Sir: I found D J Taylor's article "Forget Joan Collins - what about some arts on TV?" (3 December) at one and the same time depressing and predictable. The problems of the world are greatly contributed to because people never say, "I have enough." On the same day, Hamish McRae wrote ("Five reasons to worry about free trade") that the whole world aspires to the lifestyle of North America and Western Europe, "but if the world tried to live that way we would place an impossible burden on the resources of the planet". Let us shift from outer values to inner values, secure in the knowledge that we will be freeing up the poor and the planet by making life more and more uneconomic for industrialists and for the owners of vast estates in South America and Asia on which they grow cash crops Let the poor have land.MARK KINZLEYIlfordEssex. Sir: The "explanatory" box by Clare Garner ("Who are the protesters?", 2 December) says they suffer from "successophobia" That is her opinion. It could equally be called voluntary simplicity or "downshifting", that is the deliberate refusal of promotions at work and of greed for more than one's needs.

These courses are run by universities, colleges of further education and private providers and are also developed overseas by local education institutions.Entry to these "access" courses is, of course, open to those with a much lower range of English and academic skills, offering the overseas student the best possible chance to gain the needed skills in both English and academic subjects.Although it cannot be guaranteed that all 210,000 overseas students start their courses with the requisite English language skills, the majority do.It is essential for the future of the business of overseas students that the reality and the expectation of academic quality is rigorously maintained, and our experience is that universities know and understand this.HECTOR MUNRODirectorExport PromotionThe British CouncilLondon SW1. Sir: I would take issue with the idea that overseas students are regularly enrolled into UK institutions with insufficient English language skills. The International English Language Testing Service (IELTS), designed and developed by the University of Cambridge Local Examinations Syndicate and delivered worldwide by the British Council and IDP Australia, is the recognised benchmark and, as such, is used by most British higher education institutions to ensure that overseas students have the necessary skills to enroll on the course of their choice. Over the last decade as many as 133 "access courses" have been developed to bring overseas students' English language and academic skills up to the level of entry into degree courses. There are proper sites, like that of the British Medical Journal, but some are unreliable. And there are fears that IPO can only get worse after Christmas because of the thousands of people expected to go on-line for the first time with their new computers.. "It may be biased, it may be inaccurate, and some may be advertising a product.

As a result patients are finding out about drugs from American sites and quizzing their GP about why they are not getting them here. "It is a problem that people turn up with material of limited quality'' says Dr Brown. Many are United States-based and some have a commercial spin to their advice, coming from private medical service providers there. Another problem for doctors is that while prescription drugs cannot be advertised in Britain, they can in the US. Often it turns out to be a cold. One of the problems for doctors who are on the receiving end of the print-outs is that the information on the Internet sites is not always reliable. And the doctor has another case of Internet Print Out syndrome (IPO) on his or her hands. According to the journal, Health Information, IPO is being experienced by more and more doctors: "It is a growing issue and one of the problems is that a lot of doctors don't know how to handle it,'' says Harry Brown, a Leeds GP who carried out the research. "Suddenly, for the first time in human history, patients have virtually the same access to the same information that doctors have." Some patients have surfed the Internet trying to match their symptoms to disease profiles, while others have discovered that there is another drug they could be using. Patients manage to convince themselves that the common or garden symptoms they have are really indicators of a rare, usually fatal disease. And it is expected to get worse. The symptoms are easy to spot - patients arrive for consultations clutching 20 or so printed pages that he or she has downloaded from the Internet. GPs across Britain are finding themselves reduced to terror by a new syndrome which is spreading among patients And it is expected to get worse. GPs across Britain are finding themselves reduced to terror by a new syndrome which is spreading among patients.