Ian Jack’s Saturday pieces on street trees (13 May) and railway catering (20 May) are among the most recent in a long series of wonderful journalistic essays with which he has graced your newspaper. Their skilful blend of reliable research, personal reminiscence and, where appropriate, measured social or political criticism has enlightened and delighted us for years. Long may they continue. Meanwhile, is there any chance of a published collection?
Richard Allen
Cambridge
• Roger Pratt (Letters, 25 May) should make the most of the Cardiff-Holyhead dining car while it lasts. An excellent dining service was provided free for first class passengers on the short-lived Wrexham, Shropshire & Marylebone Railway from 2008 to 2011, killed off by its German owners, Deutsche Bahn, largely thanks to the labyrinthine anti-competition rules of our privatised railway system.
Simon Hill
London
• I wonder how the Guardian would react if individuals had been taxed twice on the same income, discriminated against and then subjected to the full force of the government legal machine over almost 20 years to bully them into dropping their rightful claim? Please let’s have some balanced reporting on tax (Who’ll pay for the multinational tax grab? 26 May).
Rob Hales
Mawdesley, Lancashire
• Aside from 1967’s A Whiter Shade of Pale, Richard Griffin (Letters, 26 May) is no doubt aware of a number of seminal albums celebrating their 50th anniversaries this year: Mr Fantasy, Forever Changes, Days of Future Passed and Their Satanic Majesties Request.
Dick Curtis
Abbeydale, Gloucester
• My adult piano-playing experiences have been similar to those of Hugh Muir (Opinion, 23 May) and Lindsay Rough (Letters, 24 May). I fondly imagined I was learning so I could play to my grandchildren. The eldest, aged four, listened to me play for a while and then said: “Why are you doing that?” I am still struggling to find a satisfactory answer.
Jennifer Mackie
Wellington Heath, Herefordshire
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