Man with man to dwell
Sir: Your editorial (‘All ye faithful’, 13-27 December) suggests that scepticism about Stephen Yaxley-Lennon’s (Tommy Robinson’s) Christian faith tends to coincide with credulity about conversions among refugees from Muslim-majority countries, and vice versa. This does not reflect the experience of many churches.
Over the past year in our congregation, several young men have come to faith alongside a larger number of Iranian asylum seekers. One of the former was so affected by the murder of Charlie Kirk that he came to church the following Sunday. Many of the latter are sincerely seeking Christ, having become disillusioned with Islam in their homeland. These groups are not divided or suspicious of one another, but warmly united, and equally welcomed by the wider church. St Paul’s claim that ‘There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus’ is not an ideal but an observable fact.
Richard Coombs
Rector of Cheltenham
Hail Mary Magdalene
Sir: I write in protest at the description in your editorial (13-27 December) of Mary Magdalene as ‘morally compromised’. There is no biblical authority for such terminology. With the exception of J.C., she is the individual most mentioned across the four gospels; she stood close by the crucifixion in the absence of all the disciples and was among the first to see the risen Christ, and she has been an early recipient of Christian canonisation. Not many signs of ‘compromised morality’ there. In the spirit of seasonal Christian forgiveness, I will hope for a simple statement of contrition in your new year issue, failing which I may need, on behalf of the maligned lady, to consult lawyers in Florida, whose ideas on misplaced terminology seem to include claims amounting to $10 billion.
James Stewart
Sevenoaks, Kent
Smart thinking
Sir: Lionel Shriver notes how for Americans the word ‘clever’ suggests a ‘sly, calculating deviousness or cunning… Tax evasion can be “clever”’ (‘What’s wrong with discrimination?’, 13-27 December). The American equivalent of British ‘clever’ is ‘smart’, and it’s interesting that the reverse is also true: that in British English ‘smart’ has a similarly pejorative hint, as in ‘smart aleck’. In A Christmas Carol, Scrooge tries to crack a joke when he first encounters Marley’s ghost, at which Charles Dickens tells us: ‘The truth is, that he tried to be smart, as a means of distracting his own attention, and keeping down his terror.’ I tend to view all gadgets and devices claiming to be ‘smart’ with the same sense of sceptical bias.
Graham Chainey
Brighton
Campaign trail
Sir: Rachel Johnson’s ‘Best Life’ column (6 December) had me in tears. The little beagle Wanda will have much to cry about, as shall I and thousands of my fellow beaglers, should this government succeed in its desire to ban trail hunting.
I have not met Wanda personally but know many who share her bloodline and live glorious lives as working hounds in the Cotswolds. Our Boxing Day meets are not as glamorous as those of foxhound packs, but always very well attended by local families as well as visiting Americans keen for a slice of country life. Our followers are mainly, but not exclusively, elderly and this is how we keep fit and happy during the long, cold months. We walk for miles in all winds and weathers in glorious countryside and take great joy in watching and listening to our ‘girls’ following trails. Ours is a way of life which I am sure keeps many of us out of hospital and doctors’ surgeries.
I hope many Spectator readers attended their local meet of hounds on Boxing Day to help preserve this vital aspect of country life for future generations.
Julia Pickles
Cheltenham
Party favour
Sir: The letter on Your Party from Adnan Hussain (13-27 December) was insightful and accurate in equal measure. However, for those of us who do not engage in their idiocy, he overlooks the hours of entertainment and merriment they gift to us. Long may they continue to provide distraction from the uselessness of this current Labour government.
George Kelly
Buckingham
Resting in peace
Sir: One of the most remarkable of composers’ graves is that of Richard Wagner (Arts, 13-27 December). Remarkable because, unlike some of the graves mentioned in Richard Bratby’s article, it displays no grandiosity, which one might associate with an ego as large as Wagner’s. Instead, it is a plain marble slab on which nothing indicates the final resting place of Wagner and his wife, Cosima. It is simply signposted in the garden of his house in Bayreuth, Haus Wahnfried, surrounded by evergreen foliage, shaded by trees and adorned with flowers laid by admirers.
As if to emphasise the modesty of Wagner’s grave, alongside it lie those of his black Newfoundland, Russ, who has a gravestone with the words (in German) ‘Here rests and guards Wagner’s Russ’, and of Cosima’s dog.
David Woodhead
Leatherhead, Surrey
Cut and dried
Sir: As the founder and sole member of the Association for the Restoration of Washing-up, I was delighted to read Rupert Hawksley’s erudite and well-crafted ‘Notes On…’ (13-27 December). We differ on a critical point, however: the need for two clean tea towels, one strictly for glassware. Drip drying is not for aficionados.
Ian Mycroft
Leamington Spa, Warwickshire
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