As far as government freebies go, what gets on my nerves is the idiocy (Zoe Williams, 24 March). Accept the Taylor Swift/Sabrina Carpenter/whoever tickets. But the obvious next step is to donate the value of said freebie to a charity that people like: Shelter, Cancer Research, food banks. It’s not hard for politicians to both enjoy the perks of the job and get the optics right. It’s the arrogance that pisses most of us off.
Kate Walker
London
• So Peter Kaan was nearly right: after Barney Ronay’s descriptions of Arne Slot as a butcher then a greengrocer, he is now not merely a jolly baker as Kaan guessed (Letters, 25 February), but, in Ronay’s latest compelling assessment, “the owner of a successful chain of provincial bakers” (Alexander-Arnold’s maverick talent will be missed as Liverpool near tipping point, 26 March).
Mark de Brunner
Burn Bridge, North Yorkshire
• I’ve also never been in your Birthdays column (Letters, 25 March) despite some people thinking I am, pro tem, the world’s leading expert on the Victorian Turkish bath. On 30 April, when Ian Saville marks his 72nd birthday, I hope to be celebrating my 90th – so you have fewer opportunities to rectify your omission in my case.
Malcolm Shifrin
Leatherhead, Surrey
• Midwives exhorted us to do our pelvic-floor exercises after giving birth (Exercise and screen time advice for new mothers angers parenting groups, 26 March). It was so ingrained into me that I once found myself doing them in front of the Pyramid stage at Glastonbury, watching the Who.
Derryn Borley
St Albans, Hertfordshire
• My husband has been a “beard guy” for over 50 years, but I had no idea he suffered from chronic pogonophilia (The sudden, surprising rise of beard transplants: ‘This industry is a wild west’, 25 March). Thank you, Simon Usborne.
Beverley Mason
Cardiff
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