Sir: Reading Donald Macintyre's interview with Tony Blair, I could not help wondering who will be expected to foot the bill for new Labour's new Britain. Mr Blair says he wants to "equip people and business for massive global and technological change...

Competition: Our butcher is a curious fellow. He uses letters instead of numbers when marking the prices on meat. I asked him once how he remembered which letters stood for which digits. "That's simple," he replied, "GOOSE plus GOOSE equals TURKEY." ...

The Wold Cottage meteorite, as Topham's stone is known, became directly responsible for the acceptance of the idea that Earth is regularly bombarded by the debris from other bodies which share our solar system. Denied a living, rightfully believed to...

Sir: Your substantial coverage of Tony Blair's proposal to impose a system of all-powerful mayors on local government highlights the hypocritical nature of Labour's current approach to local democracy. Far from putting "voters back in the driving sea...

There is a common thread here. These three diverse fields of human endeavour have all seen an astonishing widening of pay differentials during the past 20 years. The gap between the competent but unextraordinary performer and the tiny handful of star...

Sir: Like Matthew Harris, Bibendum's chef (Magazine: "Full fig", 9 December), I also dislike Christmas pudding. It still holds memories of a fearsome aunt who served its fried leftovers to us children 60 years ago without taking no for an answer. Cou...

So, obviously that leaves out Nelson Mandela, but it still leaves in everyone else - Will Carling, the Princess of Wales, Richard Branson, John Major, the entire government of Nigeria and many other excellent candidates. Previous winners, don't forge...

In this atmosphere of common contempt, libel awards - the only civil damages controlled by juries - have come to bear little or no relation to the much smaller sums usually won by victims of other wrongs. The family of 12-year-old Tim Parry, killed i...

Sir: What will the Government now do about its Health of the Nation target to reduce the numbers of men and women drinking more than the sensible limits of alcohol? Their targets, based on the old recommendations, which most doctors still uphold, wer...

Sir: Charles Arthur's claim that British Energy's decision to abandon the proposed Sizewell C and Hinkley C nuclear reactors is bad for the UK economy (Analysis; "Nuclear pull-out poses threat to the economy", 12 December) ignores some simple economi...

Sir: When I was in full-time ministry in a fairly affluent parish, I always encouraged the less affluent by remitting most of the wedding fees and even provided modest accommodation for the wedding reception. I believe this is a fairly common practic...

The consulting geographer Simon Rendel has done good service in producing his computer-generated maps of the erosion of tranquility over the last 30 years (published by the Council for the Protection of Rural England). It's not that he has identified...

Visually impaired Chinese, with the reprinting of the 4 Sept Xian Evening News in an edition 95ft long by 64ft wide. "Every character in the headline is as large as a washbasin," according to an agency report. a bad day for: Promiscuous males, as a s...

Sir: A group of policemen should arrive unannounced at their chosen school with prior permission of the headmaster and check every child while leaving the gate of the school at the end of classes for lethal weapons and drugs. A little inconvenience t...

The man in the pub, whose name was actually Pete, which is why he hadn't included Pete in the list of mundane names, trailed away in gloom. "What's so depressing about that?" asked his companion, a cheery woman despite being his wife. "Well, I just f...

Sir: The fees levied by the churches are required to be charged by law and no exceptions can be made. Any extras (such as the choir, video, etc) are not necessary to the exchange of vows in a church. Any couple wishing to take advantage of those extr...

Such reporting amounts to a gross misrepresentation of what I actually said in my interview with John Humphrys, as anyone who watched it will be aware. My position was, and is, quite simple. In the entirely hypothetical event, put to me by the interv...

It is in this context that he has taken on those running and regulating the National Lottery. His reputation for honest dealing lends special authority and credence to his allegation that he was offered and refused a bribe to drop his plans to bid fo...

Sir: Andrew Marr ("Dreams broken on the streets of Paris", 12 December) is quite right to warn us that, after 50 years of growing European unity, we are at a dangerous turning point. But the reason is not the power of the global economy. The Maastric...

This was an evening for the great and good to say farewell to the great and good Judge Tumim, after his eight years as inspector of prisons came to an abrupt and untimely end when the Home Secretary chose not to renew his contract. The audience was p...

Sir: We have had a recent tragedy of a headmaster being stabbed to death by thugs, and no arrests to date of the assailants involved. I am a 71-year-old pensioner, an ex-able seaman and a dock worker. I remember when a seaman going ashore for a lunch...