Dear Weekend

Over to you

Edward Llewellyn-Jones

Writing about Cuba (The English Patient, May 4), Alexander Chancellor asks, "How can a country that has enjoyed long intimacy with America be unable to produce one normal sentence in English?" Perhaps a 40-year blockade has something to do with it.

Chris Lymn

Alexander Chancellor and a supposed Cuban expert are "bewildered" by the connection between Cuba and Princess Diana, "to whom the Cubans built a memorial garden in Havana (incidentally, long before Britain bothered). They should have asked someone. It is to acknowledge her humanitarian work, particularly her global contribution to Aids awareness, and her work with landmine clearance in Angola, both being pertinent to Cuba and Cubans, whose generous socialist spirits allow them to praise even royalty if it's doing some good. There are no gardens, or anything else, dedicated to other members of the Windsor clan in Cuba.

Jonathan Copper
London SW1

It is laudable of Claire Messud to try to convince us that Americans are normal people (Do They Mean Us?, May 4), but I doubt if her words will have much effect. As my American husband of nearly 30 years will testify, being from a poor background, leftwing, law-abiding, hardworking, and choosing to live in the UK rather than the US, still does not absolve a person in the eyes of the English middle classes of that fundamental and unforgivable sin: being American in the first place.

Isabella Stone

How civilised Claire Messud's Massachusetts appears to be. I just wish Ohio was the same. On the way to visit my pen pal who is on Death Row in Mansfield, Ohio, and knowing that another inmate was to be executed that very morning, I was appalled to hear a local radio DJ offer a weekend for two at a posh resort to the caller who answered that day's trivia question: "What is the most requested item an inmate on death row asks for on the eve of his execution?" I fear this is more indicative of American society than Claire's Massachusetts.

Sue Morhall
Gt Waltham

We were amused that the Mackies (The Hard Bargain, Property, May 4) thought pagans unworldly, and thus susceptible to a letter written on parchment. It seems likely that the property developer to whom the house was sold was more aware of the truly practical nature of paganism.

G & A Baxter

May I suggest a word for Zoe Williams' column? It is "go", used, alas, by Zoe herself last weekend. Although listed in Collins (the 44th definition, and so non-standard) as a means of reporting dialogue, "say" is still the best word to use when you mean "say".

Edna Smee


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