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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Science
Letters

World history seen via a shop window

The Apollo 11 lunar module in lunar orbit in July 1969
The Apollo 11 lunar module in lunar orbit in July 1969. Photograph: Nasa/Reuters

Further to Peter Avery’s letter about watching cricket outside a TV rental showroom (4 August), in the late 1960s I was an avid follower of the Apollo space missions. One day the BBC announced the next broadcast from the capsule was going to be the first in colour. We did not have a colour set, so I made sure I was in the shopping centre so I could watch it in a shop window.
Paul Dormer
Guildford, Surrey

• China may be the biggest source of carbon emissions on earth (Unsurvivable heatwaves could strike heart of China by end of century, 1 August) but it is not the biggest emitter per capita. According to the World Bank, that dishonour among industrialised economies goes jointly to Australia, Canada and the US. China is leading the world – with Germany – in developing renewable sources of energy.
Anna Chen
Ipswich, Suffolk

My mother was in Petra in the late 1980s (Letters, 6 August) tottering up the monastery hill on a donkey when she spotted Denis Healey. She introduced herself as a lifelong Labour member and when they reached the top they both shouted very loudly “Maggie, Maggie, Maggie, out, out, out”.
Sarah Cullen
Brighton

• Zoe Williams (Opinion, 2 August) wonders why the older generation rush to answer every phone call. Maybe it’s because telephones were few and far between and only to be used for really important matters. Too often we are disappointed by PPI merchants or ambulance chasers, but we remain an optimistic lot.
Yvonne Ingham
Leicester

• Ask Fiona Bruce (Painting sold for $450m ‘not really by Leonardo’, 6 August): she always knows.
John Bailey
St Albans, Hertfordshire

• Join the debate – email guardian.letters@theguardian.com

• Read more Guardian letters – click here to visit gu.com/letters

• Do you have a photo you’d like to share with other Guardian readers? Click here to upload it and we’ll publish the best submissions in the letters spread in our print edition

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