I had the same “crossed line” experience (Letters, 26 July) in 1977, during the run-up to the ABC official secrets trial. I was on the phone to my MP (another of his constituents was Crispin Aubrey, the A of ABC) when we heard an echoey recording of what had just been said. “Don’t worry,” he said. “It’s only the secret services; they’re not very good at it.” I suggested the MP might have a word about it with his older brother, who happened to have been foreign secretary and deputy leader of the Labour party, George Brown.
Christopher Gordon
Winchester, Hampshire
• As a nine-year-old passenger in his Morris Minor (Letters, passim), I was intrigued to see the then director of the Victoria and Albert Museum, Sir Trenchard Cox, a colleague of my father, brandishing a wooden-handled washing-up mop as he drove to remove the condensation that formed on the windscreen as a result of the inadequacy of the car’s heater.
Stephen Musgrave
Danbury, Essex
• Zoe Williams’s piece (The beach: my idea of an existential crisis, G2, 26 July) brings to mind Bill Hicks’s reason for preferring to lounge in his bath at home rather than going to the beach, “where water meets dirt”: “That way I can listen to music I like.”
Bob Lamb
Chester
• We’re in the middle of a heatwave, yet in my street the only people who hang washing out to dry are the Greek family that were here pre-gentrification. How much do tumble dryers contribute to global warming?
Chris Ayre
London
• A collective noun for Santas is a contradiction in terms (Letters, 28 July). As every child (and adult) knows, there’s only one Santa Claus.
Adrian Brodkin
London
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