HELEN Mead has developed the art of tedious tripe to the point where she is not even remotely amusing.

Her persistent whingeing about the inadequacies of the British male (and her husband in particular) has made her weekly column a contemptible literary embarrassment. Mrs Mead tells us that she is consumed with desire for a blond hulk of a Viking; one who would carry her off to some foreign shore.

We have all been consumed with this desire for months. Will the editor please make the necessary arrangements?

Robert Holmes,

Thorganby, York.