On the sound advice of Ackers I've just deleted my previous posting ('I've had enough') which, through its increasing number of provocative comments, was becoming further and further removed from the essence of what blogging's all about.

Here's his message...

"Frank, I'm a regular reader and occasional poster and non BCUK member. It appears your guy is not very different from a regular heckler. These people have been around since biblical times. Remember Life of Brian? Firstly, hecklers heckle for one reason: to cause an effect on you and/or the audience. It may be that they disagree with the stance of your presentation, the topic itself or just the fact that you’re up there looking good and being entertaining. They may even have an agenda or different political stance or maybe they’re just being a jerk. Regardless, whatever his/her motive, the heckler wants your attention and that of the audience, so one of the best ways of shutting him up is to completely ignore him.

If you get into a verbal spitting match with him, act rude in return, or in any fashion give up control and/or composure, you’ve lost the audience just that much.

In most cases, the worst thing you can do is give the heckler your undivided attention. If you do, you lose control of the audience. They become interested in the heckler, or how you’re reacting, or the new debate he’s created. The momentum you had is lost and all sorts of negative things can happen. In response to your question: how best to deal with the annoying problem, seems the best thing to do is to delete this entire chapter. Just my two pennies worth."

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Very many thanks to Ackers for taking the time and effort to advise with such eloquence and wisdom. Much appreciated. Thanks also to those many BCUK friends and visitors who bravely posted messages of support despite the considerable risks of spiteful flak from a certain somewhat confused individual who began by extolling the virtues of free speech and ended up dictating what people could and couldn't say. Interesting.

Incidentally, the one good thing to come out of all this is that BCUK have now instructed me on how to moderate messages from visitors. Armed with their valuable advice, I can assure you that this nonsense won't happen again.