The Brexit-supporting academic who complains about being shunned by colleagues when they reveal their Brexit sympathies should count themselves lucky (Education, 15 September): I know of instances when physical violence has been, let’s say, “in the air”. Universities are like all other institutions in promoting their own narrow-minded biases and selective interests, they are simply cleverer at deceiving themselves into thinking they are not.
Dr Vincent Barnett
Harrow, Middlesex
• A statue of David Attenborough should not depict him with a baby gorilla on his lap (Put them on a plinth!, G2, 13 September). That paternalistic posture is far from his own, for animals or humans. They should be looking each other in the eyes, for, to quote Sir David: “There is more meaning and understanding in exchanging a glance with a gorilla than any other animal I know.”
Dr John Davies
Lancaster
• Is the extinction threat to some species of antelopes (Report, 14 September) an example of fake gnus?
Matt Robb
Sutton Coldfield
• Emma Brockes argues (Notebook, 15 September) that My Fair Lady is the most successful musical adapted from a play – Shaw’s Pygmalion. It is a great show, but has she forgotten West Side Story?
Neil Levis
London
• As an occasional deputy organist, I have always declined to play any hymns with the tempo direction “medium swing” (Letters, 12 September). A musical friend wrote a comment on modern worship songs entitled “O God, let me be the putty round thy window pane”.
Murray Marshall
Salisbury
• Desperate amid the shadows of Brexit, Trump, flooding et al, I am reminded (G2, 13 September) why we need to hang in there, if only to read another Month in Ambridge from the wonderful, wise and witty Nancy Banks-Smith.
Andrea Hosker
Knutsford, Cheshire
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