Piñata was a word I never encountered before reading Nick Hopkins’ article (Why this quest for truth must go on, 15 October). But a fragile box that blindfolded children attempt to break with sticks to access the goodies inside is a perfect metaphor for our politicians – and their treatment of the NHS, the police, education and the powerless.
Keith Harris
Wantage, Oxfordshire
• The notion that alcohol is fattening is raised in your pages (Report, 17 October). By what metabolic pathway is this achieved in the body? The only organisms I know that utilise alcohol are certain bacteria that downgrade it further to vinegar – acetic acid. It may be that some alcoholic drinks contain sugar too. But it is the sugar that fattens, not the alcohol.
Colin Purdom
Shotesham St Mary, Norfolk
• I keep hearing that employers value soft skills as much as academic qualifications. It is interesting, then, that women working on the Asda shop floor, where they are likely to encounter customers and require such skills, are being paid less than men well away from the public eye in warehouses (Report, 15 October). If Asda women win their case, maybe this will encourage young people to believe that what they can do, and how they do it, is as important as their exam results.
Carole Easton
Chief executive, Young Women’s Trust
• If, as claimed in your review of The Book of Human Emotions (Review, 15 October), there exists a condition called “basorexia, which is a sudden urge to kiss someone”, can we expect it to appear in the American Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Pfizer to invent a pill for it, and Donald Trump to blame it for his past indiscretions?
Mike Hine
Kingston upon Thames
• Copycat branding in the UK certainly goes back as far as Josiah Wedgwood, who, in 1769, named his new pottery factory in Stoke-on-Trent Etruria so he could sell “Etruscan ware” (Letters, 17 October).
Richard Ross
London
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