Michael Henderson suggests

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Letters

Wednesday, 27th February 2008

Spectator readers respond to recent articles

Unfortunately, this list also applies to much of Western society and its infantile preoccupations: the celebrity culture, foreign aid, the youth cult, the consumer society’s pig philosophy, bingeing and psychotic visions of ‘saving the planet.’

We get the enemies we deserve.

Revd Dr Peter Mullen

London EC1

Cui bono?

Sir: Hugo Rifkind’s conspiracy theory (Shared opinion, 23 February) about Diana’s death has the merit of reasonableness, compared with the Al Fayed craziness. But it is a bit too complicated. I have a much simpler one: it was organised by Interflora.

Maurice Hardaker

St Paul de Vence, France

Score one for Toscanini

Sir: Paul Johnson (And another thing, 16 February) might be amused at this delightful vignette about Toscanini’s genius. An out-of-town visitor to Milan was enticed by a poster announcing that Toscanini would conduct that night’s opera entirely from memory. Being a sceptic, he purchased a ticket for a gallery seat so as to see for himself this amazing performance. Halfway through the opera, he noticed that the conductor was leafing through a score. Approaching La Scala’s manager after the show, he demanded a refund on the grounds of false advertising. The manager smiled and said: ‘Ah, sir — Maestro Toscanini did indeed conduct this evening’s opera from memory. What you saw him looking at was the score for tomorrow night’s opera.’

Asher Tarmon

Kfar Vitkin, Israel

Substance abuse
Sir: I looked up Venetia Thompson on Google and was not surprised to see, given the lack of any evidence or other proof offered in support of her comments about white men and Obama (‘Obama is a modern-day Othello’, 23 February), that she does not appear to be a psychologist, anthropologist, sociologist or, indeed, any sort of statistician who might have some knowledge about that of which she speaks. There is also no indication that she has spent enough time in America to have established credible anecdotally based opinions. I did, however, see that she has studied creative writing.