The “tradition” of voting on a Thursday was supposedly to ensure the optimum distance from the meddlesome influences of pub and pulpit, workers’ weekly wages being paid in cash on a Friday. Interestingly, Herodotus, commenting on Persian politics, notes that their decisions were either made when drunk and ratified or rejected when sober or the other way around, depending upon the circumstances of the participants.
Austen Lynch
Garstang, Lancashire
• With a fine sense of cosmic timing, we are now being bombarded with debris from a comet called Thatcher (the cause of the Lyrid meteor shower).
Jim Stacey
Liverpool
• Gosh, how jolly daring of you to run a column by a man who makes a living out of mocking the disabled and mentally afflicted (Frankie Boyle, G2, 21 April). Talk about épater le bourgeois. If you are intent on plumbing the depths, why not give a guest column to Katie Hopkins too? And no, I couldn’t give a stuff about how right-on Boyle may be about the issues he will presumably cover in your pages. His inclusion devalues your offering immeasurably.
Andrew Hogg
Dorking, Surrey
• When Jeremy Muldowney said Gallipoli was not “the first combined naval-army operation in history” (Letters, 20 April), I thought he was going to cite the battle of Marathon in 490 BC.
Mark Roberts
Amersham, Buckinghamshire
• Further to “Spray Possible on the M40” (Letters, 21 April), what exactly is the meaning of “Farmers’ Own Seed” on signs in fields on my recent journey through Shropshire? Is Onan a member of the NFU?
Will Messenger
Moreton-in-Marsh, Gloucestershire
• “Spray Possible on the M40”? I am, every time I take the bus to London.
Paul Spray
Oxford
