Dear Anna Ford, Your surprise attack at least has the virtue of simplicity (Letters, 20 February). You argue that I should accept the sternest possible treatment from the press, ­because 1) I was and am a poor godfather to your daughter Claire, and 2) I paid a visit to your husband Mark Boxer's sickroom, with Christopher Hitchens (you say we were "filling in time" before going on to Heathrow), and we stayed too long, smoked cigarettes "over his bed", and then I trumped up a memoir where I lyingly claimed to have left the house in distress.

Your first point is well taken. Your second is an unworthy farrago.