If the subject matter related to the words in the article is typical

If the subject matter related to the words in the article is typical of the general syllabus content for 11-year-olds, is it any wonder that teachers are leaving the profession in droves and insufficient replacements are coming forward? BOB ASHTONChester. It will need to do much more than that to repair the damage it has done to the arts community.MICHAEL MERWITZERArtistic Director, The KoshLondon N7. Just how many other companies, directors and venues are suffering or have been destroyed as a result of the failings of those responsible for decision- making at the Arts Council?We need to build a radical alternative to this iniquitous, self-serving system There is talk of the Arts Council reinventing itself. His three-year investigation into a complaint against the Arts Council by the Kosh dance company found that the council withheld information unreasonably, failed to observe its own procedural and ethical code, based decisions on incomplete information and disseminated misleading, prejudicial and unjustified information about the company. Those responsible included the most senior officers and representatives of the council. However, should this all be a sham, let it be known that I'd be up there at the head of the queue.SUSANNAH PERRYLondon E5.

IT MAY be unpalatable for Anthony Everitt, former Secretary General of the Arts Council, that the author Richard Witts sees the history of the Arts Council largely in terms of the personalities who have run it and that "he finds only knaves and fools" (Books, ISM, 21 March). But that is the way it is, according to the findings of a recent report by the Parliamentary Commissioner for Administration. DAVID AARONOVITCH should not fret over the inattentive women in the Canary Wharf lift ("Just suppose I looked like Leonardo DiCaprio...", 21 March), for he is the thinking woman's crumpet I am not the only wannabe second Mrs Aaronovitch No, we are a multitude. That wit, that wisdom, those ex-Communist credentials, that handsome, sardonic stare. As for the corpulence, it is a welcome indication of sensuality - it's a good bet that a man who takes food seriously will have an equally diligent approach to love-making. In theory, I would love to run away with your star columnist and have his babies, but infuriatingly, the most potent aspect of his allure is his loyalty, affection and respect for his wife and daughters, which by having him I would destroy. Like most other cathedrals, our running costs continue to rise as our income falls The Rev PATRICK H DALY Administrator.

Our debt to the clergy and laity of the Archdiocese is enormous. In fact, the St Chad's Cathedral Maintenance Fund only holds its head above water thanks to the weekly generosity of our own Mass congregation and to an annual collection held in all parishes of the Archdiocese of Birmingham on the first Sunday of the March each year. Hence, and perhaps very contentiously, psychiatric evidence will no longer be regarded as unimpeachable by virtue of it being substantiated solely by psychiatrists.Dr GARY SLAPPERDirector of the Law ProgrammeThe Open UniversityMilton Keynes, Buckinghamshire. WE wish to point out that St Chad's Cathedral has no shares, either in Lucas Varity, Rolls Royce or any other company, British or foreign. The case concerned an allegation of medical negligence, but the decision has wider implications for the status of medical evidence.The Lords ruled that courts are now not bound to accept medical analysis held by a reasonable body of practitioners but are able to subject the evidence to a further test of reasonableness and logicality. Post traumatic stress disorders and the crime of assault occasioning psychiatric injury are cases in point.

It is surely an insult to the many genuinely injured victims recognised by the courts to suggest their suffering is bogus.The courts must evaluate the evidence in each case, and, following a recent House of Lords decision (Bolitho v City and Hackney [1997] 2 A11 ER 771), their task has been simplified. DR Leopold Field (letter, 20 March) goes too far in dismissing the validity of legal claims for compensation for psychiatric conditions. Dr Field suggests that many unwarranted claims are pursued, often at public expense, because it is "virtually impossible for someone to be interviewed by a psychiatrist and leave the consulting room without having some psychiatric label attached to them." If this is true, it is not indictment of the principle that psychiatric injury should be a compensable loss, but just a condemnation of the practices of some psychiatrists. The law has only quite recently in its history begun in civil and criminal cases to recognise the clinical evidence of mental injury. Public anger has further been fuelled by reports that Boris Yeltsin controls all the vodka outlets selling drink to Russia United fans, and all the clothes shops selling typical Russia United clothes to people who wear that sort of clothing.Now, as I write, writes Rene McGrit, the streets of Moscow are again full of fans, chanting: "Come on, Boris ! You're not a young man, you know, and you owe it to the team to put in a full day at the office! So knock off the vodka and get cracking, otherwise we'll get rid of you in a, preferably, bloodless coup! This is our last warning." One feels they mean it.. Since Stalin, however, Russian team planning has been in the hands of some old and sick men who should never have been put in charge of the team, and its reputation has crumbled.Boris Yeltsin was thought to be a great hope for the future re-emergence of Russia United, but this latest debacle suggests strongly that he will not be the awaited saviour. The first commoner to be put in charge of the team, Lenin, was thought at first to be different but he also had players taken out and shot - indeed, he also had the Russian royal family, ex-owners of the team, taken out and shot.The next long-serving manager of the team, Joe Stalin, had all critics of his strategy sent to Siberia, or starved to death, but he retained his post for many years after notching up notable victories against Germany in the 1940s, and some creditable draws against the Americans. For centuries, all Russian football was in the hands of the Russian royal family, who had dissident players taken out and shot.