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Wednesday 23 July 2008

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Clemency Burton-Hill

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Letters

Wednesday, 2nd April 2008

Spectator readers respond to recent articles

Puzzlement and delight

Sir: I read the article by David Selbourne (‘We are living in a state of emergency’, 29 March) with a mixture of delight and puzzlement; delight at the argument thereof — apart from the references to Cromwell, whose republican experiment ended in failure in 1660 with the Restoration — and puzzlement to the authorship.

Can this be the same David Selbourne who argued in a previous issue (‘No more Pax Americana’, 14 April 2007) that he hoped resurgent Islam would arise again and punish us all for our wickedness? Are there two David Selbournes or is there only one, who has had a Pauline conversion, and now understands the real menace of Islamist fascism and the need for proper pride in our present liberal democracies and their collective heritages?

I think we should be told.

John Draper
Via email

A slow run thing

Sir: Henry Sands is quite wrong (Diary, 22 March) when he claims that his pal Mr Tolstoy recorded the slowest time of the season on the Cresta Run this year. A chap with a group from Krug champagne posted a time of 197 seconds; I witnessed it and it was nothing short of exquisite, in a way. I think it gave me frostbite.

Mr Sands should apologise to his literary chum.

John Springs
London SW3

Taste the difference

Sir: I was initially impressed by Charles Moore’s son’s theory regarding the position of our taste buds (The Spectator’s Notes, 29 March), according to which canapés and open sandwiches are served the wrong way up. But as I have discovered after some experiments of my own, there is a problem aside from the obvious one of gravity. This is that the roof of the mouth is very tender and does not respond well to having abrasive foodstuffs pressed against it. It would make much better sense if the taste buds were up there and the tongue was merely a probe for heat and texture. Reluctantly, I conclude that canapés are not put together wrongly, but that we are.

John Squibb
Shropshire

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The mugger's accomplice

The Spectator on the return of inflation

Diary

Joan Collins

Joan Collins reflects on a week of parties

The Spectator's Notes

Charles Moore

Charles Moore's reflections on the week

The cross-party consensus on welfare reform echoes the Gingrich–Clinton revolution

Fraser Nelson

Fraser Nelson on the coming political week

Global Warning

Theodore Dalrymple

Theodore Dalrymple delivers a global warning

Letters

Spectator readers respond to recent articles

Diary of a Notting Hill Nobody

Tamzin Lightwater

Tamzin Lightwater's unique take on the week

Letters

Spectator readers respond to recent articles

We have a duty to protect Zimbabwe

Peter Oborne

Robert Mugabe is murdering, starving and brutalising his people in the run-up to the presidential elections next week, says Peter Oborne. We should act now to prevent civil war and ethnic cleansing

Obama and McCain offer a choice, not an echo

Irwin Stelzer

This presidential race will be the first real Right v. Left contest in a long time, says Irwin Stelzer. On free trade, healthcare, tax and pariah regimes, the two men are worlds apart