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When I talked to your reporter about the current Alfred/Asser dispute (THES, December 8), I asked that I be not quoted. I deplore the fact that I was in fact quoted, not once but twice. The effect is to make me into an active participant in a controversy in which I wish no further involvement: in short, an exact reversal of what I had asked of your reporter, and been given to understand that he accepted. The "trade paper" of the academic profession has no business to behave like other sorts of tabloid.

PATRICK WORMALD, Christ Church, Oxford