Sir – L. Rogers (Letters, May 5) seems not to realise that ‘Christopher Gray’ is indeed a great fictional creation, the latest in a line of immortal, vain and pompous characters from Malvolio to Mr Pooter and Mr Toad.

Consider the absurd contradictions: the pedant with the excruciating prose style, the balding, bearded narcissist in late middle age, and the provincial hack who doles out casual abuse to notables whom he has never met (“that ghastly squirt John Bercow”, for instance, as referred to in Gray’s back page ramblings in the same issue) but whose names, we know, he would be dropping all over the place if they were to favour him with a five-minute conversation.

And does a third female dining companion — an Aunt Fennel, say — have to be introduced into the restaurant reviews, along with Rosemary and Olive, before L. Rogers gets the joke?

Edward Richardson, Oxford