27 JANUARY 1990, Page 25

Sir: I would be the last to expect anyone as

exalted as my friend Peregrine Worsthorne to Comment on vulgar tittle-tattle. But it would reassure those of us who wish to aYinpathise with him in his outrage over Andrew Knight's defection to the enemy if he would issue the traditional statement that there is no scintilla of truth in Private Eye's recent story that he has just offered his own wondrous column in the Telegraph to its chief rival, The Times, only to have it refused on the grounds that he was asking too much money.

Auberon Waugh

Editor, Literary Review, 51 Beak Street, London W1