Re wedding lists (The toilet roll wedding list – is this the least romantic gift request ever?, 20 May), when my parents announced their engagement in 1951, one of my mother’s sisters, then on a low wage, bought a bucket. Each week on payday, she added some household item to it – a scrubbing brush, a mop, a floor cloth, shoe polish and brushes, cleaning products. It was the most useful wedding gift they received, according to my mother.
Cliodhna Dempsey
Bereldange, Luxembourg
• “We have created incentives to try to retain our most precious resource, which is our management team,” the chair of Thames Water is quoted as saying in your article (23 May). I would suggest their most precious resource is clean water. Their management is pretty inept if they don’t realise people reckon their track record warrants no bonus. If anything, they should be paying fines for the leaks.
Catherine Dunn
St Andrews, Fife
• I wholeheartedly agree with Lucy Mangan in her defence of the semicolon (Digested week, 23 May); however, I note with regret that she has not seen fit to use this valuable punctuation mark in her column.
Paul Copas
Brentwood, Essex
• At school in the 1950s, we were told that, if in doubt, we should read a sentence aloud and if a pause sounded right with a count to one, a comma was required, two – a semicolon, and three – a colon. It seemed to work.
Marilyn Rowley
Didsbury, Manchester
• Stand by for balaclavas becoming ubiquitous fashion wear (Live facial recognition cameras may become ‘commonplace’ as police use soars, 24 May).
Colin Prower
Chipping Norton, Oxfordshire
• “Artificial intelligence to play increasing role in armed forces, says defence secretary” (20 May). Could this be one small step on the road to the dystopia envisioned by the Terminator franchise?
Tony Rimmer
Lytham St Annes, Lancashire
• Have an opinion on anything you’ve read in the Guardian today? Please email us your letter and it will be considered for publication in our letters section.
