Bryn Austin’s “experience that the Guardian lights fires very well” could not be further from my own (‘The Guardian lights very well’: how newspaper came to aid of stranded geologist, 29 April). Any savings I make through your voucher scheme are swallowed up by the money I spend on lighter fuel and matches to persuade your paper to catch alight sufficiently (or at all) to ignite the kindling above it in my living room open fire and my workshop stove.
The market stall trader from whom I have been buying petrol lighter fuel for years told me he had thought of reporting me to the police as a potential terrorist or arsonist on account of the quantities I was buying.
I buy the Western Morning News on a Saturday as a much better newspaper for incendiary purposes. I don’t know if its insulation qualities match those of the Guardian, from which Mr Austin also benefited when he was stranded.
Michael Horwood
Millbrook, Cornwall
• I was delighted to learn of Bryn Austin’s survival, but, thinking of the paper’s reputation for fearless investigative journalism, I am left wondering whether or not his quote “I know from experience that the Guardian lights fires very well” was perhaps just a little tongue-in-cheek.
Frank Keightley
Old, Northamptonshire
• Your story reminded me of a marketing call asking what I thought of the Daily Telegraph. I replied: “It is an excellent paper – just the right size for wrapping up the fire ashes”.
Ian Arnott
Peterborough
• Good to hear the Guardian is good for lighting life-saving fires. Back in the day, I recall Socialist Worker being quite inflammatory too.
Norman Miller
Brighton
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