Good on you, Lidia Thorpe (King Charles heckled by Indigenous senator Lidia Thorpe at Australia’s Parliament House, 21 October). On 28 June 1894, Keir Hardie outraged the House of Commons with his response to a congratulatory address on the Duchess of York’s new baby. He protested that the Commons hadn’t had a vote of condolence for relatives of 290 men and boys who died in the Pontypridd colliery disaster on the same day as the birth. Another lesson for Keir Starmer?
Simon Fowler
Poole, Dorset
• I, too, travelled to London on Wednesday with timed tickets for the Van Gogh exhibition and joined a long queue (Letters, 24 October). It looked daunting, but we held our nerve and were admitted to the gallery only 40 minutes or so after our designated time of 1.30pm. Well worth it, as the exhibition was fantastic. Art lovers need not take fright – just allow a little extra time.
Bronwen Dyer-Smith
Emsworth, Hampshire
• Simon Jenkins’ enthusiasm for knowing when he’ll die (Opinion, 21 October) might be tempered were he to read José Saramago’s Death at Intervals, the witty, macabre and cautionary story of what happens first when death stops killing people and then when she resumes her job but gives her victims a week’s notice of the date of their death.
Martin Staniforth
Leeds
• The headline on an article (24 October) describes its author as a “death expert”. Presumably they cannot have the crucial experience needed to gain expertise in the subject. If they have had it, we need to know.
Peter Freeman
Norwich
• Do you have a photograph you’d like to share with Guardian readers? If so, please click here to upload it. A selection will be published in our Readers’ best photographs galleries and in the print edition on Saturdays.
