The other day, I attended the annual dinner of the Institute of Financial Services. As usual, speeches were made before dinner. As far as I know, John Consiglio, my friend and former colleague, did not attend. Therefore, he had all the time to digest and appraise the 11-page speech by Mario Vella, the governor of the Central Bank (‘A speech to mull about’, December 15). We were without a copy of the speech and, therefore, it was difficult to follow it. Indeed, from where I was sitting, some of the words were often inaudible.

The Hilton kitchen staff members were all patiently waiting to start serving dinner. The talk referred to above was too long for a pre-dinner speech. It was probably good seminar or Central Bank publication material. No pre-dinner speech should take longer than five minutes and I urge the institute committee to set this time limit for future dinners.