  A recent paper (Martinez--Gonzalez & Sanz 1995) showed that if the universe
is homogeneous but anisotropic, then the small quadrupole anisotropy in the
cosmic microwave background radiation implies that the spacetime anisotropy is
very small. We point out that more general results may be established, without
assuming a priori homogeneity. We have proved that small anisotropies in the
microwave background imply that the universe is almost
Friedmann--Robertson--Walker. Furthermore, the quadrupole and octopole place
direct and explicit limits on the degree of anisotropy and inhomogeneity, as
measured by the shear, vorticity, Weyl tensor and density gradients. In the
presence of inhomogeneity, it is only possible to set a much weaker limit on
the shear than that given by Martinez--Gonzalez & Sanz.

Astrophysics