Get all your news in one place.
100’s of premium titles.
One app.
Start reading
The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
World

My symbolic act of resistance to Geert Wilders’ anti-Islam stance

Learning a new language with Duolingo app
Reader Hetty ter Haar has started learning Arabic on Duolingo. Photograph: Hayley Blackledge/Alamy

The possibility of Geert Wilders’ party heading the new government (Report, 8 February) was sufficient reason for me to take up Arabic. The Duolingo app is of great help in this act of symbolic resistance against Wilders’ anti-Islam stance. Learning Arabic is far from easy, but I am making good progress (in itself extremely gratifying for someone in her late 60s). I shall do my utmost to achieve my goal: better communication with Arabic-speaking compatriots and, indeed, non-compatriots beyond the borders of the Netherlands.
Hetty ter Haar
The Hague, Netherlands

• I hate to disabuse Stuart Harrington (Letters, 4 February), but both domestic breadmaking and needlepoint are alive and well. Our bread machine chunters away daily, and my son regularly makes sourdough. And there’s a subversive exhibition of needlepoint by me and my sister on in August in London.
Polly Mortimer
London

• To answer Kevin Ward (Letters, 8 February) on why I wrote to you while advocating dolce far niente (the joy of idleness): after a dozen glorious years in Rome I moved to this address, where taking up the pen is practically an obligation.
Dr John Doherty
Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire

• I was interested to read in my Chambers dictionary that “mike” can mean “loiter idly”. That might explain a few things, if nominative determinism is to be believed.
Mike Crapper
Whitchurch, Hampshire

• Apparently Frank Auerbach’s models “were busy doing nothing” (Art review, 8 February). An early example of niksen?
Pete Bibby
Sheffield

• Do you have a photograph you’d like to share with Guardian readers? If so, please click here to upload it. A selection will be published in our Readers’ best photographs galleries and in the print edition on Saturdays.

Sign up to read this article
Read news from 100’s of titles, curated specifically for you.
Already a member? Sign in here
Related Stories
Top stories on inkl right now
One subscription that gives you access to news from hundreds of sites
Already a member? Sign in here
Our Picks
Fourteen days free
Download the app
One app. One membership.
100+ trusted global sources.