Letters in brief

Sir: With all the doom and gloom about Viagra bankrupting the NHS, why not do the utterly unthinkable? Dispense with all the "nannies" who want to control it and our erections, and make it freely available, with suitable health warnings, over the counter to anyone who wants it. It would then cost the NHSand the taxpayer nothing.

After all, cigarettes which are far more dangerous and which have killed far more people than Viagra is ever likely to do, are freely available to anyone who wants them, so why make such a fuss about Viagra?

Presumably the fuss is really about the fact - anathema in puritan Britain - that it is to do with sex.

CHRISTOPHER SLEIGH

Sarre, Kent

Sir: I sympathise with the spirit of Michael Halls's letter (7 August) but the truth must be told. I don't see how the words in I Corinthians 6:9 malakoi and arsenokoitai can, respectively, be translated other than as "effeminates /catamites" and "sodomites". If anything, this strengthens Mr Halls's plea for "measured carefulness in the use of Scripture."

DAVID POCOCK

Lewes, East Sussex

Sir: I thought our loyal football fans already had an alternative national anthem, substituting "Team" for "Queen".

It's simple; they know the words, they know the tune. They can sing it lustily. Drunk or sober.

R J F WILBY

King's Lynn, Norfolk

Sir: I would like to make it absolutely clear that we have not removed the northern accent from our English Language Teaching version of the Wallace and Gromit film, The Wrong Trousers. Peter Sallis, who is the voice of Wallace in the original film, remains the voice of Wallace - without any toning down of his accent whatsoever. This is a simple statement of fact as anybody who takes the trouble to watch the video would find out themselves.

The only adjustments made were an additional language element in the form of a narrative voice (Stephen Tompkinson) and the simplification of some of the denser "Wallace-isms" which would have been unintelligible and pedagogically inappropriate for the video's intended audience: learners of English as a foreign language in their first or second year of study.

NEIL BUTTERFIELD

English Language Teaching

Oxford University Press