“Country music has a loyal fan base in Kenya and its popularity is continuing to grow,” says the subheading on your photo gallery (Kenya celebrates International Cowboy Day – in pictures, 27 July). This is nothing new. In 1950 the ethnomusicologist Hugh Tracey recorded young girls of the Kipsigi people in Kenya singing Chemirocha, a song in praise of the 1930s “father of country music” Jimmie Rodgers, who they believed from his recordings to be “a faun, half-man and half-antelope”.
Ian A Anderson
Cambridge
• Women performing on a football field are called Lionesses and not Lions (Letters, 29 July) because lionesses do all the work. They give birth and do the hunting while the lions just lie about. Enough said.
Joy Grice
Matlock, Derbyshire
• “There is a predictability about railways, timetables…” says the Rev David Gibson (Letters, 28 July). Truly a man of faith.
Pete Bibby
Sheffield
• Our local tip, Folkestone, has put dozens of teddies and soft animals all round it, in the trees, in the kiosk, along the railings. It’s an absolute joy to visit (Letters, 25 July).
Mandy Jones
Hythe, Kent
• MPs earn £93,904, up from £63,291 in 2008. How did they achieve a 48% rise without going on strike like resident doctors?
Dr John Doherty
Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire
• Keir Starmer’s position on Gaza is akin to watching a burning building and promising not to call the fire brigade next week if the arsonist puts the matches down by then.
Dave Hepworth
Rowland, Derbyshire
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