20 SEPTEMBER 1997, Page 32

Quote unquote

Sir: Before you are showered with letters from erudite Spectator readers, I must con- fess to falling below the rigorous intellectu- al standards of your magazine.

I am afraid that I tend to quote from my increasingly unreliable memory. My wife, who is Spanish, reminds me that the poem quoted in my homage to Manolete (`Long may Spain fight on', 13 September) is by Jose Manrique, not Manrique de Lara; nor is the text accurate in every word.

But the essential truth remains: death creeps up on us all. Before it finally claims me, I will take care to have more recourse to the Oxford Dictionary of Quotations.

Tristan Garel-Jones

Hotel Mamounia, Marrakesh