Sir: I am in an even worse case than David Buckley (Letters, 10 June). Like him, I married a foreigner while living abroad. But my wife is a citizen of a communist country, so...

Relative confusion Sir: May 1, as his sole surviving relative, correct Mr Christopher Webb's (Letters, 10 June) silly confusion of my uncle, Alastair Forbes, late of Harrods...

_LE TTER S Whitbread vs. Whitley Sir: I refer to Edward Whitley's article, 'The Peer and the Beerage,' in your 24 June edition. Even allowing for journalistic licence and an...

Blasphemers Sir: Mr Roy Kerridge ('Verses and worse', 24 June) refers slightingly to English people who have never read Satanic Verses but fearlessly support the cause of...

No pyjamas Sir: Perhaps Wendy Cope (Television, 3 June) saw my Channel Four film, 'She'll Be Wearing Pink Pyjmas', last year on television. Julie Walters does indeed strip off...

Brief lives Sir: It has been decided to compile a volume of omissions from the DJictonary of National Biography from the beginnings to 1985 (the 1981-85 supplement will be...

In search of Durham Sir: May I put Alexandra Artley's article ('Vegetable Mappa Mundi', 10 June) into context by saying that Durham's threatened allotments are but the tip of...

Half-cut and Dryden Sir: P. D. James (Diary, 17 June) may be pleased (or saddened) to know that John Dryden (Poet Laureate) in 1685 wrote: We'll toss off our Ale till we canno'...

Meeting a Submarine Seen by a creature on the water-skin it was a lump; the horizon stung by a bee was swelling; something barbed was stuck in the ocean. A fishing-boat - no, a...

Crying for the moon Graeme Wilson THE INK DARK MOON: LOVE POEMS BY ONO NO KOMACHI AND IZUMI SHIKIBU translated by Jane Hirshfield and Mariko Aratani Charles Scribnzer's Sons,...

Going on about sex David Profumo MY SECRET HISTORY by Paul Theroux Huamish Hamilton, £13.95, pp.468 I T7 ere is an emphatic disclaimer prefacing this novel, to the effect...

His life and good Times Alan Watkins EDITOR-IN-CHIEF: THE FLEET STREET MEMOIRS OF SIR DENIS HAMILTON Hamish Haniblon, f15.95, pp. 208 .Aifter his retirement, Sir Denis...

Bill and Ben Peter Quennell BEN JONSON: A LIFE by David Riggs Harvard Univerlity Press, f27.95, pp.899 It is a brave biographer who lets a 'trained psychoanalyst' loose on...

Theatre The Voysey Inheritance (Cottesloe) The morality of money Christopher Edwards This is an accomplished revival of Harley Granville-Barker's best-known play. Written...

Television Fairy stories Wendy Cope Though I probably shouldn't mention the same programme three weeks running, I was again struck by something in The Child's Eye (Channel...

Low life A rum do Jeffrey Bernard Barbados MB ack in my room after a breakfast of corned beef hash, a solid foundation for a day out here, I found an invitation from Theo...