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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
World
Brief letters

Bang go the banjos for Trump’s inauguration

A banjo player
The suggestion that Dueling Banjos might be played at Donald Trump’s inauguration is given short shrift by reader Patrick Carroll. Photograph: Alamy

The generally astute Marina Hyde betrays a lacuna in her usually sound musical knowledge in suggesting that the player on Dueling Banjos might be booked for Trump’s inaugural (6 January). That musician was Eric Weissberg who, like myself, attended The Little Red School House in Greenwich Village where all us little reds went. Unless he has completely shed the politics that obtained in our school days, he would be the last person who would want anything to do with Trump.
Patrick Carroll
Helston, Cornwall

• “Michelle Obama calls on America’s youth to live in hope and rise above fear” (Report, 7 January) – illustrated by “eight years of style” and five photographs of different outfits. You should be ashamed of yourselves.
Val Jackson
Stockport

•  Re Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin should we anticipate a statement from the president-elect: “I did not have international relations with that man.”
Colin Richardson
London  

• While Sam Cowen may mock the concept of an asparagu (Letters, 4 January), broccoli is clearly a plural Italian word and I cannot find anyone who can tell me what a broccolo is.
Peter Riocreux
Cheadle, Cheshire

• Why describe the potential 5,000 sq km Larsen C iceberg as being “a quarter the size of Wales” (Report, 7 January). As Wales is 20,779 sq km, a quarter would be 5,194. Northumberland measures 5,013 sq km, and would surely therefore be a far better unit of comparison.
Matt Hewison
Epsom, Surrey

• Going through some very old files, I discovered pages from the Guardian of 1 April 1977. Scientists calculated that San Serriffe would collide with Sri Lanka on 3 January 2011. I wondered if the date for this collision had been recalculated.
Laura Miller
London

• Join the debate – email guardian.letters@theguardian.com

• Read more Guardian letters – click here to visit gu.com/letters

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