Sophie Heawood says she used to buy only academic year diaries as she thinks a new year should begin at the end of summer (Weekend, 3 December). She lives in the wrong hemisphere. In New Zealand academic and calendar years coincide. One winds down towards Christmas, goes on the summer holiday, then comes back refreshed some time into the new year.
Ian Dunbar
Warrington, Cheshire
• A picture with your piece on homelessness in Victorian London (3 January) allegedly shows “coffin beds”. A coffin bed was coffin-shaped (wider at the head end) so more could be fitted in by placing them alternately head to foot. Actual coffin beds can be seen at the Gressenhall Farm and Workhouse museum in Norfolk.
Felicity Randall
Fakenham, Norfolk
• Own goal? In the Tories’ poster (Conservatives fire starting gun for 2015 election, 3 January) I saw a beautiful, tranquil countryside rent asunder by a dark, dismal road/austerity. Perhaps they should have added them/us on either side.
Sally Holliday
Ledbury, Herefordshire
• Why aren’t the black boxes on aircraft designed to float to the surface after an accident at sea (AirAsia plane may have sunk after sea landing, 2 January)?
Rob Watling
Radcliffe-on-Trent, Nottinghamshire
• Spotted in my veg patch on 1 January: cabbage white caterpillars munching on the overwintering purple sprouting broccoli. Winter must be over now.
Margaret Fernandez
Llangrove, Herefordshire
• First sighting of hot cross buns in the local supermarket, 3 January.
Holly Anderson
Cambridge
