Best of the Beeb
Sir: As one of the apologists for the BBC cited by Robert Solomon (Letters, 15 November), I must confess that I did indeed fail to pick up on Mrs Finching’s crude speculations about Chinese women in Little Dorrit, but despite this I beg leave not to retract my previous comments to the effect that the licence fee is good value. In fact I would add that the presence of a lewd reference in a period drama hardly undermines arguments concerning the ‘high quality of its production’.
Mr Solomon does not make it explicit (excuse the pun), but the inference is that he disapproves of such lewdness. May I suggest that, in addition to turning off his television and radio, he should also avoid attending productions of any plays by William Shakespeare. For that matter, he might wish to handle with care practically the entire canon of English literature, from Chaucer to the novels of Jane Austen, for in Northanger Abbey we are informed of Catherine Morland that ‘At 15... she began to curl her hair and long for balls.’
Jon Stubbings
London N3
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