20 MAY 1955, Page 30

- Major Thompson's Bag `THAT other planet, Europe,' said the

Gazette de Lausanne the other day, pretending to speak for Britain. Snug in our private constellation, Europe thinks, our interest in the rest of the cosmos is confined to an occasional glance or shudder. These aloof and fuddy-duddy islands continue, like bowler hats, to provide perennial Continental jokes. Being an enthusiast for space-travel, cross-Channel banter, and other gregarious activities, and having, like Major Thompson, spent a good chunk of my life on the Continent, I enjoy more than most things the faces pulled across frontiers, the notions of one nation about another; and 1 settled down to Major Thompson Lives in France with that predispose'

ISABEL QUIGLY

It regretted that the name of Mr. R. K. Kelsall was wrongly spelt in Messrs. Routicdge and Regan Paul's advertisement in our last issue.