Regarding the Open-Plan Office

Sir —

Your correspondent writes from a desk situated between a colleague who eats lentils and a colleague who does not.

I have made my peace with the first. It is the second, who sighs meaningfully and opens a window, whom I have come to regard as the true aggressor.

A reasonable man cannot be expected to hold his breath from nine until five, and I put it to your readers that the sigh is the ruder of the two acts.