15 AUGUST 1987, Page 22

Going ape

Sir: One has sympathy with Jeffrey Ber- nard's cat-sitting problems (`Low life', 8 August). It's a pity he has such difficulty in finding like-minded company.

Mr Bernard will not have escaped the fact that it is the tenth anniversary of Elvis

Presley's death. But he might not be aware that The King had a pet chimpanzee called Scatter. Scatter acquired a taste for bour- bon and whisky and eventually died of cirrhosis of the liver.

Alasdair Riley

Woodstock House, Woodstock Road, London W4