Outstanding event
Sir: Touching upon your reviewer's column `Fun of the Fair' of 19 September, one can only feel sorry for a writer who appears to be incapable of distinguishing between what he calls a blatant wink and an involuntary tic of the eye, the unhappy result of a long-standing and easily recog- nised medical condition.
Much distress has been caused by this insensitive and jeering opening passage appearing in an otherwise serious review of London's most important antiques' fair, and particularly when directed so personal- ly against an exhibitor who had contributed items of outstanding aesthetic significance to that event, including the two marvellous Henry VIII bronzes which you illustrated, comparable examples of which have, it seems, never before graced the interna- tional market.
Scholars and collectors travelled long distances to visit the fair; one can only hope that the effect of this disparaging and thoroughly disagreeable paragraph did not succeed in discouraging others.
As a regular reader of the Spectator, I am astonished that the offensive passages were not edited out.
A. Kenneth Snowman
Chairman, The Burlington House Fair, 6 Bloomsbury Square, London WC1
Alistair Hicks writes: I apologise for my joke: I was not aware of Mr Katz's medical condition.
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