17 MAY 1986, Page 24

Frugal intellectuals

Sir: In answer to your Diary note (10 May) about seating arrangements at the Periodical Publishers Association's annual editorial awards dinner, may I point out that the reason the 'intellectual' titles find themselves sitting together each year is that, unlike the publishers of Practical Fishkeeping, Tunnels and Tunnelling and Just Seventeen, they don't book whole tables. Perhaps intellectualism begets fru- gality.

M. J. Finley

Executive Director, Periodicals Publishers Association, 15-19 Kingsway, London WC2