Sir: Mr Patrick Hutber (Letters, 13 December) appears to have
a strange, Walter Mitty-ish urge to play out fantasy roles for which he is uniquely unequipped. He is, for instance, in- ordinately proud that I have not 'controverted' any of his `statemenits.' But how could I have done so, when his letter contained no state- ments either to corroborate or controvert— almost nothing, in fact, but abuse. He refers to his 'statement' that Yevtushenko was a distin- guished poet as 'incontrovertible.' I am not quite sure about the precise definition of 'dis- tinguished poet,' which Mr Hutber seems to regard as a statement of fact, but I dare say that the phrase might be applied to the early Yevtushenko. So what? The point I was really making in my letter was that a person like Mr Hutber, with no knowledge of the Russian lan- guage or of Russian poetry, is completely un- qualified to be judge of such matters.
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