Max Wall's funny wasp
SIR: Thank you for running my piece on Max Wall (June issue). An error crept into the poem he recited at the Palladium:
‘There was a young man from Dundee Who got stung on the neck by a wasp.’
In the Oldie piece, ‘wasp’ was changed to ‘bee’. ‘Wasp’ is funnier – perhaps a precursor of that Scottish master of whimsy Ivor Cutler.
Love,
Kenneth Cranham, London N1
Suspender-belt failure
SIR: Surely Mary Killen (Spring issue) could not in the event of suspender failure have resorted to a 5p piece: decimalisation did not come until 1971, well after the arrival of tights.
In the forties and fifties, my mother always had with her – to respond to the inevitable ping of suspender malfunction – a reliable, ideally-sized and hard replacement, namely an aspirin.
Yours,
Diana Finch, Felixstowe, Suffolk
Pritchett family fan club
SIR: How wonderful are the Pritchetts! I laughed out loud at Oliver's ‘Dead funny’ (June issue) about
