For all the years that I have been exposed to the full force of readers’ comments, both on the letters page and in this column, the No 1 Times luminary most likely to make you reach for your quills has been our cartoonist Peter Brookes. The Chris Beetles gallery in London is hosting a new exhibition of his cartoons until the end of this month, and you may have seen Matthew Parris’s blush-making review of the show in Tuesday’s paper.

I make no apology for shamelessly plugging a special event for readers who are card-carrying members of our new Times+ club: you can go on Monday evening (5.30-8pm), meet the great man, hear him speak, watch him draw and tell him what you think of him: too much poo in his cartoons? Or not enough?

The gallery is at 8-10 Ryder Street, London SW1Y 6QB, tickets cost £8 and are still available. If you are a Times+ member call 020 7839 7551 quoting “Times+ Peter Brookes”. Times and Sunday Times subscribers get complimentary membership of Times+, or you can join for an annual fee of £50; to see more of the sort of offers and events that membership brings, go to timesplus.co.uk.

High anxiety

More of your splendid single-context words, although I feel that we are beginning to stray slightly from our original intent (but the rules are mine to break, of course).

While many of you ponder why shrift arrives only in short measure, David Harding and others wonder why there is only one state of dudgeon, high; and John Fingleton warms to the theme with what I trust is a true tale: “Some years ago, I put across a point quite forcefully at a board meeting, without apparently achieving unanimous agreement, and then absented myself for a few minutes for what is euphemistically referred to as a ‘comfort break’. When the minutes appeared they stated — quite erroneously — that ‘Mr Fingleton left the meeting in high dudgeon’. I insisted on an amendment to ‘in low to medium dudgeon’.”

Last week’s reference to “piping hot” prompted Ruth Harling to ask: “What about the luke? Just how warm is a luke? Has anybody ever seen a luke and measured its temperature?” Andrew Haynes and John Green both sent in enormous lists of contenders, but while both get a prize for quantity, the quality was not consistent, many straying too far from the point of non-dialect words that are both in the dictionary and in current use, but almost exclusively in one context. For example, “to vent one’s spleen”, suggests Mr Green; but spleen is a perfectly good medical word, and you can vent other things, such as anger or irritation.

More precisely, Alison Blenkinsop is gnashing nothing but her teeth, Sandra Stainthorpe can hear only the wind soughing in the pines, and Des Kite is furling his umbrella: “One might unfurl a flag, although I don’t think one would furl a flag”.

Readers such as Arthur Trill want to broaden the subject: “Intrigued as I have been with your single-meaning words, I am even more interested in those that now appear to have no meaning unless prefixed. For example, ‘couth’, ‘traught’ and ‘hevelled’. I also wonder about ‘vert’, as in ‘invert’, ‘revert’, ‘convert’ and ‘divert’. Presumably these words once had a life of their own which has now vanished. Where, and why, have they gone?”

Not necessarily vanished, I think. Their un-prefixed forms never passed into usage, and they are usually pinched from Latin compounds: consider dis/turb, re/fuse, con/jugate. But I claim no scholarship in these matters (which is far less than most of you, I imagine), merely an enthusiasm for them. In a previous incarnation as a teacher of English in a pretty far-flung corner of the planet, it was as much as I could do to stay one step ahead of my classes by dint of feverish study of the next two chapters of their textbook the night before.

Age-old quest

Remember remember the sixth of November, when nominations close for the 2009 Times/Sternberg Active Life Awards. The award goes to the person who has done most for society and good causes in old age, and you are invited to nominate somebody over 70 who has “defied the years to assert the questing spirit of humanity” (every time I see “questing” I am reminded of Evelyn Waugh’s Scoop and William Boot’s magisterial prose: “Feather-footed through the plashy fen passes the questing vole . . .”) This year there’s £5,000 for the winner and £1,000 each for five runners-up. Nominations can be made by e-mail to Sternberg.award@thetimes.co.uk or by post to Times Newspapers Ltd Public Relations, Sternberg Award, 1 Pennington Street, London E98 1TT. There’s more information at www.thetimes.co.uk/sternbergaward. If I make it to 70 and beyond with all my own hips and knees, and can still remember where I left my glasses, I certainly aim to carry on questing.

Pure delight In a previous life I was a Times features sub, so am forever cursed with a mental blue pencil to correct every misspelt poster, grocer’s apostrophe, ungrammatical checkout sign (“10 items or less”) and so forth, chewing my lip in anguish all the while. It can turn a simple shopping expedition into an intellectual assault course. But I rather enjoyed this shelf sticker in Sainsbury’s: “Mr Muscle Sin and Drain Unblocker”. I bought two bottles and feel a better person already. (I only wish the product had followed a well established marketing tradition and been called “Mr Muscle Original Sin and ... ”)