9 AUGUST 2003, Page 34

Fantastic

From Sir Christopher Bland

Sir: Chuck it, Johnson! The 'particularly brilliant Spectator interview' which he referred to in his diary piece on 2 August was almost entirely invented by its author, Petronella Wyatt. It was followed up by a cringing telephone call from the editor, an apology in The Spectator and a payment of several thousand pounds to Children in Need. Such brilliance is, perhaps luckily, rarely affordable in your magazine.

Oddly, the equally fantastic account of my behaviour on the tennis court was not in Wyatt's original piece. Is The Spectator in charitable vein again?

Christopher Bland

London SW1