from our comments section

This gem came in yesterday:
"...I'm forwarding your piece about Richard Branson to Richard Branson. I hope he sues you... You needn't keep talking about your ratings either. You've probably got about 500 readers... You are a purveyor of censorship. Delete this comment. You baboon. Go on. Delete it. Delete it... Signed Anonymous."

My reply runs thusly:

Well, well, well.
Yet another anonymous Johnston Press coward sticks his head above the parapet.
Back again are we?
Did diddums see something that upsetums?
You fellows at the Johnston Press must be terribly fond of Richard Branson.
Or could it be something else that has caused your great mind to go into overdrive and formulate such a sublime and witty riposte?
It seems unlikely to me that you forwarded anything to Richard Branson.
It seems unlikely that a low rent anonymous Johnston Press conformist coward like yourself would have access to Richard Branson's phone number or personal address.
Let me this way put it.
I doubt he takes your calls.
Or reads your letters.
Perhaps it would be more in your line to forward my articles to John Frey, Chief Executive Officer of the Johnston Press, in the hope that he might sue me.
Or has the Johnston Press's recent experiences with the legal systems of two countries left you reluctant to take your chances with the rule of law?
Tell me.
Do you anonymous cowards at the Johnston Press seriously think Richard Branson will do your dirty work for you?
Here is the news.
Richard Branson will not be suing me.
Because unlike you cowardly anonymous clypes at the Johnston Press, Richard Branson actually knows what he's doing.
Unlike the Johnston Press, Richard Branson's companies actually make money.
Unlike the Johnston Press, Richard Branson doesn't simply generate temporary profits by downsizing companies he's bought out with money borrowed from idiot banks so that he can pay his management skaggs huge bonuses they never earned.
Unlike the Johnston Press, Sir Richard Branson actually runs his companies successfully, through a long term commitment to the workforce and an attendant commercial acumen based on hard work, reciprocal trust, mutual respect and his own uniquely perceptive awareness of the needs and tastes of the general public.
Richard Branson won't be suing me you low life tripe hound, because everything I've said about him, like everything I've said about the Johnston Press, is absolutely, utterly and unalterably, true.
Seriously Scruff, I doubt he's got much in common with you Johnston Press clowns.
Downsizing indeed.
In the land of the downsizers the one eyed coward is king, eh Johnstons?
And let's be clear about one thing.
You didn't fire me.
I.
Fired.
You.
We need not labour the point.
James Healy
PS: As for my readership. Wouldn't it be more in your line to focus on getting a few readers of your own at the Johnston Press? I mean without going half a billion quid into debt to do it. I gotta tell ya. It's not as easy as I make it look.
PPS: Your concerns about censorship are obviously heartfelt indeed. But I reckon there's no right of reply for an anonymous coward in any publication on the planet earth and certainly not here. After all, the Johnston Press owns 350 newspapers. You don't need my humble internet publication (which you clearly hold in such contempt) to get your message across. Anyway, even the august Johnston Press (by which I mean the vomitous Johnston Press) doesn't print every letter it receives. Or indeed any of the critical ones.
PPPS: Baboon? Pish sir. Tis unworthy of you. Pish off.
PPPPS: Chin up Anonymous. At least today you have 500 readers.
PPPPPS: And someday we shall laugh again.