Not a lot doing this morning, just the usual musings on the noble mosaic of human endurance and survival, the old battle between the intellect and heart, the never-ceasing effort to understand the Foxrock mystagogue (Sam) and of course, all the time the searing knowledge of the enchanted interspace sliding on intact, the viatic counterpart of a magic carpet.

All right then. A good time to (draw breath and) catch up with some recent "correspondence". A gentleman has written from Monasterevan, a town which has disturbing personal resonances of late, drawing my attention to material he believes might be appropriate for this column.

Nothing wrong with that. The search for usable material - rare gems of wit and imagination, the droll remark, the jeu d'esprit, the pretty conceit of language or philosophy, the sparkling bon mot, the apposite quip, even the discreetly plagiarised insight - is relentless, and help is always welcome, though the unending public supply of bad jokes, with the concomitant expectation that they will be reprinted here, is tedious.

However, this gentleman explains his offer of help by impertinently suggesting I might be "hard pressed" just now, "paying off the Christmas credit card bills or seeing that you are adequately pensioned before January 31st."

The cheek of him. What business is this of his? How does he know I possess a credit card, or am (as it happens) possessed by it? Of what concern to him is my pension entitlement? Are my financial arrangements and alleged difficulties therewith to be the gossip of the entire country? Such familiarity is hardly to be borne.

Drawing my attention to a recent newspaper report, he quotes from it to save me the trouble of looking it up myself, or as he puts it, "just in case you have Monday morning fatigue." Another thinly-veiled insult. Clearly his image of me is that of an obese, unfit, under-financed dog-lazy drudge who spends every weekend imbibing huge quantities of alcohol and can scarcely make it to the office on Monday morning. All right, perhaps this is an overreaction. Anyway, the report he refers to concerns Linda Tripp, the woman who taped her conversations with Monica Lewinsky of Zippergate fame. A former White House employee, Ms Tripp moved to the Pentagon in 1994, having antagonised the White House by testifying in Congress about the circumstances surrounding the suicide of senior White House aide Vinnie Foster.

Incidentally, one of the criticisms levelled against Bill Clinton is that he (supposedly) took unfair advantage of a young and vulnerable woman. The suggestion was that he should confine his sexual overtures to those with power and influence equal to his own, which, as one observer dryly pointed out, would leave him with a choice between Madonna, Steffi Graf and Boris Yeltsin. But here is the excerpt noted by my correspondent: "Ms Tripp's job changed dramatically. In her deposition she describes sitting at an empty desk in an obscure office for weeks with nothing to do but `prepare my resume'. "

The writer is shocked by this scenario, in which he detects the baleful influence of American feminism: "Wouldn't any half-decent Irish Paddy or Brigid know the value of having a full-time job that would keep you permanently employed doing little or nothing?"

He is right. Paddy and Brigid would certainly know that value. But he then goes on to suggest that I ("with your Max Clifford, Svengali, eminence grise capabilities") write an open letter to Mna na hEireann and others, "forewarning them of getting above themselves, looking a gift horse in the mouth; a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush etc."

Is the fellow mad? Were I Max Clifford himself, never mind Max Svengali, I would not dream of writing such a letter. Mna na hEireann would almost certainly write back in droves, and such a correspondence hardly bears thinking about. The writer generously suggests that I "can enjoy any resulting copyright fees/endorsements that may from time to time accrue on my behalf" as a result of the open letter.

I would prefer to enjoy the days of healthy life that should accrue as a result of my not writing such a letter. My Monasterevan correspondent, Harold Steinway, says he lives a quiet life, so he asks me not to mention his name or his address at 45 Swan Lake Apartments. Fair enough.