Gibbons Errors

Sir: Some of the Grinling Gibbons carvings at Hampton Court were indeed removed for safekeeping during World War II, and so it would seem perfectly reasonable for G illy Cryer......

Wanted Babies

Sir: Paul Johnson's 'appalling' statistic (28 October), that one in four births in Britain is illegitimate, conceals something other than tensions, misery and conflicts. The......

Patient Publisher

Sir: Taki is wrong (High life, 18 Novem- ber). Alice Mayhew is neither, as it hap- pens, Irish, nor, in any way, intolerant. I am on my fourth book for her now — that surely......

Footing It

Sir: Paul Johnson's usage of 'shooting in the foot' for Neil Kinnock is surely right and Spencer Jones wrong in his derivation of the phrase from malingerers in World War I. It......

Sago Music

Sir: Your music critic (21 October) sug- gests that modern music should feature in our conversation as much as modern litera- ture and does not understand why we do not pay more......

Free Lunch

Sir: Unlike Auberon Waugh (Another voice, 11 November), I have been to luncheon with the Prime Minister in the Thatchers' flat upstairs at Number Ten. Incidentally, she cleared......

A Dictionary Of Cant

DEVELOP. To build a shopping centre on top of. LIFE. Life is what you brood about when you are not doing it properly. PHOTO-OPPORTUNITY. A phe- nomenon wherein fact-finding......