Home > The Magazine > The Week

Wednesday 9 July 2008

Dare to dream and make your ultimate trip a reality

The latest culture as recommended by our staff

Liz Anderson

Liz suggests

Email registration

Free weekly email update

Great products and special offers for Spectator readers

Click here for great value reader offers and events

Click here for the latest Spectator Wine Offers

Letters

Wednesday, 9th April 2008

Spectator readers respond to recent articles

Times change. The devotion of women followers of Christ today remains as constant as when Mary and her companions stood at the foot of the Cross, while the men skulked behind locked doors; and Jesus’ choice of Mary to bear the good news of the Resurrection should convince all but the most prejudiced that women make Apostles at least as good as men.

W.N.J. Howard

Hampshire

Don’t throw in the towel

Sir: ‘Your Problems Solved’ is required reading for tired Tory MPs. But I was shocked to read a letter and answer in the 5 April edition concerning the unavailability of ‘really big bath towels — six foot long or so’ in SW1. The answer came that they can be found from a specialist company near Sloane Square, but only in white.

Readers will have heard of ‘the John Lewis list’ chosen by the House of Commons to judge MPs’ expenses because of that company’s reputation for good value. Checking with a friend of mine who works for John Lewis, I learn that their branches sell several qualities of very large bath towels, 180 cm by 100 cm, each in a range of colours as well as pure white.

And may I disagree further with Mary when she says that ‘white is the only acceptable colour’? In my view, white will only accentuate still further the appearance of the over-large figure. I can think of a number of Members of Parliament on both sides of the House who fall into that category. Surely blue going on green is now the ‘in’ colour — especially as we approach the London Mayoral elections? I just know that Tamzin Lightwater would agree.

Michael Fabricant MP

House of Commons, London SW1

Survival skills

Sir: In her article on Dom Hugh Gilbert, abbot of Pluscarden (‘A holy man tipped to lead the nation’s Catholics’, 22 March), Mary Wakefield asks ‘can such an unworldly man survive such a very worldly job?’ She then reports that he feels ‘it is time to leave’ Pluscarden, to which the abbot replies (Letters, 5 April) that ‘I can find no trace of these words in the recording I made of the interview’.

Previous page 1 | 2 | 3 Next page

Letters

Spectator readers respond to recent articles

Diary

Penny Smith

Penny Smith gives a rundown of her week

The NHS needs its Reformation

The Spectator on reforming the NHS

Glasgow East is Brown’s dirty little secret: a hideous, costly social experiment gone wrong

Fraser Nelson

Glasgow East symbolises — as few other places in Britain can — the fact that the problem Labour faces is not just lack of leadership but lack of mission. What is to be seen in this constituency encapsulates and dramatises Labour’s abject failures to comprehend, let alone tackle, the nature of the poverty which grips our council estates.
For all the latest on the Glasgow East by-election, visit Coffee House