14 JUNE 2008, Page 24

Irony bypass

Sir: Is Paul Johnson (And Another Thing, 31 May) an American or has he merely had an irony bypass? Kingsley Amis’s tongue was never more firmly in his cheek than in his bravura description of Dixon’s hangover in Lucky Jim. To spell it out for Mr Johnson, the reference to ‘filthy Mozart’ is a measure of Dixon’s foul mood, not Amis’s musical taste.

J.M. Hallinan

Linley Point, New South Wales