Sir: Look what has happened since the resignation of John Major. We finally win a Test Match against the West Indies at Lords, and the weather has improved significantly. Should this affect the voting of Conservative MPs? Yours faithfully, Chris Adam...

Sir: If Dr James Tooley, the "educationalist" (" 'IQ tests should replace exams' ", 26 June), knew more about the long-term predictions of IQ scores, he would not recommend them as indicators of life success. They are only reliably predictive of scho...

Sir: Could Jonathan Glancey ("Mystery of the stones decays and dies", 24 June) please enlighten us as to who exactly were the "ancient peoples of these islands", who, he tells us, worshipped the sun until the 11th century? And whose pantheon did the ...

To stalemate himself, Black will need to clog up all his pieces. The mechanism is not difficult to spot: With Rg4, Rhh3, Kh2, h5 and h4, all is clogged. The white rook on a2 will pin the knight on g2, but another white piece will have to prevent Kg1....

Sir: Your leading article "The Tory Party in search of a new vision" (24 June) states: The other way of reading this leadership contest is that the Tories are in trouble because they have dared to put their finger on an issue that deeply troubles the...

Sir: One point is not clearly brought out in Andrew Gamble's essay on the Tory Party (26 June). If the Tories become an anti-European English nationalist party, they are scarcely going to appeal to the Scots, Welsh or Northern Irish. It would inevita...

American presidents have also discovered that a soundbite can bite back. One can only wonder whether the dying Lincoln had time to reconsider his dictum that "the ballot is stronger than the bullet" or whether Nixon was being ironic when he declared ...

A sensible Euro-scepticism does not mean withdrawal from Europe. Only a fool or fogey would want to destroy the institutions which ensure that Europe's leaders meet and talk so often that war between member states is unthinkable. We should all celebr...

Sir: Not buttered toast again ("Scientist puts fresh spin on buttered toast riddle", 26 June). It was resolved empirically - in the original Yiddish - but the dispute between the optimist and the pessimist. "Life is optimistic," says the optimist. "I...

Sir: Should Dr James Tooley ever have the misfortune to be under the surgeon's knife, I hope that he will be able to take comfort in the fact that the surgeon's IQ was high at the age of 10 - rather than worrying about his or her skills as a surgeon,...

Sir: There is a simple remedy for Sir Richard Scott that would enable him to trace the source of any future leaks of his draft report: ensure that each circulated copy of the same original passage has small differences in wording. Yours sincerely, Ti...

If they were out in the open but somewhere quite private - a park, perhaps, then I think the police should just let them be. But it is wrong to upset people with your behaviour in public, and I would have thought a star like Hugh Grant would have ple...

Sir: Jonathan Glancey is right about Stonehenge. Whatever it may once have been, Stonehenge now has an important religious significance. As our cathedral Chapters are learning, in the balance between tourism and religion, long-term vitality is only g...

After two tense draws in the Kasparov-Kramnik match the issue had to be resolved by a five-minute shoot-out. Kramnik, playing White, needed to win to go through to the final but missed several chances before the game was finally drawn after 66 moves....

The people of Ulster will not consume more just because a new shop arrives. Many smaller retail operators will close or reduce their staffing levels, distribution warehouses and cash and carry wholesalers will be similarly affected; and, if normal su...

But in two key respects, the world has changed since the Seventies. First, whether we like it or not, there are now more than a thousand grant maintained schools. Secondly, with the introduction of local management, 85 per cent of the schools' aggreg...

One player, known as "the box", plays against the remainder, known as "the team", one of whom is designated "the captain". The team may consult about their moves but the captain has the final decision. The players rotate in strict order. Let's say th...

Our first toaster, a chromium-plated Morphy Richards job which did two bits of toast without fuss or frills, lasted four years. Since then, toaster technology seems to have gone into decline, if not reverse. Over a period of about 30 years, we have h...

1. If foundation and community schools are to enjoy virtually identical status and funding, what is the purpose of creating two sectors within the secondary system? 2. If selection in general is to be discouraged or prohibited, why does the new polic...

Not that you can believe everything he says. It is hard to accept that Mr Redwood's primary quarrel with John Major is, as he claims, crossness over the calling of the leadership battle. If Mr Major "turned a soap opera into a crisis", Mr Redwood is ...

Yours faithfully, Pamela Harewood Leeds 26 June

Green, unripe coconuts do contain a watery fluid, often called milk, which is one of the most refreshing drinks I know - fresh from the tree, the husk ripped off and holes punched in the eyes to let the drink out. However, this fluid certainly does n...

Redwood is bad news for Major for some paradoxical reasons. He is not a single-issue obsessive but a shrewd right-wing policy man with an eye on Middle England. He is not a classic gold-plated shit; when he says that he hasn't gone round being disloy...

Since I want to see my party win the next general election and I believe that most people want to see Britain and its laws remain the province of a British parliament and British Courts, I consider that I have little choice in the matter. John Major ...