The consideration of the personality of the common rough woodlouse (Specieswatch, 24 October) took me back to more innocent days in the 1970s. Undergraduates at the Department of Applied Psychology in UWIST (now Cardiff University) spent a happy afternoon each year persuading woodlice to run mazes. I fear that such practice now would transgress animal rights and incur the wrath of the ethics committee.
Ed Marshall
(Retired psychologist), Scrooby, Nottinghamshire
• A disturbing feature at the start of both articles about Tommy Robinson on consecutive days (Tommy Robinson and the far right’s new playbook, 25 October; Robinson contempt case is referred to attorney general, 24 October) is the picture of Robinson and his followers wearing poppies. There is complete cynicism here, or am I to assume that the far right have hijacked remembrance? All the more reason to wear my white poppy.
Jenny Page
Newton Poppleford, Devon
• Once at a Waitrose checkout I looked back to see the next two people had the Guardian like me (Letters, 26 October). We joked that we had provided an astounding challenge to the law of probability.
Kathleen Thompson
Cambourne, Cambridgeshire
• You should know better than to allow the term “menstruators” (Report, 24 October). Just stop it. I haven’t noticed you describing men as ejaculators.
Jane Lawson
London
• At a dinner party many years ago an academic was extolling the virtues of a meretricious society. I said that maybe he meant meritocratic. “Get a dictionary,” he said. “There! Meretricious. Deserving of merit.” Anyway I suppose he was right, without knowing, seeing how things are turning out in the world today (Letters, 22 October).
Jane Jones
Westbere, Kent
• Join the debate – email guardian.letters@theguardian.com
• Read more Guardian letters – click here to visit gu.com/letters
• Do you have a photo you’d like to share with Guardian readers? Click here to upload it and we’ll publish the best submissions in the letters spread of our print edition
