Letter: Rats to Hanover

Sir: Shame on my native town, Hamburg, for abandoning its Hanseatic spirit and the Beatles' muses ("Four decades on, Hamburg says it has had enough of the Beatles", 2 November). But lest your arts news editor, David Lister, be accused of libel by Hanover, it was the pompous corporation plus mayor of Hameln (Hamelin) who had to suffer the Pied Piper's just wrath - and not only according to Robert Browning.

INGEROSE SAYER-HEYD

Oxford