Bring your brolly if you come to Ayrshire

Here in Wales, Porthaethwy on Ynys Mon (that’s Menai Bridge on Anglesey, to those few Guardian readers who don’t speak Welsh) is a much smaller community than Gillingham, Dorset: population 3,376 in the 2011 census, compared with Gillingham’s 11,756 in the same year (Letters, 16 March). In September 2010, Ynys Mon’s population was temporarily swelled by two, when a certain Flight Lieutenant Wales, accompanied by one Kate Middleton, was posted to RAF Valley. By a strange coincidence, Waitrose opened its only north Wales branch in the little community of Porthaethwy at almost exactly the same time. Clearly, size doesn’t matter to Waitrose. It’s having posh neighbours that makes all the difference.
Fiona Collins
Corwen, Denbighshire

• Re the pricing of goods at £x.99 (Pass notes, 15 March), I have always understood that this was not to delude customers into thinking they were getting a bargain but to prevent dishonest cashiers from pocketing the proffered note. People would always wait for the sale to be rung through and the change given even if it was only a penny.
Lindy Hardcastle
Groby, Leicestershire

• Joseph Webber (Letters, 20 March) has it slightly wrong. Arthur C Clarke wrote 2001 simultaneously with the screenplay for the film, and hoped to publish in 1966, but failed to finish the book before the film came out in 1968.
Roderick White
London

• Never mind the Cavehill in Belfast (Letters, 19 March). Here in Ayrshire, our saying is: “If you can’t see Goatfell (Arran), it’s raining. If you can see Goatfell, it’s about to rain.”
June Neilson
Kilmarnock, East Ayrshire

• Did the Guardian Photoshop Theresa May’s hat or was it a gift from an oligarch (Page 10, 20 March)? I think we should be told.
Tony Wright
Cambridge

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