... I don't know why or l ow it is, but I am delighted, as a New Yorker, to dis over that Londoners are no only courteous, they are fc inest. I have not, to my now- ledge, been swindled i the four weeks I have beer wan dering naively round your city. I am so used to being had in restaurants, taxis and hotels all over E rope, that I have given up tr; ng to defend myself. I hav two more weeks to ...

... Nobody has been able to tell me why, when I buy yoghurt, I always buy live Yoghurt. I know it is live, because it says so on the pack. But what makes it so? Francis boney, Jermyn btreet, avvi ...

... Dear Cecil Beaton Please stop being pre-lab. (it s too small and constricting for today's Londoner.) Suggest you: (i) Buy yourself a Donovan cap and a crochet wool tie. (2) Buy yourself the new Paxton LP. (3) Realize that hunt ball is currently pronounced diskotek party. Now look at your feet. If they are still held firmly in a glutinous mixture of earth and water: (1) Buy yourself a 1932 ...

... English estate agents are without doubt the most honest, the most efficient and above all the most respected of any in the world. They also charge by far the lowest rates of com mission. If Miss Angela Ince had ever dealt, as I do con stantly, with foreign estate agents, she might think twice about attacking English firms. Norman Menzies, Lisbon. Hotel Ritz, ...

... In your interesting feature called What People are Collecting (30 July issue), you mentioned that my solo exhibition was to begin on 4 October at the O'Hana Gallery. The show is not be- cr i n tii n o until 11 OrvfnV>Pv _V W Clarissa Loxton Peacock, Grosvenor Place, SW1. ...

... We should bury deep in London 'end of the new Ml extension a casket of items typifying Britain today. Here's my list: a Beatles LP; a copy of London Life, a copy of a parking meter fine; a photo graph of a girl in a mini-skirt; a tape-recording of a Ken Dodd performance in the theatre, complete with gags and laughter; a video-tape of BBC-l's Till Death Do Us Part; the book Up The Junction and ...

... We are being incessantly told that we live in a fast, push-button, with it world. There have even been sugges tions that we should bury certain articles (a long-play ing record of The Beatles, a dish-washing machine, a gonk) from this exciting age, in order that a future genera tion can excavate examples from our way of life and wonder in awe at the type of troglodyte who roamed the Earth ...

... Sculpture is still something of an exotic commodity in England. We have not assimi lated sculpture into everyday life -it is not part of our general consciousness, but something we look at in mu seums and galleries. Nearly everybody has a picture of one kind or another in their home, but very few people possess any sculpture. Most people's notion of sculpture is limited to those sad war ...

... We hear so much about the swinging scene of London, 1966, but is it really so with it? One firework display and a visit by the Kirov Ballet hardly make for an exciting picture of entertainment. Perhaps the show business planners should try harder after all, London is beyond question the mecca of all things theatrical. I have heard that the incomparable Garbo would dearly like to do a play in ...

... There are too many lonely women in London. Many of them feel unwanted by any one except to hit a typewriter or fill a shorthand notebook. Their days are short and the nights in their bedsitters too long. The loneliness is worse for older than younger women. What can be done? If the Government is unable to act and if local authorities are scared of the problem, per haps leading industrial firms ...

... as a j_,onaoner now living abroad, I feel I must answer Arthur Lomax's recent letter. My country of residence is West Germany and I am now centred in Dusseldorf, the so- called Paris of Germany, the centre of the arts, culture and German haute couture. My visits to this country are a blessed relief from the Ger man formality of fashion. True the German dresses smartly, but there is no real ...

... Thank you for your article by David Wynne-Morgan about Lesley Langley, this year's Miss World. His humanitarian approach proves that he un derstands how life can pick you up, put you at the top of the world and throw you right down again. If anybody telephones me again about Miss Langley's nudes, I shall go stark raving mad. I must confess that I am bordering on narrow-minded ness about the ...