Zahawi’s professed lack of care makes him unfit for government | Brief letters

Nadhim Zahawi’s tax ‘error’ | AI-generated tunes | The day the king died | Rude place names | Cold speculums

As a retired college inspector, I might think that Nadhim Zahawi’s description of his tax problem as “careless not deliberate” means that he has no right to be leading any aspect of government (Nadhim Zahawi claims error with his taxes ‘careless not deliberate’, 21 January). Careless is worse than deliberate.
Liz Thompson
Oxford

• Jeff Sparrow wonders whether AI-generated music could match that created by humans (Are AI-generated songs a ‘grotesque mockery’ of humanity or simply an opportunity to make a new kind of music?, 20 January). He needn’t worry. A vital aspect of creativity is choice, and it is hard to imagine a computer program making an aesthetic distinction among various possibilities. Mind you, some pop music sounds as if it is based on deliberately bad choices.
Michael Bulley
Chalon-sur-Saône, France

• I, too, vividly recall the day King George VI died (Letters, 16 January). I was four years old and all prepared for Listen With Mother. It was cancelled. Instead, there was military music. I was inconsolable. As was my mother when they announced the cancellation of Woman’s Hour.
Edward Spraggon
Newcastle upon Tyne

• With guilty curiosity, I turned straight to the feature on Britain’s rudest placenames (Next stop, Twatt! My tour of Britain’s fantastically filthy placenames, 21 January), smugly disdainful of such adolescent, playground humour. Then I remembered Intercourse in Pennsylvania. We have had the magnet on our fridge for years.
Dr Margaret Rooney
Cranfield, Bedfordshire

• Virgin speculum, child speculum – it doesn’t really matter what you call the damn thing, just warm it first (Letters, 22 January).
Rita Gallard
Norwich

The GuardianTramp

Related Content

Article image
Nadhim Zahawi should be a very happy man | Brief letters
Brief letters: Paying tax | Washing up and down, as far as possible | Vanishing artwork | Poor view | Boris Johnson’s memoir | Spare time

19, Jan, 2023 @5:08 PM

Article image
Using national insurance to fund social care is regressive and unfair | Letters
Letters: We should scrap NI and replace it with taxes on income and profit, writes Adrian Darnell, while Janet Briffett believes the poor will end up paying for the well-off

Letters

05, Sep, 2021 @3:51 PM

Article image
Rewind Radio 3 all the way back to the Third Programme with Through the Night | Brief letters
Brief letters: Music, not chat | Who’s being stung? | Obvious ethics | Our fiends in the north | Belated response

29, Jan, 2023 @6:39 PM

Article image
Going gaga? Time to give Radio 3 a try | Brief letters
Brief letters: Radio wars | Andrew Tate | Arrested development at 80 | Like father, like son | Timely NHS check-up

21, Feb, 2023 @6:44 PM

Article image
John Otway’s cutlery switch could save Welsh rugby’s Delilah | Brief letters
Brief letters: Spoon song | Brexit benefits | Inequality | Zahawi bets are off | Inconvenient conveniences

02, Feb, 2023 @6:28 PM

Article image
A fond farewell to a peerless TV reviewer: Sam Wollaston | Brief letters
Brief letters: World-famous motoring correspondent | At home with the Mangans | Working-class accents | A banquet of Feasts

Letters

13, Sep, 2018 @5:16 PM

Article image
The Iron Lady could keep stumm when it suited her | Brief letters
Brief letters: Huawei | IAAF ruling | Emma Thompson films | Gender inequality in salons | The royal baby

Letters

12, May, 2019 @3:46 PM

Article image
A cat with nine lives on cloud nine | Brief letters
Brief letters: Too many pills | No dogs harmed | King Charles’s P45 | Hoarding film canisters | Finding a snake’s clitoris | Nurses’ pay

16, Dec, 2022 @6:19 PM

Article image
Taxing matter of solving the social care crisis | Letters
Letters: Readers respond to the news that the over-40s would start contributing towards the cost of care in later life under plans being considered by ministers

Letters

27, Jul, 2020 @3:11 PM

Article image
Personality missing from BBC sporting contest | Brief letters
Brief letters: Bath Festival of Blues and Progressive Music | Sports Personality of the Year | Inequality and lack of empathy | Nuclear threat | Tequila brand ambassador

Letters

04, Oct, 2018 @5:30 PM