Your Letters
17:01 UK time, Friday, 10 October 2008
Re . In my experience, we often already have them. However, it's most decent of the Rev Mullen to propose an idea to assist our instinctive gaydar abilities.
Jamie Wright, Brixton, UK
Thanks to a link to the online vault in , I've spent most of the past two days intently tracking the price of the free gram of gold they gave me for registering... So far I've made 12p profit.
Martin, Liverpool, United Kingdom
Re the photos of traders in London. Anyone else notice not one but two telephone cords? I haven't seen one of those for ages.
Carol, Portugal
I wonder if might be a contender in the "most bizarre last sentence" category?
Pete Hoyle, Edinburgh
I was pleased to see "spanghew" among the . A related word is "spang-tade" - "a deadly trick played upon the poor toad". Perhaps we should campaign for spang-tade to be banned.
Rob Foreman, London, UK
Ben and Owain (Thursday letters). A couple of points on long scale numbering (i.e a billion is a million million) - firstly both systems are as logical as each other, in fact I think the short scale makes more sense (add three zeros every time you go up a name, easy). Secondly, the UK hasn't officially used the long scale since 1974, a while ago now. Thirdly, being a billionaire is still pretty exciting even if it's only 1000 million.
Mike, Bristol
I love Ben Goudie's almost Daily Mail-esque letter. We've used the "American number-naming tradition" since at least the mid-1970s. Is he aware we've stopped using Fahrenheit and come off the Gold Standard too?
Bear, Bristol
Was it , or is what the woman in this story is wearing the normal, rather revealing hospital attire for new mothers in the UK?
Johan van Slooten, Urk, The Netherlands
Re the quote of the day, the lady is sadly mistaken: celibacy doesn't make you live longer, it just makes it feel that way.
Baz, Norwich
Hindsight is a wonderful thing, but surely this would have started ringing alarm bells for those with accounts in Iceland - .
Martin Hollywood, Luxembourg
Kudos for the Spinal Tap reference on the . It's the only thing I've read this morning which has made me smile. Tin-foil wrapped cucumber anyone?
Nick, Belfast
Sorry to correct you Paper Monitor, but the Times has been giving away the CDs during this week only. A few weeks ago they were giving away a wonderful collection of Hitchcock films. Maybe they're going through the generations?
PS, Newcastle, England
Honestly. I get more embarrassed every day by the junk that we have to explain to visitors.
Jon, expat
Monitor note: We suspect this is a misdirected caption entry, but surely it has wider applications.
The 
