Dogs

Q. Some years ago, while appearing as a barrister before a bench of three magistrates in the youth court, I encountered a problem. As I rose to address the chairman of the bench I found myself looking at an entirely androgynous figure with short brown hair, soft features and any physical indications of sex obscured beneath a large woolly jumper. After a moment’s panic — the custom is to address the court through the chairman using ‘sir’ or ‘madam’ — I fell back on the anachronism ‘your worships’, a phrase only used by the most pompous and elderly of police officers, thereby making an utter fool of myself. What else

How to fix Detroit Sir: When I last flew over my native Detroit five years ago, vast tracts of it still resembled Machu Picchu. From the ground, it was little better; in what had been a prosperous Italian-American neighbourhood when I lived there in 1964, there were only five houses left standing. Stephen Bayley (Arts, 27 June) marvels that ‘You could buy an entire house for $10,000’ — but in truth the taxes needed to support Detroit’s notoriously corrupt governments are so high that you can’t give them away unless they are in one of the few islands colonised by the middle classes. Indeed, the city filed for bankruptcy in

Q. We enjoyed the Christmas University Challenge series featuring mature graduates, some of whom were more in the public eye than others. I was a little surprised that one team captain, a broadcaster at that, introduced herself as Dame X. I was always told that I must not introduce myself as Mr and that it was a title bestowed by others and not by oneself. I expect the same to apply should I ever become a Sir. As that is extremely unlikely, I ask merely out of interest and for the benefit of our beloved and newly be-knighted Dame Joan of these pages. I am sure she knows the protocol already but

Nothing to fear Sir: So long as we are not breaking any law, we have nothing to fear from the police being able to access our mobiles (‘Licence to snoop’, 11 October). They, however, would be committing a crime if they released any information so gleaned to anyone except to the judiciary if we are being accused of a crime. In these difficult times it is reassuring that the police should have every means at their disposal in pursuing those who would do us harm or commit criminal activity. Adrian Snow South Cerney, Cirencester In defence of KP Sir: Peter Oborne is right that some of Kevin Pietersen’s most brilliant

Chapter and verse on Islam Sir: Irshad Manji’s generally very sensible article on ‘Reclaiming Islam’ (29 March) suggests using the Qur’an sura 3:7 as a verse to challenge Islamists who claim a fundamentalist reading. She quotes the verse as saying that ‘God and God alone knows the full truth of how the Qu’ran ought to be interpreted’. I don’t speak Arabic, but unfortunately in my English translation this isn’t quite what the verse says. What it says is ‘only God and insightful people know their true meaning’. Sadly then the verse, I suspect, would be next to useless in challenging fundamentalist interpretations — as most Islamists would, I suspect, consider

Why we need a free press Sir: As bereaved parents and (to borrow from some signatories of last week’s advertisement) victims of public authority abuse we wholly oppose adoption of the politically endorsed Royal Charter of Press Regulation. The European Court of Human Rights ruled that Christopher, our mentally ill son, had been denied his right to life as a result of failures by the prison service, the police and the NHS. Our experience was that, in the aftermath of our son’s death, the primary objective of the public authorities involved was to protect themselves from criticism because of those failures rather than to achieve justice for our son. If