If Mick McAndrews (Oxford Mail, September 14) bothered to check his missives before sending them to you, he would be the one "hanging his head in shame".

You have to have a very strange value system to consider a harmless custard pie -- delivered well away from the formalities of the graduation ceremony at Oxford Brookes University -- is "distasteful", in comparison to a man (Jeremy Clarkson) who publicly advocates that cyclists should be "crushed" beneath the wheels of a car.

It is similarly baffling how Mr McAndrews can assert that "Brookes has made its position clear".

It has not done so, and this is one of the crucial points at stake.

Brookes claims to have a commitment to environmental sustainability, yet chooses to honour and endorse the views of an explicitly anti-environmental public figure. No amount of blandly-worded press releases can possibly reconcile these views.

These wider issues appear to have been disregarded by Mr McAndrews, in his haste to get his name in the paper (again).

As a point for future consideration, he might want to reflect on the ethically bankrupt, PR-driven charade of the honorary degree system, before accusing others of being "cheap and nasty". Stewart Markess, Divinity Road, Oxford