-haired girl and she will always look sexy and different to the next, not like some clone. On the downside, chaps, it is true about their temper. I find a muzzle works wonders, myself.’
Ti Amo’s owner, Edinburgh

I take it that all of this scientific research was conducted from your bedroom window in your parents’ house through a pair of binoculars?

‘OMG, yet someone else putting on their make-up. You looked better with it off!’
Rachel, Glasgow

For fuck’s sake, buy a book to keep yourself occupied. It might improve your literacy skills as well.

‘So hypocritical Americans are not holidaying in Scotland next year – fantastic. Only the ones with brains will visit – great. We can expect three Americans next year.’
GLB, Edinburgh

Yeah, except that most Americans don’t really care about the supposed boycott and you’re the fool for believing the media hype.

‘I tried to open an online bank account. I was told to send them my passport. I did not want to do that as I was going away in three weeks, so they asked for a certified copy. I went to my doctor – cost to certify £20. I went to a lawyer – cost £50. I went to two different police stations – told they did not know if it was a valid passport and they did not know me and they could not certify the copy anyway. I went to my local bank of 30 years and was told they are not allowed to certify any documents. The only people who can open a bank account these days are terrorists, who don’t mind paying their doctor £20. My mother does not have a passport or a driver’s licence, so what does she do?’
Jean, Glasgow

I had some hearty laughs at ‘the only people who can open a bank account these days are terrorists’. I hope the government have read this letter and are arresting everyone who opens a bank account now.
Surely the most sensible thing to do would be to actually check who can countersign a passport, realise that a large number of people can and get someone who won’t charge you lots of money to sign it. But well done for working your way through the complicated process of getting out of bed in the mornings. It’s a start.