About 30 years ago I wrote a computer-simulated lemonade stall for primary schoolchildren. Included in the model were potential disasters like thunderstorms and competition from cheaper stalls nearby, but we failed to include a fine from a zealous trading standards officer (Girl fined £150 for running lemonade stall, 22 July).
Dave Headey
Faringdon, Oxfordshire
• Re your report on Lady Hale’s appointment (A champion of diversity and ardent feminist: the first woman to lead Britain’s highest court, 22 July), at dinner with a group of barristers, I complained they had all led a very cloistered life – boarding school, Oxford and then into chambers. “Not so,” said one, “I was a schoolteacher before I became a barrister.” “Good,” said I, “which school?” “Eton,” he replied. Oh well!
David Ashton
Great Broughton, North Yorkshire
• Christine Stanton (Letters, 24 July) said she wanted to know who “lardy” was. In the north-east of England, a common term of endearment is “pet” (as in Auf Wiedersehen, Pet). My father, a Londoner, moved to the north-east when he was in his 20s. He told me that for ages he thought there were a lot of people around called Pat.
Paul Dormer
Guildford, Surrey
• A few lines on the Your View page (Weekend, 21 July) do not do justice to the hours of pleasure Clive James has given us over the years. Let’s have a big thank you to him now, with a few of his memorable writings included.
Elizabeth Dunnett
Malvern
• Reading about the England Women’s cricket victory at Lord’s (Sport, 24 July), I couldn’t help but recall my favourite Austen heroine, Catherine Morland, who, as a small child, “greatly preferred cricket, not merely to dolls, but to the more heroic enjoyments of infancy, nursing a dormouse, feeding a canary-bird, or watering a rose-bush”.
Martin Brayne
High Peak, Derbyshire
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