The reason Michael Barber (Letters, 26 July) never heard the term “budgie smugglers” on Sydney beaches in the 1960s is simple: it’s slang from the 2000s. The first usage in Jonathon Green’s Dictionary of Slang in 2008 also shows the glorious rich range of Aussie speech: “Call ’em cock jocks, sluggos, nylon nasties, budgie smugglers, the banana hammock or the True Test Of Manhood but it breaks my heart to see the way the great Aussie cossie is being scorned by a new generation of beach goers.”
Judith Flanders
Montreal, Canada
• When the Dundee artist James McIntosh Patrick was sitting at his easel painting one of his striking views of Strathmore, a woman came up, looked over his shoulder and said: “Very nice, but where are the pylons”? Patrick replied: “Madam, I paint what I see, not what is there” (Letters, 30 July).
Barry Hughes
Edinburgh
