So Anthony Sher would “be happy just playing Meryl Streep’s doorman” (Bring me my fat suit, G2, 10 December). In the 1990s I visited the Barbican and Anthony Sher held the door open for me. I was so starstruck I could only squeak, “thank you.” I wanted to ask him all kinds of questions and tell him how wonderful he was as Richard III, so now, via your pages, I can. Thank you.
Judi Lambeth
Welwyn, Hertfordshire
• “Today we are announcing our support for the creation of a new, independent College of Teaching that can drive the profession forwards, hoping to put it on an equal footing with other high status professions like … medicine and law” (Ministers answer calls for a College of Teaching, 9 December). Would this equal footing extend to salaries?
Mike Turner
Teddington, Middlesex
• Thank you for using product placement in the Quick crossword (10 December). It encouraged my wife and me to enjoy “a coffee-flavoured rum drink” (3-5) with our mid-morning espresso.
Bob Hargreaves
Bury, Lancashire
• I’m afraid Jim Perrin (Country diary, 6 December) is mistaken if he thinks he has found three-toed woodpeckers and pine grosbeaks in the French Pyrenees. Pine grosbeaks are birds of the north, the nearest being in Scandinavia. Although three-toed woodpeckers do nest in eastern France, they haven’t yet made it that far west. Crossbills and lesser spotted woodpeckers, perhaps? Love the “dram of Edradour” of the turtle doves, though.
Stephen Moss
Mark, Somerset
• Given that no other papers I saw reported that “43% of Britain’s homes were powered by wind last Sunday … a new record for the UK” (Report, 10 December), shouldn’t you have reported it as a scoop, not on p28?
David Murray
Wallington, Surrey
• Years ago I bought a badge on a street stall in York with the message: “1903 – Wilbur and Orville taught you to fly. 2003 – George and Tony fly you to torture” (Letters, 10 December). Succinct and unredacted.
Louise Summers
Oxford
