So Beethoven is “the nearest to God we’ll ever get” (16 July). Close, it has to be agreed. But the music of JS Bach is actually there. Every work, for the church and otherwise, sounds to be dictated by God. As to the Beethoven choice of Ragnar Kjartansson, the Seventh Symphony allegretto, in my boyhood it was known at our house as “Frank’s shaving music”. It always took Frank Halliday, a visiting artist, as long to shave himself as playing a record of that most catchy movement.
Sean Day-Lewis
Colyton, Devon
• Wiping with a cut potato to keep glass droplet-free (Letters, 13 July) works by coating the glass with patatin, a tuber storage protein. Each molecule has a greasy protein core linked to water-loving extensions, enabling it to bridge a greasy surface and a water drop, dispersing the drops. If you begin to soften a roux with potato stock, thanks to patatin your sauce will never be lumpy.
David E Hanke
Swaffham Bulbeck, Cambridgeshire
• What a marvellous conclusion Anne Longfield, the children’s commissioner, reaches (Ministers urged to overhaul early years services in England, 17 July), that we need a “‘national infrastructure’ of children and family hubs”. Could I suggest they are called Sure Start centres?
Moira Sykes
Manchester
• Was it in recognition of her unique status that the Queen’s arrival was “heralded by bigpipes” (‘If I kneel down I may not get up again’ – arise Sir Tom’, 18 July)?
Susan Turner
Heald Green, Greater Manchester
• Many folk of a certain age will now have Peter Sarstedt’s 1969 song Where Do You Go To (My Lovely) buzzing incessantly in their heads (Zizi Jeanmaire obituary, 17 July).
Pete Nuttall
Caistor, Lincolnshire
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