Sir: Shame on Vicky Ward for her thoughtless "specs-ist" remarks about "those beautiful Bostridge boys" (Diary, 24 October). Glasses do not automatically make the wearer undesirable nor pitiable. For proof of this fact Ms Ward could take a quick look...

Sir: The Referendum Party is asking us (full-page advertisement, 25 October) to vote for a referendum the fairness of whose terms we cannot judge until after we have voted in a general election. It says that "a group of respected citizens" from both ...

Sir: Rather than calling for a "shrinking state" on the basis of his experience of Hong Kong (25 October), Chris Patten might look more closely at the creative ways in which the public and private sector work together there. For example, the Hong Kon...

At first we listened to a tape of Don Giovanni very loud, but then conversation took over. He had graduated in medicine, was doing his clinical year, finding it hard. He was a musician as well as a physician. I found myself asking about one of my pet...

It has been a long, tangled and dreadfully painful story, and it is not over yet. Jaymee and her father remain outraged by their health authority's refusal to pay for her to have a second bone-marrow transplant in February. The question of the cost -...

Pity then poor Lord Mackay of Clashfern, Lord Chancellor - and an upright man desiring to do his best for the law. His Divorce Bill, a centrepiece of the forthcoming Queen's speech, is an honest attempt to remove some of the more objectionable aspect...

Sir: It is not only the "Churches [that] unite to attack 'damaging' lottery" (25 October) but also non-religious people such as myself. The most profound problems with the National Lottery are not only that it is a tax on stupidity, but that it promo...

Sir: Your editorial "No charity for lottery winners" (24 October) states that everyone can join in the argument about who receives lottery cash. It would be a simple matter for Camelot to give everybody a democratic say in the distribution by adding ...

Cosmonauts, with the news that potato plants aboard the space shuttle Colombia have begun to sprout in a specially designed astroculture chamber. By the time the craft lands at Kennedy Space Centre on 5 November, the potatoes will be the size of grap...

Twenty-six is most interesting when squared or cubed. Twenty-six squared is 676, making 26 the smallest number whose square is palindromic without being palindromic itself. Other such numbers include 264, 307 and 836, of which the last is the most im...

So, to while away the tedium of these otherwise useless encounters, I have devised a new game to play during Today or Newsnight or wherever interviewer is pitted against apologist. All you have to do is take the following list in hand and tick a phra...

As a non-political premier, Mr Dini was supposed to have been the man to dig Italy out of the last hole it fell into following the resignation of his predecessor, Silvio Berlusconi. But now, buffeted by inter-party rivalries in the country's hopeless...

Sir: I read with interest your reference to the suggestion in court that Sting's A-level in economics should have helped him to have a better understanding of his financial documents ("Sting's adviser jailed for pounds 6m theft from star", 18 October...

Sir: Your article covering the recent Committee on Safety of Medicines advice on certain combined oral contraceptives included a table of contraceptives ("Women still haunted by the risk factor", 20 October) which categorised products according to th...

Sir: I am writing with reference to your article on child labour in Portugal ("Portugal's children reap bitter harvest", 17 October). Of course, there is no denying the existence of child labour in Portugal. However, your article fails to convey a fe...

I have recently assumed responsibility for funding marriage guidance. My department is now chairing a group set up to look at ways to support people preparing for marriage, as well as those who are already married and need help. I consider that parti...

Had such a transcription been made of Michael Howard's address to a rather different conference this autumn, it would have noted the listeners' reactions to the Home Secretary's condemnation of racism as "applause". But his determination to crack dow...