I’m very glad that Jane McAdoo remembers the Great Guardian Diary Loofahs from all those years ago (Letters, 4 February). I still have them: one skinned, one unskinned. They don’t get a lot of use now but are often admired. Until the seeds finally worked their way out, the unskinned one was also a handy rattle/baby distracter. My wife and I have interrupted our marmalade-making to send this.
Martin Wainwright
(Guardian Diary editor in the good old loofah days) Thrupp, Oxfordshire
• Last week I went to the local library to borrow Made in Scotland by Billy Connolly. Not finding it in the biography section, a helpful librarian thought it might be under comedy, but it was not. She eventually located the book in the foreign travel section. A sign of things to come?
Sarah Rennie
Redditch, Worcestershire
• I am sorry to tell Patti Whaley (Letters, 5 February) that her “properly-hyphenated” adjectives are not properly hyphenated. “Properly” is an adverb and as such doesn’t need hyphenating to the adjective it is describing.
Richard Towers
Sheffield
• The key to understanding Boris Johnson (Journal, 4 February) is to take his words literally. “Incredible” and “fantastic” mean just what they say: unbelievable fantasies.
Rodney Smith
Chapelton, Lanarkshire
• On 5 February, in the Yorkshire Pennines, the crocuses were in full flower; not so many years ago we would have still been under snow.
Graeme Innes-Johnstone
Elland, West Yorkshire
• Atrophied (Wordwheel, G2, 4 February)? This 88-year-old made Aphrodite (and marmalade).
Judith Bennett
Sturminster Newton, Dorset
• The address on the letter from Rodney Smith above was amended on 7 February 2019. Because of an editing error, an earlier version placed him in Chapelton, Aberdeenshire.
