for a million pounds?' `Well' she said `maybe for a million I would

for a million pounds?' `Well,' she said, `maybe for a million I would, yes.' `Would you do it for ten shillings?' said Bernard Shaw. `Certainly not!' said the woman `What do you take me for? A prostitute?' `We've established that already,' said Bernard Shaw. `We're just trying to fix your price now!' "And Jim Trott goes off into roars of laughter."That Bernard Shaw," he said. "I could have got him the Perrier Prize if I had had him as a pupil, especially him being Irish and everything..."Our next Unusual Job: A man who teaches parrots to stop saying inappropriate words.. Sir: The alarm made by Eurosceptics about the threatened non-appearance of the Queen's head on euro banknotes really does take hypocrisy to new levels ("Off with her head, says Europe", 23 September).

I too believe that our national symbols should remain on the euro note if and when Britain joins the single currency and I am confident that the British government will be able to negotiate this. But the decision was taken two weeks ago by the governing body of the European Central Bank, a committee that Britain is not represented on and one that Tory Eurosceptics do not wish us to join.If we followed William Hague's advice and committed ourselves to staying out of the single currency for at least 10 years, Britain would have no hope of influencing these decisions.The Conservative Eurosceptics decline to advocate a role for Britain in Europe's development, then pretend to be shocked when Europe takes decisions without us.Such political tactics are misleading in the extreme, and have nothing whatever to do with Britain's economic self-interest.BILL RAMMELL MPChair, Labour Movement for EuropeHouse of Commons. Public spending would have gone up by billions, paid for by higher taxes on annual incomes over pounds 26,500, defence cuts and - the largest slice - by reclaiming the hotly-disputed surplus allegedly paid into the United Kingdom Treasury from Scotland's oil.These are the policies of a toy-town opposition, but Mr Salmond's great skill has been to divert attention from the small print - giving the impression that he leads some kind of west European social-democratic party. Mr Salmond's manifesto last year promised 100,000 new jobs, 20,000 new affordable homes, 700 more teachers, higher pensions and child benefit, and a non-nuclear defence policy. Support for the SNP is not simply anti-Conservatism "with Scottish characteristics", but a deep- seated expression of national identity. New Labour's Englishness is as much a foil for the SNP as was Thatcherism. Mr Salmond has been much helped by Tony Blair's metropolitan blunders. On one of his pre-election forays into Scotland, for example, he seemed unsure as to what was the Claim of Right.

(It was a declaration, signed by most Labour MPs, including John Smith, asserting the right of the Scottish people to choose their form of government.) On another, he described Scottish political journalists as "unreconstructed"; then he compared the Edinburgh parliament to a local authority.That does not mean, however, that the Scottish people lend their wholehearted support to every bullet point in the SNP programme Far from it. Come back Michael Portillo and "caring Conservatism", all is forgiven BEN WHITNEY Stafford. Sir: By a curious coincidence next year sees the anniversaries of two events associated with the proudest moment in this island's history. The Queen, we learn, is to mark the 350th anniversary of the execution of the nightie-wearing Charles I with an exhibition at her Royal Gallery next January. When, pray, may we learn what plans this "People's Government" has to mark the 400th anniversary of the birth (25 April 1599) of this country's greatest Parliamentarian? Certainly Cromwell wouldn't have contented himself with merely removing the monarch's head from the currency MARK PAPPENHEIM Lewes, East Sussex.

ALEXANDER ELLIOT Anderson Salmond is an opportunist schemer, a slick media performer and a slippery debater In short, a brilliant politician. He has consistently trounced the Labour Party throughout his eight years as leader of the Scottish National Party. Indeed, it could be argued that for most of its 18 years in opposition, the Labour Party's Scottish policy has been driven by fear of the Nationalists. Many Labour people wrongly assumed that Mr Salmond would cease to run rings round them once they got into government. Sir: So William Hague thinks that parents can be left to make their own decisions about how they treat their children in the privacy of their homes, without interference from the "nanny" state ("Beating of children to be outlawed", 24 September). Thank God the 25,000 children placed on child protection registers each year won't have to rely on his party for the foreseeable future to provide the resources they need to avoid injury and even death at the hands of those who are supposed to care for them.