Your report (Report, 30 January) says a Banksy mural was “defaced by vandals”. But why is Banksy’s work “art” while its erasure is merely the work of vandals? That one man can paint anything he likes on any property in the country, and have it unquestioningly praised simply because he’s famous, is a great example how our celebrity-obsessed inequality has become normalised. Maybe that’s the real message of his art.
Phil Gyford
London
• Diane Abbott’s piece (G2, 31 January) on the 1980s rang a bell. I was given the same advice – “don’t learn to type” – by my headmistress in 1956 on leaving school to go to Oxford, so obviously nothing much changed in 20 years. I originally worked as a research chemist so certainly avoided being “shunted into a secretarial role” but eventually had to struggle to find my way round a keyboard when I retired and acquired a home computer.
Barbara Young
Bury, Lancashire
• Melanie Wood (Letters, 30 January) could reuse Saturday Guardian’s plastic wrapper. Pleased to say Waitrose fish counter was a bit dubious, but agreed. Saved three layers of in-house plastic bags.
Ros Clayton
York
• What the whale (Whale able to imitate English, 31 January) is actually saying is: “Set me free!”
Ann Newell
Thame, Oxfordshire
• Jazz may not be getting any reviews in the new-look Guardian, and there have been two letters pointing this out. Folk music has been similarly neglected with regard to CD reviews, but no letters about it. Yet.
Derek Schofield
Wistaston, Cheshire
• I would just like to say how much I am enjoying the increase in pop and rock music reviews each Friday. I hope it continues.
Dave Hill
Exeter
• Join the debate – email guardian.letters@theguardian.com
• Read more Guardian letters – click here to visit gu.com/letters
