As a retired teacher I read with pleasure readers’ tributes to inspirational teachers (G2, 19 September). Conversely I often think of the students who inspired me, one of whom, the NUS president, Malia Bouattia was featured in the same edition (The g2 interview). By the time she arrived at secondary school Malia was certainly doing much more than “drawing the Algerian flag all over everything”. I taught her English up to A-level and in 35 years of teaching I never met a more engaged or responsive student.
Elaine Mahdi
Birmingham
• If nobody has died in British waters from the jellyfish stings of the portuguese man of war (Report, 23 September), they certainly have in fiction. I had avoided anything that might be one for decades after reading Sherlock Holmes and the Adventure of the Lion’s Mane. And now they are here in fact.
Margaret Squires
St Andrews
• Gentrification, ah yes (Journal, 23 September). The former Big Issue office in Vauxhall, south London, is now being fitted out as a branch of Foxton’s.
Liz Fuller
London
• This week my family gave me a dictionary for my 81st birthday. Flava is in it (Letters, 24 September). So are moobs and yolo, but not smackeroonies (Crossword, 24 September).
Ken Swinswood
Crewe
• “The Garden Bridge Trust has spent £38m on consultancy fees and studies” (Loose canon, 23 September). How is this even remotely possible? How can discussing the possibility of something being built cost this obscene amount? Especially something so utterly unnecessary. A footbridge for £185m? While the NHS is desperate for funds? I despair.
Sue Leyland
Hunmanby, North Yorkshire
• The bridge on the river, why?
Alison Hackett
Dun Laoghaire, Co Dublin, Ireland
