It’s odd of Karla Marie Sweet to take issue with “white actors playing Egyptians (Christian Bale as Moses, for instance)” (I was attacked for calling for characters of colour in Chernobyl. But history proves me right, 7 August). To describe Moses as Egyptian shows a spectacular ignorance of history – the whole point of the story of Exodus is that Moses was an Israeli in captivity, in Egypt. Natalie Portman, however, also Israeli, is castigated by Sweet as too white. But if Moses is a person of colour, according to Sweet, so is Natalie Portman.
Thomas Adès
London
• Looking at your daily picture of the new de facto head of the civil service, Dominic Cummings, I am, like Martin Brayne (Letters, 7 August), struck by his uncanny resemblance to Uncle Duke, the fascistic, Trump-loving NRA apologist lover of warlords and utterly amoral manipulator of weak legislators featured in the Doonesbury strip. Please, God, the similarity is only physical.
Steve Pound MP
Labour, Ealing North
• I suppose Dominic Cummings does look a bit like Duke, but having read about the tardigrade (‘Alien’ life may have been left on the moon by crashed probe, 7 August), I think he resembles that creature in terms of character, as they both seem to be persistent little blighters.
Patricia Whittaker
Keyingham, East Yorkshire
• Thank you so much for printing an edition of your newspaper with no pictures of Boris Johnson in it (8 August).
Christine M White
Bingham, Nottinghamshire
• A friend cycling in Scotland last year came to a cafe selling baked potatoes served with salad and chips (Jacket required, G2, 6 August).
Marion Doyen
Leamington Spa, Warwickshire
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