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All Greek to Moore
Sir: Charles Moore employs a more inaccurate term than he may appreciate when he describes the Greek Cypriot organisation EOKA as ‘separatist’. In fact EOKA fought for enosis, Greek for ‘union’, and wanted to attach Cyprus to Greece. It would be far nearer the mark to call it a ‘unionist’ group, even if rather an extreme one.
The ‘separatists’ were those who, often with British encouragement, sought to detach a part of Cyprus and affiliate it with Turkey. Thanks to the divide-and-rule policy of the colonial authorities, and to the partitionist constitution bequeathed by London at independence, these minority splitters and their patrons in mainland Turkey were able to achieve a de facto dismemberment of the island in 1974, which is the ironic reason for something that Moore deplores — namely the fact that the British military cemetery now lies on the ‘wrong’ side of the line.
Christopher Hitchens
Washington DC
Plane wrong
Sir: This may be pedantic, but given the relevance and personal interest attributed by Charlotte Metcalf to the Spitfire in her article on Bremont watches (Christmas Gifts, 29 November), I am surprised at such a simple mistake: the plane pictured behind Nick and Giles English is no more a Spitfire than a Mercedes-Benz is a Rolls-Royce. Spitfires did not have radial engines, nor did they ever sport two-bladed propellers, only three or four.
Stephen Saunders
Midhurst, West Sussex
Bloody brilliant
Sir: Toby Young (‘Status Anxiety’, 29 November) tells of his daughter’s present to him of a swear box. She has set an important precedent that deserves maximum support. Let there be such boxes in school classrooms and their considerable contents serve to foster educational projects. Police should be armed with them and empowered to extract on-the-spot fines from football spectators who give voice to foul language and any team player who is sent off for abusing the referee. Let the BBC dock the salaries of broadcasters who show Ross-like tendencies, while a box will rapidly fill with contributions from a certain chef. Swear boxes will serve to both diminish our deteriorating vocabulary and to enrich the Treasury and, maybe, my inadequate pension.
Thank you, Sasha.
Eric Dehn
Bristol
Not the embonpoint
Sir: Dear Mary uses the word embonpoint to mean ‘bosom’. It doesn’t; the OED and Harrap’s French-English Dictionary agree that it means ‘plump’ , ‘stout’ or ‘well-covered’.
Tom Jago
London SW6
Letter of the law
Sir: Following Charles Moore’s comments about TV Licensing (The Spectator’s Notes, passim), we would like to make clear that TV Licensing’s operations strictly comply with the law. We are tightly regulated and take our obligation to act within the law as seriously as we do our duty to enforce it.
Joanna Richards
TV Licensing, London WC2
An undignified part
Sir: If Robert Peston is the only route through which the government is prepared to take a leak, which part of the body politic does that make him?
Giles Rowe
London SW12
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