EAN Rook, that doyenne of Fleet Street columnists, once wrote a piece suggesting that the Queen should pluck her eyebrows. That article produced such a disturbance in the breast of one reader that, unable to sleep, she got up at 2am and vacuumed the whole house in a fury.

It's a strange business, this writing a weekly column. Words tapped into a computer in Orkney and faxed straight from the northern machine into The Herald office in Glasgow appear in print in front of some 300,000 people within hours. At the breakfast table, or on the bus or train, readers flip through the pages and make a quick decision on whether or not to read the words. By Saturday, the sweated-over text is consigned to bin or fire.

My brief is to provide 1000 words for each Friday, on anything that comes into my small but perfectly-formed heid. So as usual this week, I lock myself away in a little eyrie looking out over Kirkwall - a curious

window on the world - and dream . . .

What normally happens is that the words and images of the week's news float through the mind, and connect with life experiences, books, films, and conversations late into the night. Something inchoate forms, and soon stream-of-consciousness words are tumbling on to the laptop screen. Eventually I press ''word count''. Say, 1340. Then the painful editing process begins. Eventually, the magic number 1000 - or thereabouts - appears on screen. As with a book, the piece is never ''finished'', only abandoned as the deadline looms.

So, there I am, getting ready. My mind, unbidden, floats back to when I was 16 years old, just finishing Highers. Instead of going to university, I started work on the local paper - covering golden weddings, football matches, pit disasters, greyhound racing, the burgh court.

Printer's ink has been coursing through my veins ever since. I recall the excitement of daily journalism in Edinburgh, the camaraderie, the drinks in Baillie's Bar, the extra-mural freelance work for the BBC, the stories behind the stories; and then, after seven years, the decision to tear up the family script and become a minister. But that's another story altogether, and I've got a column to write for tomorrow . . .

I've never scratched around for things to say, never had ''writer's block''. You've got to be brilliant to suffer from that condition. (I'm reminded of the Orkney farmer who said: ''We're no' very intellectual here - that means we just have to use wir brains.'') I enjoy writing, even against - especially against - the pressure of deadlines. It's how I unwind and relax, in the way that some people play golf or watch telly. The day I stop enjoy writing this column is the day I'll chuck it in (if the editor hasn't called ''Come in Number Three, your time's up!'' before that.)

As I think about what I will write on this week, I reflect that the very act of producing a weekly column - with a wee photie of one's crazed physiognomy at the top of it - is, by definition, an egotistical thing to do. So is preaching, however much it is cloaked in the language of humility and inadequacy. It's better to put one's hands up and acknowledge this, then to get on with it, even have some fun. There is only so much angst that congregations and readers can be expected to put up with. Journalists and ministers alike stand in need of regular absolution.

What is the job of the columnist? Peter Jenkins, that outstanding political commentator, said that political columnists spend a great deal of their time reading the papers on behalf of their readers, trying to make a pattern out of a torrent of words. He added that the job of the columnist was to take an ego trip to entertain the readers, ''preferably by annoying them, with strong opinions on each and every subject''.

Columns are all about opinions, often instant opinions; and about judgments, often sweeping judgments. Consistency, mercifully, is not mandatory. What the columnist tries to do is to get ''inside'' public events and discern a pattern, a trend, a cultural shift, an emergent paradigm, an inner meaning; and then express these things in what is essentially a form of print entertainment, a piece of journalistic vaudeville. Whether the columnist succeeds or not is a matter for editors and readers to decide.

What is for sure is that the columnist will soon know about it. I have learned that there are a lot of Herald readers - and strong opinions - out there. The Kirkwall eyrie is no fortress; it is

regularly invaded by mail, fax, telephone, e-mail. I stand accused of bias against Protestants, Catholics, humanists, the Labour Party, psychiatrists (all untrue), and also against Rangers, Celtic, spin-doctors, and television (guilty, your honour).

The most vicious letters are invariably those ending ''Yours in Christ''. Nobody can put the boot in the groin like an aggrieved Christian. Most of the messages that come in, though, are heart-warming, and often hilarious.

This column, it appears, can sometimes come between husband and wife, provoking arguments, possibly even manic vacuuming. It has, I am very glad to know, caused embarrassing outbreaks of hysterical laughter in crowded commuter train compartments. Now and again it has expressed a point of view that someone has longed to see in print.

A column is not scripture. It is ephemeral writing, forgotten the next day. As the Australian writer Phillip Adams has put it: ''The columnist is writing for an audience and a deadline, not for eternity.''

Ah, well, must stop this dreaming. What will I write about this week? I hear the Queen's eyebrows calling . . .

n Regular Herald columnist Ron Ferguson, a former runner-up for the McVitie's Scottish Writer of the Year Award, was commended in the ''Columnist of the Year'' section of last week's Bank of Scotland Press awards.