I gave up watching as listening to the wearisome sarcastic, downright rude and fatuous arguments from the right-wing benches became too much to bear, especially as the Lords are debating the Welfare cuts again tomorrow.

And long-suffering, one might infer: "He was so careful of not hurting anyone's feelings that he often listened to utterly fatuous arguments for hours on end."

To the Editor: The House Republican whip, Tom DeLay, tries to belittle campaign finance reform with the fatuous argument that the amount spent on House races in 1996 averaged $3.80 per actual voter (news article, July 20).

The evening ended too abruptly for me to rebuke the novelist's fatuous argument, but since many students may have taken his reasoning seriously, let me affirm now that not many thinking persons in this country take Henry Wadsworth Longfellow seriously.

The bandshell should not be torn down on such a fatuous argument.

The parents' support committee spokesman said: "That's a fatuous argument.

"A fatuous argument."

I did, but when I straightened up to answer this last fatuous argument I saw that the door had opened and that a Marriage Master and his two witnesses were standing in the next room.

But we could do without several fatuous arguments: 1.

This is the same Commissioner Reding who, in a pretty crowded field, came up with what may be the single most fatuous argument I have heard from the Commission over the last term when she said that we needed a .eu common domain name in order to make the Internet more accessible to women.