Brief Letters

l I'M NOT surprised that "Clarence" is "amiable" ("High Society", Real Life, 28 January). If he's really getting pounds 400 per ounce of cannabis (approximately four times the going rate) from his gullible punters, I'm sure he's a very happy man.

Steve Mann, London W2

l PERHAPS I could reassure potential visitors to the Green Hotel ("On the greener side of tourism", Review, 28 January): they will not use solar-heated water to flush the loos unless there is a city-wide power cut so cold water is not pumped from the municipal supply.

C P Muthanna, Green Hotel, Mysore, India

l LIBERATION, the French paper, is in crisis precisely because it has become remote from its left-wing constituency ("Dream dies but presses keep rolling", 28 January). That constituency has changed since 1968 but still exists, as events in France before Christmas underlined. At its peak, it provided really useful knowledge about late capitalist society. One wonders why no paper here copied it.

Keith Davies, Cardiff

l IT SEEMS beyond good sense for the Consumers' Association and the Labour Party to make such a big issue of the decision for the proceeds of the flotation of the national grid, pounds 56.40 per household, to be credited to customers' accounts instead of making a cash payment. The lost interest is calculated at pounds 12m: about 50p per household.

S G Grant, Letchworth, Herts