Andrew Sugden

W.G. Runciman’s backbench source for the image of Blair as a water spider is a couple of consonants and a whole zoological phylum adrift (LRB, 24 May). Water spiders don’t run about on the surface: they live underwater, where they spin a bell-shaped web among submerged vegetation. They stock it with bubbles of air carefully collected from the surface, enabling them to bide their time in wait for...

Edward Luttwak’s cool handling of a potentially nasty encounter with the Bolivian drug mafia (LRB, 3 April) is impressive. But he doesn’t have to be quite so nonchalant about his brush with a green mamba, especially since the object of his trip was to see animals; very probably, his was the first sighting of this reptile outside its native Africa. Surely something to get a little excited about?