Keith Manning of the Evening Press (17 September) delved into the latest book on the legendary Laurence of Arabia (T.E. Laurence). The book is "A Touch of Genius" by Malcolm Brown and Julia Cave. Manning also quoted from other sources without clearly distinguishing between other authors' contributions and his own. He was however clear in reporting the nonsense of a certain J.E. Mack, "a distinguished American psychiatrist” who suggested that "Laurence's desire to be beaten was merely a form of penance to exorcise his guilt obsession"(i.e. homosexuality). The venerable doctor was referring to the allegation that Laurence paid someone to flog him as a form of sexual gratification. Did it strike Dr. Mack that any possible guilt of Laurence's was probably due in the first place to psychiatry's own obsessive interference with our sexual orientation? I'm always amazed at a journalist's willingness to write this sort of shit without any editorialising or further analysis.