Your Letters
16:13 UK time, Monday, 28 April 2008
reminds me of a story once told to me by a university lecturer about one of his graduate students. The student, an Australian, had been led to believe that his great-[repeat n times]-grandfather was one of the original convicts deported to Australia (something I gather is very prestigious), allegedly for sheep stealing. The student asked for three months off his studies to trawl through all the old court records to find details of his ancestor. It emerged that he really had been deported to Australia for an offence involving sheep, but not stealing them. I'm not sure if this still counts as prestigious.
Adam, London, UK
Monitor note: If we handed out a Letter of the Day award, this might just be it.
I'm shocked - apparently 18th Century judges used to be "exclusively male and drawn from the public school system". Presumably that didn't last.
Edward Green, London, UK
Having read about the Old Bailey's , I decided to click on the site to have a look, only to find it was slow to the point of crashing. It made me wonder if millions of other ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ site users all tried to log on to the site at the same time and how many other sites crash within minutes of a story on ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ News appearing with a link?
Simon, Colchester, UK
I've just noticed that the volume on the new embedded video clips goes up to 11. Have Spinal Tap been involved in the production of your web pages?
Stuart, Croydon
The maths which the Daily Express seems to use to assert its superiority over the Daily Mail (50 - 40 = 10, so 10 times better) is interesting (Paper Monitor). If parties are in trouble before the next election, they can also say they're trailing 10 points... AND TEN TIMES BETTER.
Chris, Bristol
I would be happy to conduct a test to see if the Express was 10 times more flammable than the Mail.
Richard Place, Barnstaple
Re Skate not hate in Paper Monitor: I am considering contacting Torvill and Dean to see if they would like to join forces with my existing campaign group, Cod not God, aimed at making the world a less confrontational place through the medium of seafood. We are currently planning a summer musical spectacular "Rock (salmon) Against Racism", which we hope will build on the success of last year's "Never mind the Pollock".
Tim Ames, Eastleigh, Hants, UK
Monitor note: And this is also a contender.
Any surprise that chocolate is the ? Or could it be that pregnancy is a top dollar excuse to eat all the chocolate that you want - the latter I would guess.
Chick, Gatwick
Re - is anyone else curious what the other 22% of craving were for?
DS, Croydon, England
"Skate not hate", what about Plaice not race?
Ian, Cosenza, Italy
Re Esther's letter about Urban Tibamanya, Uganda's minister for urban planning. The Minister for Health in Uganda is called Dr Stephen Malinga.
Rob Mullan, Wallingford, UK
There are a lot of chaffinches around this year.
Rob Mullan, Wallingford, UK
The 
