I nearly tripped over my Birkenstocks at the description of Stroud as a “conservative town” (Why we’re ready to open our homes to refugees, 5 September). Stroud has a Labour-headed district council, is home to the renewable energy firm Ecotricity, the local football club serves only vegan food and the weekly farmers market is filled with the crunchiest, greenest, least-conservative people in the county (some of whom pay for their purchases with the Stroud pound). Gloucestershire is filled with conservative towns, but Stroud isn’t one of them.
Wendy Thomas
Dursley, Gloucestershire
• Is it now a crime to run without wearing Lycra (Sierra Leone sprinter who slept rough, 4 September)? My (white British) son was recently stopped and searched, and given a slip where the only decipherable accusation was that he was “seen running while wearing a jacket”. Part of the normalisation of the car culture?
Joanna Bazley
London
• You say (Who is the UK’s queen of queens?, 5 September) that Queen Elizabeth II’s reign has exceeded that of Queen Victoria because the former has reigned for 63 years and 217 days. Have you taken into account the number of leap years in each monarch’s reign in calculating the total number of days?
Dennis Hawkins
Leominster, Herefordshire
•Last year I wrote complaining that Cook’s feature on plums appeared after everyone’s garden glut of plums was over and forgotten. This year’s timing is spot on (A punnet of plums, four dishes, Cook, 5 September). Thank you.
Sally Edmondson
Prescot, Merseyside
