SPEAKING VOLUMES: The BBC is not the only culprit. Before the war, announcers and newsreaders, although Rada trained, still had to attend reviews of their week’s performances. There is a cult, especially with female presenters, of a cosy, familiar style ending with the cardinal sin in any public speaking, namely dropping the voice at the end of a sentence. — Howard Pedraza, London.
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NOT A KERFUFFLE: In your article Israel plans for war with Iran and Syria (World News, last week), you quote the neoconservative Richard Perle as stating “If they (the Israelis) had acted against Syria during this last kerfuffle the war might have ended more quickly and better.” The recent war with the loss of so many civilian lives, together with the deaths and injuries of soldiers and fighters, was hardly just a kerfuffle. — Alan Bloom, London NW3.
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WAGE WAR: The very substantial salary earned by Peter Lobban as CEO of the Construction Industry Training Board (The big earners in quango land, News, last week) is funded by a compulsory levy on all but the smallest construction companies, although many do not support the existence of the CITB. — Tim Samuel, Southampton.
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ART ON THEIR SLEEVE: AA Gill’s statement that “The Turner Centre was going to be a Tate satellite gallery, bravely built in the sea; after a £7m feasibility study, they binned the idea as stupid” is not only unhelpful but inaccurate (Culture, August 27). We and our partners in the Turner Contemporary project remain committed to building a major art gallery in Margate. David Chipperfield Architects is to design and build this gallery. the council’s commitment to spending public money prudently led to the decision to put aside the previous design for a gallery in the sea, after spending £7m on total project costs to that stage — not only on a feasibility study. Nor is the gallery intended to be a “Tate satellite”, although we are lucky enough to have the support of the Tate and of Sir Nicholas Serota. — Mike Hill, Kent county council.
BANG WALLOP: Neil Turok should be less surprised at his treatment by the scientific establishment and more grateful that he got to air his views in the first place (Exploding the Big Bang, Focus, August 20). Those of us who have scientific grounds for doubting that the Big Bang took place at all cannot get even that. Today’s scientific establishment appears more like a medieval religious priesthood than an open forum for rational scientific debate, and most dissident views simply do not get published. — Anthony New, Bristol.
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OPEN DOOR: Sir Ian Blair is quite right about leaving our doors unlocked. If I hadn’t locked mine, I would’ve saved the burglars the trouble of breaking it down and myself the cost of replacing it. — Geraldine Aron, London NW3.
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POET’S CORNER: My husband, a Welshman and a doctor, said Dylan Thomas’s lack of concentration was because he was mostly pissed and his brain pickled (News, August 27). If I could write as Thomas wrote I wouldn’t mind being dyslexic. — Karen Gorrigan, Heversham, Cumbria.