A COUPLE of weeks ago, the Evening News revealed Mike Foster's utter bemusement at a letter from the Open Spaces Society.

The letter appeared to be complaining about the size of a grant given to Worcestershire County Council to open up the countryside.

But, as Mike pointed out, it was difficult to be sure as the author had not exactly stuck to the rules set down by the Plain English Campaign.

For example, one key paragraph read: "My understanding is that while the specific and individual sum, identified for each local authority to meet those obligations, was not required to be hypothecated nor was it specifically quantified within what I understand to have been a more general environmental allocation it was nevertheless sufficiently clearly identified to enable the Local Government Association to calculate that a sum per authority ranging from £120,000 and £170,000 was expected to be used for those purposes."

On Mike's behalf, this column made a request for a translator to come forward.

I am delighted to report a successful outcome - a letter from no less than the Plain English Campaign itself.

It reads: "Dear James,

"We have just seen your piece about the letter from the Open Spaces Society to Mike Foster.

"We'll happily give you an attempt at a translation of the offending paragraph: 'There are no rules setting up the specific amount that each local authority should get towards opening up the countryside.

'However, the Local Government Authority worked out that each local authority will need between £120,000 and £170,000.'

"However, because the original piece is so baffling, this is only an educated guess! When we teach people the art of clear writing, we warn against using passive verbs ('a mistake was made') instead of active verbs ('I made a mistake') because it can be difficult to work out who is doing what. In this case, there are four places in the same sentence where this happens.

"The good news is that the Open Spaces Society's long-winded approach will require more paper, which means more trees need to be cut down, which in turn, opens up the countryside - making more open spaces! Yours, John Lister."

Wonderful stuff, John.

Now let that be the end of it.