US versus UK 3

Felipe Fernández-Armesto is wonderful. His is the first completely honest evaluation of the UK and US admissions systems that I have ever read. It is surprising and uplifting. There is a way forward, we can escape the codswalloping nonsense of A levels and our students can be taught better. We'll have to shoot some dons to get moving, but that's a small price.

And another thing. Who is this Allan Ashworth (Letters, November 18) who is offended by reading English? "Arse" and "elbow" have been part of our language for the past 800 years at least. Ashworth will be wanting us to stop saying "bollocks" next while demanding the right to keep on writing reams of it.

Richard Bornat
School of Computing Science
Middlesex University