Illuminating Ray
Sir: My face went redder than any poppy as I read the very properly censorious correc- tion (Letters, 21 February) by Mr Cyril Ray (whose name was for some reason not one of the nearly 700 dropped by Alan Pryce-Jones in the autobiography I was reviewing) of the even Freudianly inexplic- able faute de frappe mais pas de memoire unspotted by my rheumy old proof-reading eye — which had caused me to type 'Baron Guy', to whom go my apologies as to you and your readers, when I naturally meant `Baron Philippe'. Having known the latter well for well over two score years I am quite ready to exchange my qualifying adjective 'ineffable' for the more Wildean `unspeakable'. As to Shiksa, so far from it being in any way an insult to the memory of poor Lily de Chambure, my dictionary gives it the single meaning 'a non-Jewish woman'.
Alastair Forbes
1837 Château d'Oex, Switzerland
Previous page
