Michael Fallon criticises the passing Russian aircraft carrier (Report, 26 January). His government was one of those that incited a Syrian uprising with public statements of “Assad must go” then failed to support the rebels when they did. So which British vessel that he didn’t send to help would he designate our “ship of shame”?
Mark Lewinski
Swaffham Prior, Cambridgeshire
• Donald Elliott (Letters, 27 January) wants to paraphrase a well-known nation’s motto as “e unum pluribus”. At the risk of sounding like the centurion played by John Cleese in Life of Brian, it is “ex” not “e” before a vowel and since “ex” takes the ablative, “unum” has to become “uno” and the ablative “pluribus” has to become the nominative “plures”. Now, write out “ex uno plures” 100 times…
Paul Jenkinson
Zollikon, Switzerland
• As a Yorkshire scout leader in the 60s, a boy scout once presented me with a Weetabix fried in margarine garnished with pine needles as his entry for his cooking badge. He failed (Letters, passim).
Stephen King
London
• When I was a child, my mother fed the family cat a diet of pilchards mashed up with Weetabix, with the aim of allegedly alleviating its constipation. I’m not sure if it worked but the cat would soon eat nothing else, and lived to the age of 15.
Christopher Osborne
Nottingham
• Shirley Betteridge (Letters, 25 January)wonders when the Kings Road became Kings Road. Probably the same time the Wigmore Hall lost the the. I wonder when the Proms will take place in Albert Hall.
Penny Jaques
Oxford
• I don’t think so (Letters, 25 January): any Brummie will know about going “up the Villa” or “up the Albion” (the latter pronounced “up the Olbion” – ask Frank Skinner).
Rob Symonds
Birmingham
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