Correct style
Sir: While noting its total irrelevance to the important subject under discussion, which was so admirably contributed to by Mr Henry Morland in the same issue, I was much diverted by Tony Lambton's very jolly little Christmastime joke at my ex- pense (Letters, 10 January); though a friend of his categorised it to me as 'a clear case of ci-devant Lord Pot calling plain Mr Kettle black'. I daresay it was thought up at the family dining table at Biddick, perhaps by my dear goddaughter Lady Durham, the mother of the heir to the earldom he disclaimed, along with his viscountcy, barony and all other titles, back in 1970, not long before running into the 'little local difficulty' in Maida Vale that drove him to turn his back on West- minster and seek Sienese pastures new. I certainly cannot have been alone in being puzzled by the short sharp signature `Lambton' at the foot of his letter. Have I somehow missed an announcement in the British press to the effect that, like his noble first cousin Alec Home before him, he has, despite disclaiming a hereditary earldom, nevertheless acquired a life peer- age permitting him to continue to sign himself thus? Like Dickens's Rosa Dartle, I only want to know. And so as not to confuse a baronial coeval in Aberdeen- shire, I sign myself not Forbes tout court, but more correctly.
Alastair Forbes 1837 Château d'Oex, Switzerland
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