Chaucerian tale

"McAveetygate" (your report, 17 June) raises interesting questions about the nature of the relationship between the (elected) chair of a Parliamentary committee and the (unelected) clerk to that committee.

Is it right that the relationship should be so personally cosy as to allow the chair to air his adolescent and wholly inappropriate comments as if to a fellow ogler in a bar? I think we need to hear the clerk's tale!

JOHN CLARK

Alnwickhill Crescent

Edinburgh

I don't think I quite understand what all the fuss is about Frank McAveety's comments. Yes, I admit that I can see how it was silly of a politician to be that indiscreet, and to think that the women in Gauguin paintings were Filipinas (the distance between Tahiti and the Philippines similar to that between Scotland and Kenya), but which of us has not been guilty of noticing – and commenting on – an attractive person?

If he had used the term "dark and dusky" in a negative way, that would be a different story.

And before I am accused of having outdated views I should declare that I am neither a man nor middle aged.

R MORRISON

Leopold Road

Edinburgh