You report (24 April) that HMS Bulwark is taking part in first world war commemorations at Gallipoli and is expected to join search-and-rescue duties in the Mediterranean in about a week. Would it not have shown more respect to those who died at Gallipoli for HMS Bulwark to have left commemorations there forthwith to save lives in the Mediterranean? Nelson would have acted on his own initiative to do so.
Adrian Betham
London
• Hats off to Paul for his timely, witty and poignant grid (Crossword No 26,554, 24 April) on the theme of the Armenian genocide. The clue “Mountain for 26s to climb over report, time to accept blame finally for the song of yesteryear” was both elegant and moving.
Fergus Nicoll
Llanrhaeadr-ym-Mochnant, Powys
• Last year a charming young man at Costa in King’s Cross station gave me a free coffee because “You have a lovely smile”. This 71-year-old grandmother spent the rest of the day feeling like Catherine Deneuve in a Doris Day movie, convinced I still had it. Now I discover it’s a marketing ploy (Report, 23 April); that’s another illusion shattered. Thanks.
Jean Austin
Crawley, West Sussex
• It may be scarcely believable, but a few years ago a sign in Kettering general hospital car park warned that “car thieves operate in this area” (Letters, 25 April).
Judith Mack
Corby, Northamptonshire
• Buses serving the hospitals in Oxford proudly advertise that they connect you “in a heartbeat” – worryingly, they also say they run “up to every 7 minutes”. Oxford is clearly dying.
Jane Green
Oxford
