All thinking people will agree that the print world is a poorer place without what you call the “class act” of the Independent (Editorial, 26 March). It simply doesn’t suffice to “regret its fate” as you say and move on. If Facebook, a triumph of ephemera, has made a killing out of the changes in the print ecosystem, surely a way can be found to channel an iota of its $18bn revenues into preserving the best of the Indy’s print product? The Guardian, as its closest soulmate, should blaze the trail by offering to step into the breach once the funding is guaranteed, and so answer the question “Are you… next?” with a resounding “No”.
Benedict Birnberg
London
• Asa Briggs (Obituary, 19 March) sounded like a female name to me as an undergraduate in the 1980s. I loved “her” books and was sad to give up my heroine worship when my tutor Gerry Kearns broke the news to me that Briggs was male. Maybe that explains my fond tolerance for my students who write about Michelle Foucault.
Professor Sally Sheard
Liverpool
• Looking at the situation of ENO (Music director of embattled English National Opera resigns, 23 March) from across the border, the most obvious question is this: how can a “national” opera company sit in an expensive base in the capital rather than tour the nation it purports to represent?
Anne Cowper
Swansea
• In answer to Nils Pratley’s question “Does anybody miss C&A?” (24 March), I still miss the chain’s shops in the UK, where I could get smart, simple clothes that fitted (8 stone, 5 foot 2 inches). When visiting my son in France, I always pop into Lille C&A. Finding clothes I like in the UK is extremely difficult.
Veronica Hardstaff
Sheffield
• It wasn’t Richard Dawkins who wanted the last word (Letters, 28 March); it was his selfish gene.
Richard Walker
Malvern
• Join the debate – email guardian.letters@theguardian.com
