14 AUGUST 1971, Page 23

Mashed bananas

Sir: Having read John Rowan Wilson's article on matoke (July 24) which he says "has all the delicacy of flavour of last week's boiled potatoes at a British public school," I would like to inform you, and him, that I am attending a British public school at the moment and have to endure boiled potatoes all term. I eagerly look forward to the school holidays when I can eat platefuls of delicious matoke, back in Uganda. Who cares about the health value! It tastes super; especially with ground-nut sauce.

Try some! Jane Mann (aged 13) P.O. Box 7062 Kampala, Uganda

It is very rare indeed to read an interview which has the ring of truth. By this I do not mean that the interviewer has got his quotes down. wrong, but that the interviewee never says what he really thinks. I was startled to read an interview in the Guardian by Derek Malcolm of Peter King, who is managing director of EMI Cinemas and Leisure Ltd, and thus controls one of the two major film circuits. Suddenly the real Peter King was talking, talking as I presume he thinks. Thus when Malcolm said to King, "You sound as if the (film) industry is full of deadheads", King replied : "The industry is full of deadheads. Not only do they not know what they are making. They also do not know what they are marketing. All along the line there is crass incompetence to be faced."