SIR: I refer to the article about a topless barmaid. I'm sorry but you really must print my letter! I noticed in your leader column that you said we are 'tasteless'.

Then I turned to the centre pages and saw male nudity with the caption: Bolton is the NW Capital of erotic male dancing. There was also an article on what can only be described as transvestites, or to put it politely 'female impersonators' telling us Bolton girls visited for a good night out! Yet none of that was described as 'tasteless'.

You really are so hypocritical. You would not print an advert which we paid for, saying 'Topless barmaid', yet you printed an article on it, and it was on BEN boards outside newsagents 'Bolton barmaids go topless'.

There is a sex shop a few hundred yards from us advertising 'Hard core XXXX porn' and 'poppers' for sale. There are numerous pubs and clubs having strippers bearing all, yet we are criticised by you and have the police victimising us for what we do! Come on Bolton, wake up, you can't have dual standards!

Julie Carmichael, Brian Rigby

The Millstone

Crown Street, Bolton.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.