On the Saturday that Susan Beere’s purchase of the Guardian was challenged as “leftwing dangerous rubbish” (Letters, 29 December), I too bought the paper and noticed a fellow villager next to me visibly shudder. “Did you actually shudder at the Guardian?” I asked. “I suppose I did,” was his blithe reply. I then admitted to having similar feelings about the Telegraph. “I read the Times,” he said, “and Rupert Murdoch is a very good businessman.” Time to leave.
Fraser Murdoch
Rushlake Green, East Sussex
• Susan Beere asks what to say to a guy who says the Guardian is “leftwing dangerous rubbish”. It’s more fun to use verbal aikido, drawing the other person out with a question. Something like “How do you know?” or “Can you be more specific?”, asked pleasantly, can either stymie the attacker or lead to an interesting conversation.
Charles Harris
Association of Ki Aikido
• I had a similar encounter to Susan Beere. Unfortunately, I was the culprit. As I bought a Guardian in a local newsagent’s, another customer picked up a Times. The newsagent said to him: “You can pay tomorrow.” I then said in mock amazement: “Do you have to pay for that?” Fortunately, he laughed.
Christine Hawkes
Cambridge
• I’d recommend attack as the best form of defence. When I’m at a loose end in the supermarket, I hang about next to the newspapers and smile at anyone picking up a Mail or Express and say patronisingly: “You don’t want to get that. It’s full of lies.” No one’s hit me so far, but I am 79 and I’ve never tried it with a Sun reader.
Steve Lupton
Prestwich, Greater Manchester
• My friend has a non-verbal method of dealing with rightwing readers. On collecting her paper, she removes several more copies from the same pile and puts them on top of a rightwing pile. It keeps a few people preoccupied for a while.
Diane Watterton
Greasby, Merseyside
• I wonder if the “guy next to” Susan Beere would have spoken as he did if she had been a man.
Jan Howe
London
• “Rubbish, no. Dangerous, no. Leftwing, absolutely not.”
Hal Bishop
Exeter
• “Two out of three ain’t bad!”
Janet Kingston
Swansea
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