Page v Waugh
Sir: Unlike A ubcron Waugh, I try to make a habit of admitting it when I'm wrong. Sorry about saying Philistine for Pharisee: too long since I was in Bible class.
It doesn't seem to me to be an error comparable to Waugh's in failing to check up on who got the money for the thalidomide settlement. Or does he still think he was right? To anyone less thick than Waugh it would be obvious that the Sunday Times had to pay out a very great deal of its own money to run the thalidomide campaign. It wasn't a profit-making enterprise, nor was it meant to be.
The logic of the argument in the latter part of his letter is barmier than anything he has yet attempted. Does he really think, for instance, that the Spectator would be debarred in some way from advocating that Hoffman LaRoche should compensate the victims of Seveso — and from running a campaign to that effect — because the paper ought instead to empty its not over-large treasury by taking on all the relief work itself?
Bruce Page Editor, New Statesman, 10 Great Turnstile, London WC1 Sir: Why do you allow the foolish M. O'Callaghan (3 June) to torment Mr. Auberon Waugh with his uninformed comments? Of course it is proper to say that a series began as one book — no intention is implied in the statement of a beginning. The human race began as a monocellular organism in the primaeval slime, but it has evolved. Nor does it make the slightest difference to the sense of this observation if you put it in the compound form — 'did begin'.
Why, Sir, do you waste your readers' time with this footling defence of the abominable Evans? Is it possible that the Editor of the Spectator suffers from the same disease? K. L Samphaphong The Oriental, Bangkok, Thailand
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