Taking the Tablet Sir: When Auberon Waugh reopened the pages
of the Tablet (12 November), he seems to have hoped to revisit Brideshead. What a disappointment! And then he struck a snide review of the biographY of his own grandfather, which is enough to annoy anyone. But I think he is mistaken in thinking that not many people who enjoy reading the Spectator will also enjoy reading the Tablet. I do, for one, and 1 am not a Catholic. Indeed, so far from being confined to a few Catholic schools and institutions ... and even a few Catholic households, the Tablet has an influential readership, not only among Catholics, but also to my knowledge among Anglicans. Indeed I have it from a well informed source that the Tablet is appreciated inside Lambeth Palace.
To my mind, the Spectator and the Tablet have it in common that they both show us important aspects of contemporary life which escape the daily press and the Sundays. As a rough test, I suggest that any reader of the Spectator who was dissatisfied with A. N. Wilson's supercilious and ill informed review article (' Doing the Lambeth walk', 12 November) on the Archbishop of Canterbury would enjoy the Tablet.
Sir John Lawrence
24 St Leonard's Terrace, London SW3
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