14 OCTOBER 1989, Page 32

Homo ludens

Sir: In a Spectator review (23 September) Francis King named darts as the 'most mindless of all games'. Not so. Years ago on the campus of the University of the South at Sewanee, Tennessee, I came upon a group of students engaged on throwing among one another a plastic soup-plate. `Come and join us, Prof!' they invited me. I declined, inventing a convenient alibi. `What do you call it?' I asked. 'Frisbee.' `Oh we call it MMV."What's that, Prof?' `Mindlessness made visible.'

S. Gorky Putt

Christ's College, Cambridge