We were very pleased to see mention of Dr George Merryweather’s ingenious, yet commercially unsuccessful, leech-based Tempest Prognosticator in Weatherwatch (20 April) as we enjoyed seeing a copy of it at the excellent Whitby Museum a few years ago. Apparently, a recently made working copy can also be seen at Barometer World in Devon.
Elizabeth and Paul Manning
Malvern, Worcestershire
• Is there any record of people objecting to windmills being built (Blight or beauty?, Saturday, 18 April)? We have certainly learned to love them. Perhaps wind turbines will be accepted as beautiful in the future?
Tom Karen
Cambridge
• As a potential recruit to Guardian membership, I wonder how are we to take seriously the campaign on divestment of fossil fuels by investors when you publish an article entitled “Five of the best drives you’ve probably never heard of”, with more online (Travel, 18 April)?
Paul Emerton
Peterborough
• Your Journal piece There is another Russia (20 April) refers to “the 70th anniversary of what Russians call the great patriotic war”. Only they don’t – this is an old mistranslation. The adjective used implies not patriotism but homeland: ie it took place in part on Russian soil. The Napoleonic war is referred to in the same way.
Robin Milner-Gulland
Pulborough, West Sussex
• If the first combined army/navy operation was at Toulon in 1793 (Infidelity benefit, Letters, 20 April), how did Roman legions manage to storm ashore in force in Kent rather earlier than that – for two score draws and a win?
Hugh Gibbons
Bracknell, Berkshire
• I am still waiting for someone to follow the injunction (Letters, passim) to Spray Possible on the M40 in Oxfordshire.
Robert Kirkpatrick
London
