Letters | 21 August 2010

What the PCC is for

Sir: While I really do not wish to react humourlessly to Douglas Murray’s thoughtful piece on society’s collective sense of humour failure (‘Why can’t anyone take a joke any more?’, 14 August), I would like to clear up a couple of his points about the Press Complaints Commission. He says that we encourage people to ‘claim an offence’ if they do not like something they read. Not quite true. The PCC deliberately makes no judgment on taste or decency, and actively discourages people from complaining on the grounds simply that they have been offended. We encourage people to complain about accuracy and intrusion and the like, but that is surely to be expected.

Murray also refers to the fact that the PCC once received complaints about an article of his on the subject of Irish jokes. Perhaps because it spoils his punchline somewhat, he then fails to note that these complaints were rejected on the grounds that he was exercising his right to offer robust opinion. Protecting legitimate free expression is something we have to — and do — take seriously.

Stephen Abell
Director, Press Complaints Commission



Virtual Rome


Sir: Martin Gayford (‘21st-century pilgrims’, 14 August) can take heart, even if Italian works of art are at present rendered inaccessible by so many vacant crowds. We recently had a family of four to stay. The two children, aged respectively 14 and 16, spent their days in the garden glued to their computers, pizzas to hand. My son, aged 35, noticed that their screen was filled with virtual pictures of the Colosseum and the Roman Walls. ‘If you walk ten minutes down the road,’ he told them, ‘you can see the Colosseum itself, and to view the Roman Walls you do not even have to move an inch from where you are.’ ‘But we can see it all far better online,’ they answered, without even raising their heads.