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Sir: Reading about Jeremy Clarke’s Homer Simpson talking bottle opener (Low life, 31 May) has not quite made me rush out and buy one, but I am pleased to discover that Homer is heard yelling, ‘Don’t mind if I dooo!’ That’s almost exactly Colonel Chinstrap’s catchphrase from It’s That Man Again. Only a day or two earlier I’d been listening on BBC7 to a 1945 episode of that show and been amused to hear Tommy Handley’s battleaxe secretary, played by Diana Morrison, utter an exasperated ‘Doh!’ before slamming the famous ITMA door. I hope that the harmless drudges at the OED are aware that what is popularly regarded as a Simpsonian interjection predates the cartoon by more than half a century. Now I’m off in search of a Chinstrap bottle opener.
Keith Norman
Oxford
Bel canto
Sir: Stephen Pettitt laments the lack of ‘dramatic cogency’ in bel canto opera (Arts, 31 May). But dramatic cogency has never been the purpose of opera. Since singing is not the accepted manner of speaking, opera is, by definition, unrealistic. Unlike theatre, it is not meant accurately to portray emotions, but rather to reflect them through the medium of music. Rossini, Bellini and Donizetti made opera an exhilarating experience by technical and lyrical mastery — something that Wagner’s tiresome Germanic warbling and Birtwistle’s incessant din have never improved upon.
Nicholas Dixon
London E11
Who’s the worst PM?
Sir: I should not dream of challenging so august a source as Christopher Fildes (Letters, 24 May). I can only state that I definitely remember first coming across the Harold Wilson being the worst prime minister since Lord North anecdote in an article written by Bernard Levin for the Times, to which paper he was a regular contributor at the time.
Anyway, be that as it may. As Bertie once said: ‘These are mere straws, Jeeves. Do not let us chop them.’ So Gordon Brown wins the Lord North stakes, showing a clean pair of heels to Harold Wilson, with E. Heath plodding home in third place.
Richard Skilbeck
Newbury, Berkshire
Self-justifying theology
Sir: Nigel Stone is brilliant in exposing Gene Robinson’s self-justifying theology (Letters, 24 May), but the churches’ traditional repudiation of homosexuality does not stand up either. First, there is the rather obvious fact that Jesus himself appears to have been utterly indifferent to homosexual activity. Second, although St Paul condemns it, he also condemns marriage, and women who do not wear hats. Third, Jesus’s very clear statements that Scripture could never be overturned applies to all the Old Testament laws, not just the bit about homosexuality. Unless Christians abstain from, for example, wearing mixed-fibre clothing and eating prawns, their recourse to the Old Testament for moral guidance is as flawed and self-justifying as Robinson’s. Both Robinson and the churches would appear to be creating God in their own image.
David Jones
Amsterdam
Bureaucratic nightmare
Sir: Dealing with the financial affairs of a deceased relative has made me wonder if standards in our service industries have declined. In correspondence with our major banks I have been beset by problems. Two made mistakes in the figures they gave me, these being corrected after a letter and a reminding telephone call. Another named the deceased incorrectly, another required four reminders by telephone before the inquiry was answered and the fifth needed one telephone call before a reply came.
Two branches of government departments had to be phoned before letters received replies. One replied to the wrong address and also named the deceased incorrectly. The relevant papers were actually delivered by hand to the Probate Registry. An interview subsequently took place but it has taken ten weeks, less one day, from the first filing of the papers for the grant to be issued. In my view the whole procedure took an unreasonable length of time, even though inheritance tax was payable.
Charles E. Speight
Wilmslow, Cheshire
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