I have made pleas in the past against unwarranted slurs on innocent vertebrates and note that the phrase “shark-infested” is now frowned on in your style guide. Please offer the same respect to crocodiles as a zoologically important group of reptiles that have protected status in Australia (Naked fugitive found in crocodile-infested waters near Darwin charged with fresh offences, 6 January).
Neil Macfarlane
Emeritus professor of biology, Nottingham Trent University
• You describe Martin Kenyon, who has received a second Covid vaccine dose, as “a sprightly 91-year-old” (All done. I’m going to survive’: Martin Kenyon gets second Covid vaccine dose, 5 January). I have not seen this description applied to any 20-year-olds. So at what age can a normally functioning human being be described as sprightly?
Annette Ray
Tunbridge Wells, Kent
• If only you were correct to say that The Archers lacks children below 18 (Editorial, 4 January). We are occasionally subjected to the world’s most irritating child and child’s voice – Helen Archer’s son, Henry.
Susy Penney
London
• Please let Marina Hyde know that the opening sentence of her article (It’s back to school for Boris Johnson, the man who refuses to learn, 5 January) about the breakneck U-turns from the world-beating driverless car made me laugh so much that my spectacles fell into my porridge.
Jan Arriens
Bishop’s Castle, Shropshire
• Our “world-beating” test-and-trace system appears to have gone off the radar. Has it sunk without…?
Angela Lansley
Liverpool
