Postscript . .

Dear Sir,

You may not remember me, well I ,am Robin and I have asked Daddy to buy me a space-suit. He did not appear to be very in- terested as only yesterday I broke the garden window with a ball, and he said if I could earn enough money to pay for it he would consider buying me the space-suit. So 1 thought I would write to you telling you my Daddy is the manager of Alkit the tailors and outfitters at the above address and I have often heard him say that if Alkit has as many accounts as the Bank, he would be sitting pretty. Why don't you open an account with him.

Daddy has often said that if only people knew about this idea they would very quickly see him and I know he would be ever so pleased to let you have all the clothes you want.

Love Robin

If, as I confidently expect, the advertising manager of Alkit finds that very little extra business with bank cashiers accrues (if I were a bank cashier, this is a letter from Alkit that would make me a customer of Moss Bros. or Austin Reed for life), let him vary his formula a little: Let him follow the example of a haber- dasher of my acquaintance who finds that tired businessmen, if not bank managers (who are never tired), respond readily to a letter, simi- larly simulating a naïve and unformed script, and running thus:

Dear Mr. Big Businessman,

You won't remember me at all, for we haven't ever met, but my name is Wendy (my friends call me Bubbles), and I've asked Daddy to buy me a mink coat. I enclose a photograph so that you can see from what I look like in a bikini that I'd look rather cute in a mink coat. It was taken last year, when I was sixteen: I'm rather better developed now than I was then, but my face looks quite a bit, younger, on account of somehow' my eyes getting rounder. Daddy says he can only buy me a mink coat if business gets better, and I thought that if you and enough of your friends would open an account with my Daddy, you could have all the pleasure of buying a mink coat for Bubbles at the price of only a dozen measly little shirts for yourself, and then I would

come round to say pretty-pretty-thank-You myself, perhaps after business at the office. •• • Or, of course, the advertising manager could stop adding his twee little contributions to o%err body's steadily growing pile of unnecessary letters, and put his mind to composing sorue ordinary newspaper advertisements.

Who says that the public schools don't keeP abreast of current affairs? Who says that 1.010 is a dead language? The Latin verse paper In this month's Common Entrance examination re' quired candidates to put into elegiacs:

KUWAIT

In-past time an ancient race was squeezing berries; With-this oil she had anointed rapid wheels. Lo! now the rocks produce a new oil,

which formerly long ages were denying with-011 put-on-top.

This gift stands-out more valuable than-all gilts. Whence it-comes-about that kings seek kingdoos not their-own.

I wondered last week what could be the pur' port of the swastika chalked on a nearby wall. with the slogan, 'Up with the minicabs!' I aril at least as puzzled by the Bloomsbury gralfil0 recently spotted by a colleague (and spelled

like this):

1928. JUDUS ISSCHARIOT. Riots Predicted The Auvergne isn't a part of France much noted for its wines, though it produces notable cheeses (bleu d'Auvergne, fourme d'Ambert and Centel) and hearty dishes, some of which were put on at Torquay last weekend for the first df, the Imperial Hotel's 'gastronomic weekends. (The notion is to bring over to the Imperial. on a number of weekends—but not all—during the winter a patron and chef from an outstanding French restaurant, this time from the Grand Hotel Bardet et Regina at Le Mont Dore, 0ØC starred in Michelin.) To go with the admirable clarets and burgundies included in the all-in • price for the weekend, the management had done its best to produce at any rate one 'local' wine: the Auvergnat visitors said, that their reds weren't worth bringing over, but the Imperial wasn't far out with a white St. Pourcain-sur: Sioule, which comes from the upper reaches 01 the Allier, a few miles north of Vichy—strictlY, 1 suppose, from the Bourbonnais, but very near the northern edge of the Auvergne, and much drunk there.

According to the firm of Asher Storey. it5 London shippers, St. Pourgain 'has a dry, flintY taste rather like a Chablis, with a suggestion of the piquant smoky bouquet of Sancerre and Pouilly-Furne,' and I see no reason to disagree with them (though I couldn't find the aPPle flavour that Warner Allen, in his latest book. says that the wine has long been famous for). They add that any retailer can get it from the" and should sell it at between 7s. 6d. and 9s, 6d.. and I think that at that sort of price it is worlh having a look at as an out-of-the-ordinary wine that goes very well with fish.

• CYRIL RAI