16 OCTOBER 1982, Page 20

Clever clogs

Sir: Without wanting to sound hubristic I trust you will make subsequent clues in the Spectator Treasure Hunt more demanding. I cannot believe I was the only one to have got the first six in half as many minutes. At this rate there will be so many correct solu- tions piled up on 14 January that the winner of the Lavery oil will have to be decided by lot. Despite Christopher Booker's cry of `Good Luck', I and (one imagines) most of the Spectator's essentially intellectual readers would prefer that mental agility and erudition counted for rather more. Let us leave mere good fortune to the oafish par- ticipants in football pools and television games. Alternatively, the space for the explarla' tions of one's choice of answer should be bigger, because if priority is to be given to those demonstrating their reasoning welii ' anyone who wins will have to furnish short essays with each entry. Or perhaps Yo

.

could insert a final hurdle, similar to that favoured by the purveyors of breakfasi cereals, and ask contestants to accomPan,Y0 their entries with a short panegyric (uP cr'r words) beginning 'I like the Spectate because . .

Charles Mosley

2 Riverview Mansions, Clevedon Road, East Twickenham, Middlesex