Party pooper
Sir: Michael Grosvenor Myer's letter (22 July) was a moving cry from the heart of the excluded. He is correct about the way your contributors go on about your party and I might well have whinged, not quite so elegantly as he, but for the fact that many years ago, as a youngster, my home was two rooms in Doughty Street opposite your offices.
Then more tonal than verbal, I did not read your organ and knew little of it except that each summer, on an unpredictable evening, your building opened its windows and front door and a swarm of alcohol- marinating journalistic elvers wriggled out of every orifice.
It was then that I learnt and practised the gentle art of gatecrashing. The meandering exchanges of the Doughty Street 'in crowd' inspired me to pick up and read the publication and acquire the addition, which I have never lost, of regularly reading it and that pinnacle of journal writing, the New Yorker.
One is now considered not grand enough to be invited and, wrongly, too grand to gatecrash. I have no lust to move back to those rooms in Doughty Street but Mr Myer should, as the rooms are there and the party goes on and on.
Peter Jonas
Managing Director, English National Opera, St Martin's Lane, London WC2
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