No Sants-culotte
Sir: I was disheartened but, in these days of sloppy journalism, hardly surprised to read Charles Moore’s snide remarks (The Spectator’s Notes, 10 October) about Hector Sants’s apparently palatial house in Oxford. I have no particular opinion as to whether, as chief executive of the Financial Services Authority, Mr Sants should be paid more, the same or less than the Prime Minister. What I do know is that prior to joining the FSA, Sants had spent many years as a very senior, successful and presumably handsomely rewarded executive at Credit Suisse. Before that he held a similar position at Donaldson, Lufkin and Jenrette, which was acquired by Credit Suisse on very generous terms in 2000, and he would also have benefited from this. It is fair to surmise therefore that the bulk of Mr Sants’s wealth derives not from his current (albeit well remunerated) employment, but from his previous career in banking.
I fail to understand why Mr Moore might take such exception to independently wealthy individuals entering public service. I would also have thought it desirable that regulatory bodies be staffed in part by successful practitioners with relevant experience rather than by career civil servants, academics or retired media hacks. Would it be such a bad idea that someone should build a career and acquire wealth in the private sector before entering public service? I realise, of course, that in the world inhabited by politicians and senior civil servants it tends to work the other way round. They build up their contacts first, then afterwards leverage their public sector experience by way of book and speaking deals, peerages, consultancies and directorships, which keep them occupied and supplement their meagre pensions.
Glenn Wellman
Dulwich
Getting the wind up
Sir: I find it amazing that in his review of Inherit the Wind at the Old Vic (Arts, 10 October) Lloyd Evans omitted three important facts, namely that this play is a dramatisation of the 1925 Scopes Monkey trial, Kevin Spacey was playing the famous lawyer Clarence Darrow, and that Spacey starred in a biopic entitled Darrow a few years ago and knows his subject, hence his ‘mesmerising form’.
Paul T. Horgan
Crowthorne, Berkshire
Sir: Well, at least Inherit the Wind allowed Lloyd Evans to vent his anti-science spleen. Other than a single sentence conceding that ‘Kevin Spacey is on mesmerising form’, it was certainly not a review of the production. Anyone who can boldly assert that ‘Darwinism is poppycock’ and that both Darwinism and the Big Bang theory ‘are readily intelligible by infants’ clearly knows not of what he speaks. But then he also asserts that creationism is poppycock. So, if life has appeared neither by evolution nor by an act of creation, can we look forward to the Evans Unified Theory of life, the universe and everything?
Mike Venis
Faversham, Kent
Infinite moves
Sir: Given the astronomical number of possible games of chess, Raymond Keene (Chess, 10 October) implies that the chances that two chess games will end on the same move are also astronomical. However, the number of possible final moves, ending in mate, a draw or stalemate, or prompting resignation, is relatively small. There are 64 squares on the board, and the final move can be played by one of six men (P, R, N, B, Q, or K); each can either move to the square (384 possibilities) or capture a man on that square (432 possibilities, since pawns on files b-g can capture in two ways). Pawns can end the game by promotion on any one of 16 squares, either by moving there (16 moves) or capturing (28 moves), and becoming one of four pieces (176 moves). There are 28 en passant captures and two castling moves. This gives a total number of 1,022 moves.
Given the many thousands of games that have been recorded, it is not surprising that a few turn out to have ended with the same move. However, this analysis does not stipulate that the final move must be made by a piece of a particular colour, starting on the same square, and on the same move in the game, all of which occurred in the amazing example of Reti vs Capablanca and Alekhine.
Jeff Aronson
Oxford
Cyclists beware
Sir: Like Matthew Parris (Another Voice, 10 October), I drive my car very much with bikers in mind — both the motorised and the human-powered varieties. But I wish the majority of motorcyclists, who for some reason drive with their powerful headlights on a high-beam setting, would take on board that car drivers can be blinded by motorcycle headlights. As for cyclists, it is high time that those who ride in gaggles take a look at the rules of the road and learn that when a vehicle approaches them from behind, they should ride in single file rather than preventing safe overtaking by chattily pedalling along three abreast.
Anthony J. Burnet
East Saltoun, East Lothian
Malvern’s boasts
Sir: Rod Liddle (‘Toffs should brazen out their poshness’, 10 October) may be correct in saying that in the battle of two high-born public schoolboys, Johnson (Eton) prevailed over Paxman (Malvern). However, Mr Liddle is plainly wrong to say that Malvern is a lowly institution. Although our probable next prime minister hails from Eton, Malvern already has a serving prime minister (Malaysia). More generally, Malvern has produced several Nobel Prize winners. They did not find it necessary to become president of the United States to receive the award. Further, unlike any other school, Malvern produced the only man ever to captain full England sides at both cricket and football. P.G. Wodehouse also called the view over the senior cricket field the loveliest any public school possessed.
Timothy Straker
London WC1
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