Jan Bardey
Kineton, Warwickshire
Neutralising clothing choice
SIR – What a fuss about how to display children’s clothes. Why not call the rails “clothes often chosen by boys” and “clothes often chosen by girls”. That should keep everyone happy.
Matty Thacker
Tanworth-in-Arden, Warwickshire
SIR – Kilts are the answer for all.
Deirdre Lay
Cranleigh, Surrey
SIR – It is with great shock I read that Marks & Spencer is to shut 100 stores by 2022. Where is middle England to buy its underwear? Or can we expect the inhibited Brits to “go commando”?
Guy Bennett
Claygate, Surrey
SIR – I notice in a local Marks & Spencer that there were many styles of jeans labelled Straight, but none marked LGBT. A missed opportunity, perhaps?
Chris Burdon
Rushmere St Andrew, Suffolk
Sit down, shut up
SIR – A lengthy visit to the lavatories in a trendy modern cinema complex gave me time to reflect on the current debate on gender-neutral facilities. Along with a dozen or so fellow queue-ers of various genders, I waited for one of five cubicles to become available, there being no urinals at all in the building.
Surely the most sensible, efficient (and gender-neutral) method would be to have doors labelled “urinals” and “cubicles”. Individuals able to conduct their business while standing would use the former; anyone wishing or needing to sit down, the latter.
Dr Martin Shutkever
Pontefract, West Yorkshire
SIR – I cannot understand the controversy over “gender-neutral lavatories” since they are to be found in every home in the country.
G. Johnson
Gateshead, Tyne and Wear
Good Dave Hunting
SIR – I am appalled at the news that there are fewer women CEOs than CEOs called Dave. This is clearly discriminatory against not only female executives but also all men who don’t have the good fortune to be called Dave.
Keith Valentine
Tunbridge Wells, Kent
SIR – If women are able to do the same job as men for less salary it begs the question: why employ men at all?
Elizabeth Hall
Bradninch, Devon
SIR – Regarding the role of men and women, I believe that my dear Grandfather Joe may have been well ahead of the game.
On learning that his wife Annie was feeling unwell he magnanimously observed: “Well, if you are not feeling better by teatime, I’ll give you a hand with the washing up.”
David Belcher
Thatcham, Berkshire
Keep clean and carry on
SIR – Your article on circumcision reminded me of a story told by a girlfriend many years ago. Her fellow students at a convent school had discovered that a biblical passage referring to foreskins would be used in a forthcoming lesson.
Accordingly, a selected girl raised her hand and asked: “Please, Sister Francis, what are foreskins?”
Without batting an eyelid, the young nun replied, “Why, the skin from their forehead, of course” – and calmly carried on.
John Martin
Soberton, Hampshire
SIR – My four-year-old daughter asked me why boys stood up to pee. Deciding she was probably ready for some basic anatomy, I asked her what little boys had that little girls didn’t have. She thought about it for a few seconds, and then said: “Action Man?”
Rita Coppillie
Liskeard, Cornwall
Suffer the little children
SIR – Some years ago, the church in south London where I sang removed some Victorian pews and moved them to the back of the church where they formed a “benched off” area for a creche. This became known as the King Herod Memorial Corner.
Hilary Bentley
Alderney, Guernsey
SIR – When our daughter was going through the “terrible twos”, I asked our vicar if he could administer a “booster” baptism, as the first one hadn’t taken. Sadly, he thought I was being serious.
Dr Peter West
Bosham, West Sussex
SIR – I have just received a guarantee for a new garage roof that excludes acts of God. I find this phrase somewhat anachronistic and I am sure that a more rigorous term could be devised.
After all, atheists would deny that there was any such thing, while fundamentalists would hold that even a light drizzle is an act of God.
Roger Jackson
Heaton Moor, Cheshire
SIR – Further to the letter regarding the “Knit & Natter” sessions introduced into her local library, our local church has had a similar group for several years now, universally known as “Stitch & Bitch”.
Roger Brimble
South Croydon, Surrey
Here … comes … the .…
SIR – As a church organist I have often had to play for a long time while awaiting a bride. My record is 45 minutes. When I was in the Philippines, I knew of a priest who always began the wedding service on time, whether the bride was present or not.
Robert Ascott
Eastbourne, East Sussex
SIR – My husband and I exchanged rings 56 years ago. The vicar had no idea what to do: after my husband had endowed me with all his worldly goods I had to repeat the same promise, thus giving them all back to him. He reminds me from time to time.
Judy Kirk
Littleover, Derbyshire
Over her dead body
SIR – So many of my excellent suggestions and ideas are met with my wife’s response: “Over my dead body”.
When she dies, I am going to have her cremated. Her ashes will be put in a Royal Navy brass shell case from the Great War, which currently contains the poker and brush in the drawing-room hearth. This will be sealed and lowered into a recess that I will dig on the threshold of the back door.
Each time I leave the house it will be over her dead body. Everything will then be possible.
Peter J. Robinson
Lichfield, Staffordshire
The affronted room
SIR – Inspired by universities appointing safe-space marshals, I decided to declare the living room a safe space where my wife was no longer allowed to insult me. Having informed her of this new arrangement, she called me a cretinous buffoon.
Is there a safe-space regulatory body, or does this count as a hate crime I can refer to the police?
Paul Atkins
St Albans, Hertfordshire
Advertising your age
SIR – A measure of one’s age used to be that policemen looked so young. That’s not so easy now given that one seldom sees the police.
What I’ve noticed as I’ve got older is that the actors in Funeral Plan advertisements look like mere youngsters.
John Kirkham
Woodford Green, Essex
SIR – Getting old is when your grandchild looks at your wife’s loyal kitchen gadget and says: “That is quite an antique; it could be worth a lot of money.”
Jonathan E. Godrich
Clee St Margaret, Shropshire
SIR – Would you kindly stop telling those of us who live alone that we are lonely.
It is making us feel lonely.
Donald Mcnab
Whitchurch by Tavistock, Devon
SIR – Will Tracey Crouch, the new Minister For Loneliness, be given departmental staff, or will she have to face the job alone?
Phil Sharman
Herne Bay, Kent
SIR – On a Royal British Legion tour abroad it seemed to be agreed by women of a certain age that the biggest catch is not a man with good looks, nor with brains or even with money, but a man who had a car and was still driving.
Anthony Appleby
Exeter
SIR – I do so look forward to the day when I’m told that I look too young to travel on my Senior Railcard.
Juliet Bothams
Binsted, Hampshire
SIR – For years now I have been living in the diminishing hope that a shopkeeper would require some identification to prove my age when purchasing a bottle of wine.
That hope has now been finally extinguished when my barber asked whether I was entitled to the OAP discount.
Downhill from now on, then.
Julian Waters
Standford, Hampshire
SIR – I am currently 70 years old and am still managing occasionally to “trip up” coming out of the pub. At what age do I describe such an episode as “having had a fall”?
Anthony Peter Bolton
Stretton, Shropshire
Critical drinking
SIR – I can only concur with the research undertaken by Oxford University into the beneficial sound of a cork being drawn from a bottle of wine. On many occasions my wife and I have described this as “the happy thuck”.
Andrew Reid
Campsea Ashe, Suffolk
SIR – My bottle of wine tonight stated: “Best enjoyed young and cold”. But I am old and hot: what shall I do?
Bernard Wilson
Ramsbottom, Lancashire
SIR – I’ve just bought a box of wine from a major supermarket on which is the sticker: “Lasts for six weeks from opening”.
I only wish that were possible.
Alan Green
Moreton-in-Marsh, Gloucestershire
SIR – I read that I need to reduce my alcohol intake. Having just retired I was looking forward to my regular 5pm tipple. May my wife transfer her 14 units to me, given that she is teetotal?
Paul Vince
Steeple Ashton, Wiltshire
SIR – If drinking six glasses of wine a week knocks two years off your life, I must already be dead.
Greig Bannerman
Frant, East Sussex
SIR – As Winston Churchill clearly knew, and lived long to prove it: alcohol is a preservative.
Diana Spencer
Herne Bay, Kent
SIR – I see you have stopped reviewing beer in the Saturday edition. Can it be because the ridiculous modern trend of massively overdoing the hop has exhausted your stock of phrases to describe something that tastes like it has come out of the wrong end of a cat?
Joe Kerrigan
London W13
SIR – I have it on the authority of my son, who was deployed to the South Atlantic guard ship as an RNR officer, that gin and tonic is not the same unless made with ice chipped from a glacier on South Georgia.
Charly Lowndes
Malvern, Worcestershire
SIR – I wonder how many people guffawed when it was reported that airport operators say they sell alcohol responsibly. Whenever I fly from Manchester, it’s nearly always before breakfast, but even then it feels like I’ve been transported into one of the seamier Hogarth paintings.
Nick Gillibrand
Carnforth, Lancashire
SIR – I have always looked at knitting bags with the utmost suspicion since my grandmother declared that a cylindrical one was the ideal hiding place for a bottle of whisky. She made this discovery while staying in a hotel that had no licence.
Liz Young
Long Marston, Hertfordshire
SIR – What is this nonsense about Dry Januarys and now Sober Octobers? I abstain for half the year: I never touch a drop between midnight and midday.
Nicholas Diment
Emsworth, Hampshire
SIR – Shortly after Christmas my partner and I were told that, every time someone chose to have a “Dry January”, somewhere in the world a barman died.
On that, we decided upon a Moist January with occasional damp patches.
Peter Sumner
Ruan Minor, Cornwall
The right sort of weather
SIR – Given the admission by Keith Richards in your interview that he has recently given up drink and drugs, perhaps the current downturn in the weather is in fact hell freezing over.
Tom Erskine
Castel, Guernsey
SIR – Even though the weather in February was atrocious our milkman still delivered the milk.
Perhaps the dairy should bid to run a rail franchise.
Steve Urwin
Great Linford, Buckinghamshire
SIR – Our milk was also delivered on time as usual. We did, however, have to put it in the fridge to thaw it out.
Allan Kirtley
Chobham, Surrey
SIR – I have found a use for the rubber bands discarded by Royal Mail.
A couple of bands slipped over the widest part of each shoe gives a little more grip when stepping out these frosty mornings to collect The Daily Telegraph.
Tony Greatorex
Syston, Leicestershire
SIR – While driving in a blizzard through Leeds city centre, I witnessed a traffic warden brushing the snow off the windscreen of an abandoned car and placing a parking ticket behind the wiper. I hope the recipient tore it up.
Sue McFarland
Little Bytham, Lincolnshire
SIR – Listening to Radio 4, I was pleased to hear a school mistress defending a pupil’s right to throw snowballs against a school master who had banned the annual fun. Then she spoilt it all by saying she preferred to build a “snow person”.
Heaven help us all.
David Mawson
Chesterfield, Derbyshire
SIR – Having donned my arctic gear in order to go to the supermarket I called at my elderly neighbour’s house to ask if anything was required.
“200 cigarettes, a bag of toffees and next week’s TV guide,” came the reply.
Vera Shaw
Maidenhead, Berkshire
SIR – I visited my local supermarket this weekend for the first time since reports that the great British public has been panic buying for essentials in the bad weather.
Sure enough, many shelves had been picked bare. Bread? Fine. Chicken? Okay. Bottled water? Sensible. But strawberries? Is irony finally dead?
Nick Dillon
Hasketon, Suffolk
SIR – My husband’s only concession to the present cold temperatures was to dig a path from the utility back door to the various dustbins, in order that I could get there more easily.
I very much appreciated his kindness.
Judith A. Scott
St Ives, Cambridgeshire
SIR – Could the Met Office issue me with a wind chill factor for my wife’s hands and feet at bedtime?
Charles Pressley
Goring-by-Sea, West Sussex
SIR – The travelling difficulties associated with February’s bad weather led many to heed the authorities’ advice to work from home. This has led to a new word in our house: gumfing (getting under my feet).
Gabriella Gordon
Thames Ditton, Surrey
SIR – Now that the snow is thawing, will the drivers of 4 × 4s stop looking so smug and superior?
Peter Lally
Broseley, Shropshire
The annual grind
SIR – Spring must be on its way. The sun is streaming through an open window and faintly in the distance I can hear my first angle grinder.
Terry Warburton
Leighton Buzzard, Bedfordshire
SIR – In early March I go into the garden, catch hold of winter by the throat and ritually strangle it. The incantation I chant at the same time is unprintable but effective.
Roy Jones
Quorn, Leicestershire
SIR – After the last few summers that we’ve endured, isn’t it a refreshing change to grumble about the heat?
Alan Thomas
Caerphilly, Glamorgan
SIR – In the drought of 1976, South West Water Authority suggested that its customers “shower with a friend”. When will the Environment Agency ask us to “blush not flush”?
David Latham
Great Shelford, Cambridgeshire
SIR – This summer is no match yet for that of 1976. My wife and I were married on 28 August that year, after nearly thre
e months with no rain. We had Handel’s Water Music played at our wedding and, sure enough, it rained right on cue.
The vicar had ammunition for at least three sermons in the following weeks.
James Farrington
Colemans Hatch, East Sussex
SIR – In the summer of 1976 we recycled every drop we could, including using bath water to irrigate the vegetables.
We had a bumper crop of healthy, succulent cucumbers, but we couldn’t eat any of them. They all tasted of Lifebuoy soap.
Liz Wicken
Foxton, Cambridgeshire
SIR – Following the last hose-pipe ban, my local pub posted a notice outside which read: “Owing to water shortages, beer will now be served only at full strength.”
Sandy Pratt
Storrington, West Sussex
SIR – How many times must I refrain from running the tap while cleaning my teeth in order to save enough water to fill my neighbour’s swimming pool?
Janet Williams
Chudleigh, Devon
The Cork weather scale
SIR – If the Met Office is thinking of adopting local dialects to describe degrees of rain, they could do worse than the slang we used when we lived in Cork.
1: Soft (Misty); 2: Spitting (Light spots); 3: Squally (Rainy and windy); 4: Pissing (A regular shower); 5: Flogging (Heavyish rain); 6: Lashing (Very heavy rain); 7: Bull rain (You wouldn’t put a dog out in it); 8: Bucketing (Holy Mother of God); 9: Pelting (By the Lord Harry); 10: Milling out of the Heavens (It Must Be August).
Graham Masterton
Tadworth, Surrey
SIR – Here in South Lincolnshire we have had a lazy wind. It would rather go through you than round you.
Doug Braybrooks
Cowbit, Lincolnshire
SIR – I yearn for the return of those weather maps of yesteryear with their distinct isobars, warm fronts and the occasional “occluded thingy”.
Must I Repeat Myself...? Page 2
