The new tax year sees an awesome power given to pensioners – to cash in their annuity (Pension providers expect surge in inquiries as rules change, 30 March). Some will do so without proper advice and will regret it. Just as a measure of our progress towards a caring society, it’s worth noting that the emperor Marcus Aurelius (AD161-180), the last of the “five good Roman emperors”, ruled that no one could enforce an agreement for the capitalisation of an annuity unless it had been approved by a magistrate.
Jeffrey Hackney
Oxford
• Transposing the Noah’s ark story to the north-west of England is such a good idea (Last night’s TV, G2, 31 March) that Marriott Edgar and Stanley Holloway had it more than 80 years ago. Check out the marvellous Three Ha’pence a Foot: “The ’ouses were soon under water / Folks on to the roof ’ad to climb / They said it were rottenest summer, / That Bury ’ad ’ad for some time.” My dad has known this by heart for most of his life, certainly all of mine, and two years ago had to be dissuaded from reciting it as a eulogy at his mother’s funeral. He accepted in the end it was perhaps not reverential enough for a church service, but insists to this day that grandma would definitely have enjoyed it.
Kim Wilson
Wigan
• Tomorrow, 1 April, is the 50th anniversary of the creation of Greater London. While Middlesex, abolished at the same time in 1965, has long gone, we still see it referenced as if it exists (Letters, 27 March). With calls within Labour for devolution to the cities, perhaps they better keep an eye on devo-Middx?
Mathew Frith
London
• Will some of the 700 redundant probation officers (Report, 31 March) be able to oversee the checkout machines in Sainsbury’s in central London, where the prime minister is talking excitedly about the creation of 480 new jobs?
Roger Day
Wedhampton, Wiltshire
• Some years ago, while working in an A&E department, a friend spotted NBFI on a patient’s notes. When she asked the meaning, she was told it meant “Not bad for Ilkeston” (Letters, 30 March).
Jill Horobin
Derby
