Ross and comedy From Mr Stephen Stratford Sir: Deborah Ross's
amusing review of the West Arms Hotel, Llangollen (6 May) was especially amusing to readers in the Antipodes. Anyone who has visited Sydney or Auckland will understand why we regard `English food' as an oxymoron on a par with military intelligence or American irony, so the spectacle of an English review- er patronising Welsh food is risible indeed. In 15 years of occasional visits to the UK I have had two good meals precisely: one at Leith's, the other in the upper room of a pub in Beaumaris, Anglesey. All the others, if served in Australia or New Zealand, would have had diners rioting at both the quality and the expense. It's not that we mind expense — in Sydney they insist on it — but we do expect the quality to match. In England, with your imported vegetables, your melancholy meat, your dispiriting fish, your dismal coffee, it never does.
Why do you think our forefathers left, if not in search of a decent meal?
Stephen Stratford St Albans Avenue, Auckland, New Zealand
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