Well done, Gary Younge, on your appointment as professor (Report, 6 November). You have a rare talent that makes a reader feel present. I recall a May 2014 article recounting your two meetings with the late Maya Angelou which does it in spades: “As her car pulled away after dropping me off at the hotel, she put her head out of the window, waved, and shouted like a teenage girl: ‘That’s swanky!’ She was 74 and high on life.”
Siobhán Ní Chuanaigh
Dublin, Ireland
• David Dimbleby’s vox pop sessions for Panorama, previewed on Radio 4, included a woman from Merthyr who declared she would be voting for Boris Johnson because “he has balls of steel”. Does she have any evidence for this assertion? I think we should be told. Even if true, is testicular composition a good basis for our voting decisions?
Cherry Weston
Wolverhampton
• I’m happy my colleague Stephen Morris has had his violin returned (Report, 4 November). When I left my viola on a train at West Hampstead in 1990 after a long day in the pub, I never saw it again. I hope it gives its current custodian the pleasure that only a viola can.
Bill Hawkes
Canterbury, Kent
• In 1992, while living in Tokyo, I left my bag on a train at Ginza station at around 1pm. At 10.15pm I happened to get on the same carriage going home, and there it was, untouched.
Peter Stewart
London
• It’s a shame I was not eligible to be Speaker. I certainly feel like I need to be dragged to work some mornings (MPs vote for Hoyle as new Speaker of the Commons, 5 November).
Michael Cunningham
Wolverhampton
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