REBECCA ROOD'S MAILBAG..........
Dear Rebecca,

I am appalled  at the declining moral standards that now blight this once truly great game of bridge. I fought a war for this country, and the Christian values that we treasured so dearly ... losing goddamnit....... an eye and a foot in the process.

Although I don't rate your agony column or read any of your feminist bridge books.....well, I've always been a man's man.....I do acknowledge that your posts have achieved worldwide acclaim.

Anyway, do you agree that today's world of bridge is polluted with unethical win-at-all-costs result merchants , who haven't a single shred of decency, morality, sportsmanship and honesty left in their miserable bones ?

Yours Gordon Bennett 

Dear Gordon,

It's seems perfectly clear to me that not only are you hopping mad, but you have completely  lost sight as to what bridge is really all about. Perhaps this is due to your unfortunate war injuries....... and a touch of senile dimentia.

For years bridge has become a highly competitive sport , where there is no room for sentiment or turning a blind eye to misdemeanours, unwittingly committed at the bridge tables. In my view ,  it is not unethical or unsporting to crack down on opponents who themselves have behaved in an unethical and unsporting way.  

Bridge quite rightly has become a very sophisticated , highly ritualised, form of non-physical combat, where the sensible thing to do is to take no prisoners..... but to bloody well shoot them. So I say again ,  there can be no room in competitive arenas for soft-bellied,  namby-pamby, willy-nilly, " oh I'll let you off this time ",  lovey-dovey, and  " oh you can pick up that card you inadvertantly played out of turn ", jolly sporting pacifist types. Whatever next ?

Yours a rather battle-hardened battle-axe, Rebecca Rood