Letters In Brief

Sir: My dictionary has a different definition to that suggested by one of your correspondents (letter, 5 February):

Hoddle, v. i. As the holder of a high-profile job whose utterances are likely to be widely reported, to open mouth without engaging brain and make comments which render that job difficult or impossible to perform.

The Manchester edition of my dictionary also includes this entry under "Anderton, v.i."

PHILIP GOLDENBERG

Woking, Surrey

Sir: The Government is spectacularly inconsistent over food safety. They are over-cautious in respect of selling beef on the bone and yet at the same time they are giving the go-ahead to measures that enable genetically engineered foodstuffs to enter the food chain. Surely one brush with unnatural practices in respect of foodstuffs might ring a few alarm bells somewhere. Why is the press not giving the Government a much harder time over this issue?

SIMON FIELD

Broadstone, Dorset