17 AUGUST 2002, Page 26

Thinkers v. drinkers

From Mr Neil Clark Sir: John Moloney misses the point in his letter (3 August). The fact that 'the participation of Polish youth in higher education is below 10 per cent' is hardly an indictment of the Polish education system: it merely signifies that, unlike the British, the Poles have had the good sense to maintain their universities as centres of academic excellence and not as dumbed-down drinking clubs for those who should really be elsewhere.

As to his comment that Polish society is 'every bit as generously endowed with thugs and delinquents as England', it is obvious that Mr Moloney doesn't get back to Britain very often these days. I recommend that next time he is in these parts he spends a Saturday night on the town: after witnessing his fifth 'glassing' and twelfth street-urination, he will soon be regarding the Poles in a much more favourable light.

Neil Clark

Oxford