That in fact is the only reason why I accepted an invitation to a charity evening at a Mayfair art

That, in fact is the only reason why I accepted an invitation to a charity evening at a Mayfair art gallery last Wednesday night, showing Jeffrey Archer’s famous collection of Andy Warhols

I know my limitations. I haven’t heard of many women stripping for their partners – if they do they don’t talk about it. It’s one thing to be at war with a generation, a geographical region is something else. Readers of this column with long memories may recall the satisfaction with which I related my victory over women who breast-feed their babies in public libraries Let no man call himself happy until he’s dead. In addition to liberal amounts of Fig, I have lots of cotton pads sprayed with sweet- pea, which I have either fallen in love with or am using as a drug. There is a white player-piano and it is playing “Winter Wonderland” Some of the sales assistants are in gold lame togas.

I ask for the most expensive perfume.”Now, let’s see,” says a sales assistant. “It used to be Joy, but now I think it’s Amouage.” She points me towards a tiny kiosk against the wall where it is sold.Amouage comes in a bottle heavy enough to be used as a murder weapon It costs pounds 280 I wonder whether the ingredients really cost pounds 28 I ponder how much one spray is worth on the open market. And while I do this, someone steals my wallet.I am poorer – and only a little bit wiser – as I leave the world of image and dreams that is perfume, and go out into the world where others think I am just someone on the bus who smells funny.. Sir: I was surprised Sue Arnold (Comment, 28 November) did not understand the link between upgraded GP premises with elegant furnishings and the cut-price, factory-like day surgery on Dickensian hospital wards that she and her aunt experienced. The connection is of course the NHS internal market.
GP fundholding transfers money from already under-funded health authorities to some GP practices for them to purchase elective surgery and other clinical services for their patients from hospitals, and to develop their own practices.GPs are semi-independent contractors to the NHS and usually own their premises, equipment and furniture.

Their priorities naturally focus on their own practices and so they demand cut-price services from hospitals so that as much of their funds as possible are spent on primary care.Capital charges of 6 per cent of NHS trusts’ assets based on inflated 1980s property prices were levied annually on all hospital trusts These were returned to the Department of Health. This “tax” had to be paid out of earnings from GP fund-holders and health authorities.NHS hospital trusts must use “businesslike” methods to provide surgical and medical services to the internal market. Budgets have been balanced by cutting the price of elective surgery to the minimum and by reducing beds. Mixed-ward policies maximise the occupancy of a diminished number of available hospital beds.Pity Mr Dobson in his forthcoming battles to abolish GP fundholding and to restore NHS hospital nursing. When the New Tories come to power Sue Arnold should get private health insurance.

She may have no choice.Dr HIRAM BADDELEYHarrow-on-the-Hill, Middlesex. Sir: No-one in the media seems to have commented on the fact that the plans for the Libeskind extension (“V&A wins approval for spiral annexe”, 17 November) completely ignore the colonnade and the wall beside it on Exhibition Road. This is a Grade 1 listed monument to the war damage caused to the museum in that place. A plaque has been placed on the wall to commemorate the bombing raids, and the wall has been left deliberately un-repaired so that passers-by can see what damage was caused.
I am interested to know what Mr Libeskind envisages doing with the colonnade and wall. I hope that neither are to be removed or demolished, since the whole point is that the war damage occurred in precisely that place.GLYNNE WILLIAMSLondon E17. Sir: I was puzzled by the Home Office’s frantic search for secure accommodation for General Pinochet after his eviction from the clinic. Surely, as a prisoner of the state he is entitled to be locked up in the Tower of London In fact, I think the General should insist upon it

After all, it does command an amount of kudos.