2 NOVEMBER 2002, Page 42

Marr's tortoises

From Mr Simon Courtauld Sir: 'History or just a bit of fun?' Simon Hoggart asked about the BBC series Great Britons (Arts, 26 October). A bit of an embarrassment. I would say, having watched the BBC's political editor, Andrew Marr, pressing the claims of Charles Darwin last weekend.

It was not so much Marr's dreadful taste in tropical beachwear on the Galapagos Islands as his mispronunciation — at least six times — of 'tortoise' that made him an unworthy champion of the great naturalist. Simon Courtauld

Pewsey, Wiltshire