Must I Repeat Myself...?

by Iain Hollingshead

  SIR – Today I took delivery of a new set of bathroom scales that were manufactured in China. One of the instructions reads: “Do not put objects rudely onto this scale”.

  I’m wondering whether I ought to put some clothes on before weighing myself.

  Ronnie Cleave

  Winkleigh, Devon

  SIR – You recommend a lie-in as the key to staying in shape.

  I remained in bed for an extra 90 minutes this morning, eating my fresh fruit and yogurt and reading the Telegraph. I then weighed myself to find I had not lost weight – please advise.

  Jane Kaminski

  Downham Market, Norfolk

  SIR – First we hear that coffee is good for us, then that extra sleep is good for us.

  Now all we need is for a professional body to tell us that chocolate is good for us, and life will be perfect.

  Margaret Hart

  Romsey, Hampshire

  SIR – I very much doubt that the proposal by the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health to ban fast food outlets within 400 yards of every school in the country would have any impact on pupils’ diets.

  At the very least, however, it may provide them with some exercise.

  Adam Tindall

  Dollar, Clackmannanshire

  SIR – First fat, now sugar. Whatever happened to the land of milk and honey?

  Richard Osborne

  Eton, Berkshire

  SIR – Overheard at a birthday party.

  “Wouldn’t your friend like some cake?”

  “No, thanks, she doesn’t eat cake.”

  “Why doesn’t she like cake?”

  “She can’t have any because she’s diabolical.”

  Graham Watson

  Yeovil, Somerset

  SIR – There is a perfectly good, inexpensive diet: boiled cabbage and gravy. It works every time on Labradors.

  Charles Trollope

  Colchester, Essex

  SIR – I bought some kale in Princetown, Devon, last year. Having found it somewhat challenging for myself, I offered the remainder to the first Dartmoor pony I met.

  He sniffed it, looked me in the eye, turned on his heel and walked off.

  Bill Boutcher-West

  Grateley, Hampshire

  SIR – It is most irritating, on return from a good walk, to find the business part of one’s activity tracker at home on charge, and that one has been wearing the empty wristband. The dilemma – to go round again, or not?

  Evelyn Weston

  Bromley Cross, Lancashire

  SIR – My NHS device recorded 200 more steps for a seven-hour motorway drive than it did for a seven-hour trek the following day, over the Carnedds, in North Wales.

  Beware NHS statistics.

  Jacqueline King

  Castle Cary, Somerset

  Bare elbow syndrome

  SIR – That “white coat syndrome” exists is indisputable. However, given that doctors are no longer allowed to wear said item, nor indeed suit and tie, perhaps it is time to re-name it?

  I would suggest “bare elbow syndrome”.

  Dr Andrew Stoddart

  Bexhill-on-Sea, East Sussex

  SIR – Recent coverage of the risk of prostate cancer suggests digital rectal examination as a diagnostic. Digital? From experience, I can think of nothing less analogue.

  Alex McIntosh

  London SE3

  SIR – Since I was widowed five years ago, the only individual sharing my bed has been my lurcher. Should my answer to the NHS’s question about sexual orientation be: “bestiality”?

  Philip Barry

  Lydden, Kent

  SIR – The administration at the hospital where I was formerly employed affixed a suggestion box on a wall in the out-patients department. At the end of the first day it held a single suggestion: “Please could you place the box a little lower.”

  Godfrey Brangham

  Usk, Monmouthshire

  SIR – Many years ago my mother-in-law, on being admitted to hospital, filled in the admittance form and wrote “none” under religion.

  Big mistake: all the faiths visited her in the hopes of a conversion.

  Yvonne Chappell

  Ashtead, Surrey

  SIR – On a visit to hospital last year I was asked by a doctor if I was pregnant. This surprised me as I am a male of mature years (with no transgender aspirations), albeit a little portly.

  Norman Macfarlane

  Kingston upon Thames, Surrey

  SIR – I was a teacher for many years. When in hospital after an operation the nurses tried to wake me up using my first name. I did not respond.

  Someone on the other side of the ward said, “She’s a teacher,” so the nurse said, “’ere, Miss.”

  I shot up, wide awake and answered, “Yes?”

  Brita Lakeman

  Glentham, Lincolnshire

  SIR – Might I advise the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists that the average woman in labour frankly couldn’t give a monkey’s whether she is called by her first name, “she”, “good girl” or the Queen of Sheba as long as they will just GET THAT BABY OUT RIGHT NOW.

  Rachel Collins

  Otterbourne, Hampshire

  SIR – A surgeon has been fined for burning his initials on a patient’s liver. Should I ever require liver surgery and there was someone with the necessary competence willing to undertake it, I would be happy for them to inscribe their entire curriculum vitae on said organ.

  David Bell

  Knowl Hill, Berkshire

  SIR – Many years ago, a gillie on the river Spey, when responding to an urgent summons from a visiting angler to help him land a salmon, arrived just in time to see the guest, an orthopaedic surgeon, expertly kill the fish with a single blow from an unusual-looking “priest”.

  This turned out to be a titanium hip joint – recovered presumably from one of his less successful operations.

  Andrew Yool

  Pluscarden, Morayshire

  SIR – If the NHS wants to learn how to speed up recovery times from major surgery, I suggest they immediately contact the production team of Coronation Street. Within two days of one character donating a kidney, and another character receiving said kidney, both are practically back to normal, and almost ready to leave hospital.

  John Ball

  Shoebury, Essex

  SIR – One wonders how quickly the NHS problems would be resolved if our Ministers were to be struck down with the flu virus at a time when their private health providers went into liquidation.

  M.J. Collins

  Cowbeech, East Sussex

  WESTMINSTER’S VILLAGE IDIOTS

  A plague on both your Houses

  SIR – I would like it known that I wish my ashes to be scattered through the air handling unit of the House of Commons. I will then at last get up the noses of all those who get up mine every time I pick up a newspaper.

  Jay Roseveare

  Yeovil, Somerset

  SIR – In the 1920s an Italian flew over the parliament building in Rome, up-ending a chamber pot over it.

  May we please ask some airman to perform the same function on behalf of the British public over Westminster?

  Philip Wilson-Sharp

  Canterbury

  SIR – Theresa May is to draw up a code of conduct for MPs. This could be summed up in one sentence: “Don’t do anything you wouldn’t want to see on the front page of The Daily Telegraph tomorrow.”

  David L. Oliver

  Langley, Berkshire

  Honours in defeat

  SIR – A knighthood is for a man who shows skill in battle, who is competent in equestrian jousting, and who, when finding himself at the foot of a castle with a fair maiden above him letting down her hair for him to climb, can reach her window.

  I think Nick Clegg can do none of those things. I oppose his knighthood.

  Philip Hodson

  Newmarket, Suffolk

  SIR – In March 1811 the septuagenarian John Purcel
l of County Cork was attacked in his home at night by nine burglars armed with a sawn-off shotgun. With his only weapon, a small folding knife, he killed two and severely wounded three before the remaining gang members fled.

  Purcell was subsequently knighted by King George.

  Nicholas Guitard

  Poundstock, Cornwall

  SIR – Could someone please explain what services to music Ringo Starr has provided?

  Geoff Riley

  Saffron Walden, Essex

  SIR – One does not have to agree with him to acknowledge that Nigel Farage has made a significant contribution to the national debate in recent years – but obviously not as important as the observation that “we all live in a yellow submarine”.

  Julian Tope

  Bristol

  Dead Ukip wood

  SIR – Both Henry Bolton and Donald Trump have promised to “Drain the Swamp”.

  Swamps support mangroves and other trees and a variety of interesting creatures. If they were to be drained, all one would be left with is a boring stretch of cracked dry mud and a lot of dead wood.

  Peter Owen

  Woolpit, Suffolk

  SIR – Why does Ukip have a lion as their logo, when, as lions are not native to the UK, it is clearly an immigrant?

  Sam Sayer

  Rhyl, Denbighshire

  SIR – I suggest that Ukip should urgently consider a merger with the Monster Raving Loony Party. This might well enhance the electability of both.

  Anthony Bradbury

  Newhaven, East Sussex

  SIR – How many ex-leaders of Ukip can fit in a telephone box?

  Ivor Davies

  Chatham, Kent

  SIR – Maybe, just maybe, Nigel Farage should learn how to disappear from the limelight with good grace.

  Mark Boyle

  Johnstone, Renfrewshire

  Comrade Cob

  SIR – Following the allegation by the former Czech spy Ján Sarkocy that Mr Corbyn was codenamed COB, I’ve found myself idly wondering who might have been CORN and what their relationship was to COB.

  Martin Bastone

  East Grinstead, West Sussex

  SIR – Was Jeremy Corbyn merely trying to cache a small Czech?

  Bill Wombell

  Sheffield

  SIR – I always enjoy Michael Deacon’s Saturday musings. However, this week he described John McDonnell as “the future Chancellor”. Please could you ask him to be more considerate: some of us are of a delicate nature politically and it takes us a while to recover from nightmares.

  Mike Kaye

  Nocton, Lincolnshire

  SIR – I for one would be pleased to see the Labour Party as “the government in waiting” in 2018 – and 2019, 2020, etc.

  Ron Freedman

  Toronto, Canada

  SIR – Please tell me that Eddie Izzard joining Labour’s NEC was your April Fool’s joke.

  Roy Hughes

  Marlbrook, Worcestershire

  SIR – Over the murder of a former Russian agent and his daughter on British soil Jeremy Corbyn will be “assertive, demanding and robust”. Apart from using two- and even three-syllable words, what would he actually do?

  Perhaps he plans to bore the Russians to death. Listening to him myself, I was almost on my knees pleading for mercy.

  Dr Marius C. Felderhof

  Birmingham

  SIR – A court of law requires proof “beyond reasonable doubt”.

  Mr Corbyn requires “incontrovertible evidence”.

  Would a signed confession from Mr Putin be enough?

  Janet Reed

  Mirfield, West Yorkshire

  SIR – Perhaps Jeremy Corbyn ought to consider going to live in Russia. He may look happier and smile a bit more.

  Rosemary Corbin

  Zeals, Wiltshire

  SIR – I could almost understand Corbyn’s knee-jerk support for Russia if it was still run by his nominally socialist comrades (itself a self-serving elite) – but the present regime is a kleptocracy with no socialist pretensions at all.

  Perhaps Corbyn is still so rooted in the 1960s and 1970s that he is not yet aware of the events of 1989 and what followed.

  Alan Beevor

  Madron, Cornwall

  SIR – It is highly unfair to decry Jeremy Corbyn’s love of country. It is just that the country in question happens to be Venezuela.

  Mark Hudson

  Smarden, Kent

  SIR – A couple of days before the last general election my wife and I realised a long-held dream by moving onto our new luxury barge. We joked that if Labour got into power we could always move our home to another country.

  We have just enrolled at evening classes to brush up our French.

  David Fouracre

  Napton, Warwickshire

  SIR – Jeremy Corbyn can simply go on holiday and come back when the Tory Party has self-destructed.

  Coin Bridger

  Frimley, Surrey

  The roaming Right

  SIR – Is Michael Gove’s plan to open up the countryside in any way inspired by Mrs May’s urge to run in fields of wheat?

  Patrick van IJzendoorn

  London SE3

  SIR – Am I alone in thinking that Michael Gove ought to consider changing his spectacles for a pair that don’t make him look like an owl?

  Christine Lamagni

  Swanage, Dorset

  Mayday!

  SIR – We have recently had the First of May. I am rather hoping to see the last of May.

  Philip J. Honey

  Retford, Nottinghamshire

  SIR – Theresa May – just about managing.

  Alan Lyall

  Weston-super-Mare, Somerset

  SIR – A friend recently received a letter addressed to the Prime Minister at 10 Downing Street, London. My friend lives at Number 10 in a street that begins with the letter D but is in Honiton in Devon.

  We opened the letter (I know, but the temptation was too great), read it and then sealed it and sent it on its way. A week later another letter, also addressed to the PM in London, arrived at the Honiton address. Once again we had a quick read before sending it on its way. Now a third letter has been received.

  It’s all very mysterious, but most of all we feel sorry for the PM as she really does receive some bonkers letters.

  Zanzie Griffin

  Sheldon, Devon

  SIR – Theresa May could quite happily ignore the gaggle of third-rate journalists, who now seem to spend most of their time shouting questions across Downing Street, if she had a pair of the latest bluetooth headphones and her favourite music on before she left the door of Number 10.

  Lawrence Palmer

  Edinburgh

  SIR – There is speculation as to whether there will be a new leader of the Conservative Party, and, presumably, a new Prime Minister. I suggest that a novel way to evaluate the suitability of any candidate would be to examine their ability to write or recite limericks.

  One of the best verses written by a Prime Minister is surely that contained in a letter Attlee wrote to his brother. Since it is well known I will quote another verse written by him in 1945:

  They say I write limericks patly.

  That rumour I don’t deny flatly.

  But this time I’m blowed

  If I don’t write an ode

  On our victory, signed Clement Attlee.

  Of the current potential candidates we know that Mr Johnson won a prize for his rude limerick about the President of Turkey. I think that we should be told what abilities such people as Mr Hammond and Mr Rees-Mogg have in composing and reciting the old verse form.

  In the interests of fairness, we should also invite responses from Jeremy Corbyn and Sir Vince Cable.

  Dr Bob Turvey

  Bristol

  Mogg’s stock

  SIR – Having predicted Jeremy Corbyn’s appearance at the Glastonbury Festival last year, I am pretty confident of seeing Jacob Rees-Mogg gracing the stage in 201
8.

  Whether or not his kaftan will be double-breasted remains to be seen.

  Bob Stebbings

  Chorleywood, Hertfordshire

  Defenceless Secretary

  SIR – In the case of Home Secretary Amber Rudd, the phrase having “the Prime Minister’s full confidence” appears to mean holding up a corpse to shield her from incoming bullets.

  Robert Langford

  Keresley, Warwickshire

  SIR – In the light of recent events, perhaps our next Prime Minister should appoint a Secretary of State for Consequences.

  Stephen T.L. Phillips

  Lanivet, Cornwall

  SIR – Could someone please explain to me what on earth is wrong with setting targets for the removal of illegal immigrants? Indeed, should the target not be 100 per cent?

  Captain Graham Sullivan RN (retd)

  Gislingham, Suffolk

  Cryptic currency

  SIR – You report that 43 per cent of British adults aged 18 to 24 are confident that they understand Bitcoin. Doesn’t this confirm that the rational part of the human brain isn’t fully developed until the age of 25?

  Nick Cowley

  Nuthurst, West Sussex

  SIR – Labour is campaigning for votes for 16-year-olds. In response, we should propose that all those over 50 years of age should have two votes. This will reflect our life experience, knowledge, our proven commitment to national life and our wisdom.

  Peter Richards

  Poole, Dorset

  SIR – I remember the very first Bitcoin. It was the sixpence wrapped in foil inside my mother’s homemade Christmas pudding.

  Rob Marshall

  Worcester

  SIR – Due to the current economic uncertainty I am seriously thinking of keeping my Bitcoins under the mattress.

  E.M. Haynes

  Abingdon, Oxfordshire

  Post-prime

  SIR – The Deputy Governor of the Bank of England’s use of the word “menopausal” to describe the state of the economy rebounded on him. What was more worrying was to see Ben Broadbent trying to reassure us that the economy is in fine shape while wearing charity shop shoes.