AS I’ve said before, newspapers are cursed by “literals” – misprints involving the omission or transposition of a single letter. They should be spotted by proofreaders but, sometimes, they slip through the net and all newspapers have their embarrassments.

Thank you, therefore, to Mrs ME Brighten for writing to me to point out a rather glaring example.

Mrs Brighten brightened my morning to start with by saying: “I read your paper every day. It’s the first thing I pick up at my front door – and I couldn’t face my breakfast without it.”

So far, so good, but Mrs Brighten went on to draw my attention to a recent column by the Mayor of Middlesbrough Ray Mallon which addressed cuts in legal aid. Mr Mallon declared that lawyers “don’t get much pubic sympathy, particularly not those who specialise in defending people”.

The mayor, of course, did not mean to suggest that lawyers, by nature, tend to be follically- challenged in the nether regions.

The proof-reader has, therefore, faced an ‘l’ of a rollocking.

NOT wishing to split hairs, I can’t help wondering if the Mayor of Middlesbrough was distracted by the bizarre goings-on in a curry restaurant on his manor while he was working on his column.

I’ve read some bizarre stories in my time but that one was up there with the strangest.

Teesside Magistrates heard how a chap called Lee Tyers tried to dodge paying for a curry at Jamal’s Indian Restaurant by sprinkling his own pubic hairs onto his plate.

With the kind of instincts Poirot would have been proud of, restaurant owner Jamal Chowdury pointed out the hairs were brown and all his staff had black hair. Tyers was sent to prison.

What hasn’t been revealed so far was that halfway through the article, the word “pubic”

became “public”. Thankfully, the proof-reader avoided the cock-up but it just goes to show that literals can work both ways.

Anyway, we went with the headline “Mine’s a Jalfrizzy”. I was worried it might be too risque – bad taste even – but there was only one, anonymous, complaint.

With hindsight, perhaps we should have gone with “Caught by the short and curlies”.

IWAS also shocked by last week’s story about the shady goings on in the world of agricultural shows.

Organisers of the Great Yorkshire Show felt the need to issue a warning about unscrupulous exhibitors in the animal classes.

Apparently, there are dirty rotten cheats out there who try to improve their animals’ chances of winning a prize. Methods include pumping up udders with liquid or gas and “gluing on extra hair”.

To which bits do they glue the extra hair?

And where do they get it from?

TALKING of cows, I had an embarrassing encounter with a hen party while doing an Eating Out review last week at the excellent Board Inn at Lealholm, on the North York Moors.

The young ladies in the bar were dressed in costumes with black and white spots and floppy ears. I assumed they were the 101 Dalmatians but I was informed in no uncertain terms that they were heifers.

More of that case of mistaken identity, along with the full review, in Thursday’s What’s On supplement.

LAST week’s column focused on Distant Echoes – a memoir by former Northern Echo and BBC journalist Allene Norris. It sparked a flurry of responses about the “tyrannical”

management style of one of my predecessors in the editor’s chair.

Reginald Gray ruled the roost in the 1950s and was clearly a man who spread fear through the newsroom.

Bernard Gent, who joined The Northern Echo straight from school in 1946, was one of those who was made to tremble.

Bernard recalled that not only did members of staff have to stand several feet away from the editor’s desk, but they were also forbidden from stepping in front of a chalk cross which had been marked on the wooden floor.

Sadly, the floor of my office is now carpeted.

Bernard also told of the time the East Cleveland reporter Ivor Eastwood made a polite request for transport to get him to the far reaches of his patch, which stretched all the way from Redcar to Skelton.

By return, the editor sent him a pair of bicycle clips.

IT was nice to hear from Bernard Gent. He was a reporter in Middlesbrough office by the time I arrived at the Echo, fresh-faced and full of ambition, in 1984.

Straight away, I recognised his distinctive voice, certain that I’d heard it somewhere before.

And then I remembered: not only was he the Ayresome Park announcer at Middlesbrough matches when I was a kid, but he was the man on the tannoy at Asda in South Bank, promoting special offers.

MY previous column re-told Allene Norris’s tale of how Reggie Gray had tried to end a romance between one of his reporters and the daughter of a disapproving businessman.

When the reporter stood his ground in the name of true love, he was sacked and ended up on the Middlesbrough Evening Gazette.

David Kelly, former managing director of The Northern Echo, was moved to send an email, asking: “How did the lovers’ lives turn out after that pivotal moment? Are they still alive? Still married?”

All of them good journalistic questions. I don’t suppose anyone knows the answers?

MY favourite tweet of the week underlines just how responsible local papers are compared to the nationals.

It came from Simon O’Neill, editor of the Oxford Mail: “Just explained to our picture editor that pixellating the face of an Army sniffer dog in snap of today’s bomb scare is thoughtful, but not really necessary.”

FINALLY, there will be no From The Editor’s Chair column for the next couple of weeks since I will not be in the chair.

After saving hard for 25 years, the time has come to take my wife on a cruise to celebrate our silver wedding.

Having played another of my predecessors, the ill-fated William Stead, in Titanic, The Musical at Darlington Civic Theatre last year (see right), I only hope that fate hasn’t been tempted.

In the meantime, the paper will be in the hands of the fella who proof-reads the Ray Mallon column.

Take a public bow, Chris Lloyd.