When people shouted: 'Black is beautiful!' I felt something of the same solidarity that I feel for my own compatriots when they shout: 'The English! The English! The English are best. I would't give tuppence for all of the rest ...' But it does seem to me that touchiness about one's own race is a lamentable admission of insecurity in the same way that protectiveness on behalf of another's reflects a rather nasty condescension. Are blacks - or women, or homosexuals, or Scotsmen - so delicate that they must be minded like children? There's a great deal of self-righteous preachiness being thrown around in regard to the 'dogma protest' thread. I'm afraid it gives off the unmistakable odour of self satisfaction - & I suspect will look as ridiculous in a hundred years as the confident moralising of our Victorian, piano-leg-swathing grandfathers. Scottie B. Scottie B.