King Undone

I am eternally grateful to Tony King for his advice on how to write articles satisfactory to himself. No doubt if a school of journalism is ever established at this university Mr King will be dragged out of his anonymity and placed in charge.

After deep study of Mr King's letters I have reluctantly come to the conclusion that he completely failed to understand the intention of the article he originally attacked. The by-election was so uninspiring and boring that I found it impossible to analyse it seriously. Therefore I decided to try and write a humourous interpretation of it. Of course, Mr King, that article was full of gross stereotypes it was meant to be. I am reluctant to have to explain this to Mr King but his letters display complete ignorance of my purpose in writing that article. Mr King tells me I should take up the politics of laughter and leave my bitterness behind. To show what a great comedian he was himself he had described me in a previous letter as a vituperative guttersnipe one could almost say that was back-biting or even bitter.

In return for all Mr King's advice I suggest only one thing if he wants to help me improve my writing he can appear in person in the Salient office and rubbish me for hours on end.

Finally I would like to correct Mr King on a point of fact. He suggests that I have yet to crawl out of the cocoon of pubescent righteousness "that most of us turned in with our PYM badges." Wrong, Mr King, I never belonged to the PYM, in fact I've belonged to the Labour Party for five years (I've voted Labour all me life mate); so you're guilty of that terrible stereotyping you accuse me of.

Peter Franks