Do the Write Thing

AP01 to AP65

A mag's letters section is usually the cause of infinite misery and despair (where "infinite" is a value of turning swiftly over the page, only to find a reader review section or something and hurling yourself into a culvert) because of this simple equation as established by SCIENCE:

Readers + writing = rubbish

Fortuitously, nobody tells AMIGA POWER's readers what to do, except obviously when we instructed you to rise up and seize the means of production, with the professor-defying result that Do the Write Thing, AP's letter pages, were all great and stuff thanks to the letters as well as our replies. Where other mags' letters bits were complaint buckets or awkwardly forced jollity (or formality or whatever), Do the Write Thing was a pleasant conversation under a big umbrella at a pavement cafe, where we'd laugh at your funny jokes, rubbish your idiocy, investigate your bothers, own up to disaster, interrupt your dullness with a better bit, listen thwarted to your ideas, spill tea on your leg while gesturing and, now and again, crumple you into a small ball and stamp you into a bin.

This tremendous vindication of you, our lovely readers, is aptly reflected in the goggle-boggling fact that (as far as we know) AP is the only computer games magazine EVER in which EVERY SINGLE reader letter was genuine. Give yourselves a hearty round of applause. Now rise up and slay with cudgels the key people on this list.

Do the Write Thing is one of the few mag elements to spring into existence all but perfectly formed. The only revision that AP2's bumble-trousered archaeology has uncovered is that the out-of-context quotes prepending each letter were introduced in AP13. Everything else, from And Another Thing (tiny clips from otherwise non-qualifying letters), through amusingly (in)appropriate prizes for star letters and special round-up sections for particularly popular themes (eg, the awfulness of Epic), to thoughtful, considered replies and calling people idiots, were all there from the start.

The letters pages were never credited, but were assumed to be the work of the Ed of the ish. This is not so. Each AP era found its pape-scribing answer champ, usually by a complicated process involving hitting people with a broom handle until everyone had had a go, then seeing who liked it best. Particular barons of the craft were Stuart and Cam (with bonus team-up powers), and Do the Write Thing's display of perceptive editing, chatty approachability, funny replies and skilful pacing have served Cam admirably in his later career answering 999 phone calls.