The sad picture of a chimpanzee smoking a cigarette in a Korean zoo (Report, 20 October) brings to mind Franz Kafka’s 1917 story Ein Bericht für eine Akademie (A Report for an Academy), in which an ape describes the process by which he became human – a process, it is made clear, of progressive and merciless degradation. The ape remarks: “I repeat: I was not attracted to imitating humans; I imitated because I was looking for a way out, not for any other reason.”
Simon Nicholls
London
• The producers of Star Trek did not, as has been suggested, regard it as a step too far to have an interspecies kiss (‘Martin Luther King was a Trekker’, 19 October). Half-Vulcan Spock kisses Nurse Chapel just before the famous interracial kiss between Kirk and Uhura. Both kisses are non-consensual, though, the crew members being forced into the act by aliens with psychokinetic powers, for their own gratification.
Jem Whiteley
Oxford
• May I suggest a solution to Lucy Mangan’s house-moving book reduction crisis (Notebook, 18 October)? The excellent staff of Oxfam Bookshops will take any number of books off your hands, and with a smile of genuine gratitude that almost effaces the pain of loss.
Roger Mullis
London
• I respect your correspondent’s desire to avoid using the word hate simply because a person disagrees with political opponents (Letters, 20 October). However, using a synonym is not a solution. “Abhor”, the suggested alternative, is defined as “regard with disgust and hatred” by the Oxford dictionary.
John Gaskin
Driffield, East Yorkshire
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