Travel: A measure of truth

BELIEVE it or not, correspondence still continues on whether or not Mont Blanc is Europe's tallest mountain. K Manson of Birmingham writes to suggest that the reason Mont Blanc has been preferred to Elbrus in the Caucasus mountains of Georgia, was simple Cold War anti- Communist sentiment.

'Soviet historians were accused of rewriting history. I believe that Western European writers during the Cold War were guilty of rewriting geography, since they did not wish to admit that European Russia was part of Europe.'

If further proof is needed that Elbrus is Europe's highest mountain, K Manson reveals that this was the answer required by Robert Robinson on a recent Brain of Britain quiz on BBC Radio 4. Well, there's no arguing with that, is there?