MAY I say a big ''well done'' to Mr Vincent (Letters, August 21) for his letter.

Unfortunately, he lets himself down by describing me as "semi-educated''. Semi-educated, rather like semi-pregnancy or semi-naughtiness, just doesn't make sense.

The poet John Dryden wrote in 1648 of contemporary playwright: "Shadwell alone, of all my sons, is he

Who stands confirm'd in full stupidity.

The rest to some faint meaning make pretence,

But Shadwell never deviates into sense.''

Dryden could, of course, have been writing of someone else here in 2002.

Yours in a fog of semi-education.

Howard Bellaby

Badger Brook Lane

Astwood Bank