Each day, at breakfast, I turn first to your wonderful country diary column to provide cheerful sustenance against the unremitting gloom to follow elsewhere. Sadly, Nic Wilson’s dramatic account (1 February) of the kingfisher being taken by a sparrowhawk, following its own hunt, had just the opposite effect. Friends of the three-spined stickleback may feel that justice was done, but I’m still choking on my cornflakes and coffee.
Paul Clarke
Horsham, West Sussex
• Alice O’Keeffe makes no mention of people like me who live alone, when she mused on the loss of her social life (I feared the social isolation of lockdown most – but I’m tougher than I thought, 1 February). A partner and two sons would help considerably to mitigate the feeling of social isolation. Yes, it would be challenging being cooped up with just family for a long period, but I’d happily swap with her.
Sharman Finlay
Portrush, County Antrim, Northern Ireland
• Sir Simon Robey didn’t earn £137m (Former chancellor George Osborne to become full-time banker, 1 February). He got paid £137m.
Dennis Hawkins
Leominster, Herefordshire
• Having decided to chuck in jobs that might on occasion promote the general good, George Osborne has finally revealed his true colours as he gleefully embraces Gordon Gekko’s enduring maxim: greed is good.
Quentin Falk
Little Marlow, Buckinghamshire
• A more positive spin to encourage dog owners to clean up after their pooches (Excremental growth: UK sniffs a pandemic puppy poo problem, 30 January) is that if it’s bagged swiftly after it exits the dog, it gives you something to warm your hands on a frosty morning.
Ian Grieve
Gordon Bennett, Llangollen canal
