19 OCTOBER 2002, Page 42

Talent and its absence

From Mr Allan Ronald

Sir: Petronella Wyatt (Singular life, 12 October), musing on the Archer prison diaries and 'The Ballad of Reading Gaol', comments, 'If he [Wilde] could do it, why can't Archer? Or perhaps the latter suffers from the shortcoming of not being gay?'

A Paulina should know better: the latter suffers from being a cloth-eared clodhopper as a writer, while Wilde's writing displays extraordinary talent and panache.

Allan H. Ronald

London SE21