There appears to be no real commitment by the Government or Medical Research Council to prevent this

There appears to be no real commitment by the Government or Medical Research Council to prevent this infection by supporting vaccine research. In our own centre we have been researching an inactivated herpes simplex vaccine which in open trial over 15 years appears to offer protection against contraction of the disease. American trials indicate its therapeutic efficacy, without one recorded adverse effect in vaccinated patients. We cannot obtain the modest funding from public or private sources that would allow evaluation of this vaccine by formal clinical trial, thereby ensuring a potentially useful vaccine does not fall by the wayside. Our experience is reflected in many other vaccine research centres.Gordon R B SkinnerUniversity of Birmingham. Robert Fisk ("Were Saul and David just good friends? Don't ask", 2 February) reports Professor Kamal Salibi's contention that Saul and David may have been lovers. Certainly Saul's relationship with David was intense but nowhere is there any suggestion of sexual involvement. Samuel announces Saul's rejection as king (1 Samuel xv, 23) before Saul even meets David.

Saul adored David (1 Samuel xvi, 21), but could this be because he was the son he wished he had had? Saul had been willing to execute Jonathan (1 Samuel xiv, 44) whom he despised (1 Samuel xx, 30). Jonathan may have had sexual feelings towards David: he is not recorded as having married But this does not mean that David gratified them. In bizarre circumstances, David had married Jonathan's sister, Michal, and he was to have many wives (2 Samuel iii, 2). More likely David used Jonathan's infatuation for his own advantage He was clearly adept at manipulating himself into power Only later, in Bathsheba, did he meet his match. She not only seduced him but maintained her hold over him, so ensuring that her son Solomon and not David's eldest surviving son succeeded him. The Reverend Canon Dr Anthony Phillips Flushing, Cornwall.

Liz Nash quotes me as saying that I had been fired by the International Saturday Group ("We're no cult, says British expats group", 26 January) In fact I resigned from the clinic. The other quotations regarding the group behaviour were given to me by somebody who had witnessed a "workshop", and not my own. The article suggested they were mine, implying that I had been present This is not the case. Robin Thomson Family Medical CentreAlmancil, PortugalLiz Nash accepts that she misread her notes.. I was surprised at the claims that "students are unhappy with Cameron Mackintosh's pounds 1.5m drama professorship" ("No ovations for Oxford's luvvies", 2 February). All the more so since the article coincides with the end of Lord Richard Attenborough's tenure. He put more into the professorship than any student or benefactor could have hoped for.

His year overlapped with the making of In Love and War and he gave 20 students the chance to become involved in the film, with location visits, lectures and workshops Lord Attenborough is a truly great teacher Both he and Cameron Mackintosh deserve great thanks F Henckel-Donnersmarck Berlin. Pre-Event promotion may be a necessary part of modern sport but the publicity for the 2006 World Cup we have had to endure during the past week has been ridiculous Many of us are sick of the tournament already. At least, after Friday's meeting between the Football Association and Uefa, we can calm down the Colonel Blimps and pack away the gun-boats. The bad news is that the affair is likely to drag on until April or even longer. One hesitates to ascribe the art of statesmanship to anyone in football but someone turned up at that meeting with a cool head and a reassuring smile. It is the sort of thing to which a foreigner would stoop but whoever was responsible succeeded in taking the steam out of the ears.

Having given Germany the silent nod about hosting 2006, Uefa have now agreed to withdraw that assent and allow England to make a rival bid. Then, in April, they'll give it back to Germany again. It is not difficult to be flippant about a subject which, I suspect, found the majority with a long list of matters far more worthy of worry. But, in a way, it was fascinating to know that the old country can still bristle with the best of them when the occasion calls for a spot of indignant defiance and there is no more reliable fuel for starting the yeoman hearts of England beating furiously than a mixture of football and Germany with an added dash of continental chicanery.The World Cup of nine and a half years hence, as everyone seemed to know in Lancaster Gate and Whitehall, belonged to England as of right. After all, they hadn't hosted the greatest tournament in the world since 1966 and considering that Euro 96 had proved what dab hands the English are at organisation they convinced themselves of the justness of their claim.Just in case there were any waverers out there in the European wastelands, the Prime Minister, John Major, invited the Uefa executive committee to lunch. If a drop of Brown Windsor at No 10 didn't clinch it, nothing would.When Uefa broke the news that such extravagant lushing up was pointless you could feel the twitch of a million moustaches. Long-deaf former air- raid wardens felt an irresistible urge to scan the sky, tabloid headline writers asked each other: "How do you spell Kraut?" John Major fumed and Tony Blair growled: "It's a cosy stitch-up."What followed was not to the credit of England.