Proud to be called a champagne socialist

The people who tell us “We are the editors of the Journal of Controversial Ideas” (Letters, 19 November) claim in the next paragraph that “At present there is no Journal of Controversial Ideas” – funny set of editors then. They also recoil at the idea that publishing in the Journal of Controversial Ideas might lead to anyone “deliberately branding ideas as controversial”. If the letter shows how they intend to interpret “the highest standards of academic rigour” for Vol 1 No 1, heaven knows what it will be like when standards slip a bit, say by Vol 1 No 2?
Ken Patterson
Leeds, West Yorkshire

• Re Judith Abbs’ comment on men having nipples too (Letters, 17 November), decades ago, my fellow American women business owners and I agreed (probably after wine), that there was no reason to use “he has cojones” as a metaphor for strength. Why not “she’s got nips”? Everyone’s got ’em. Some are bigger than others. Get over it.
Kathleen Dixon Donnelly
Birmigham

• Global warming anecdote 8,246. We’ve been in our present house for just over 40 years. In the mid-70s a winter jasmine hedge flowered in early January. As I look out of the kitchen window, it’s in full flower now, around six weeks earlier.
Geoff Holman
Knutsford, Cheshire

• I was born in Rochdale and am a descendant of one of the original Rochdale Pioneers. I can reassure Alan Sillitoe (Letters, 19 November) that, with my inherited genes, I sleep blissfully after imbibing the Co-op’s excellent champagne.
Christine Hawkes
Cambridge

• Norman Foster might call his new building the Tulip (Rep
ort, 20 November), but it looks to me like an anal swab – and is about as welcome.
Patrick Wallace
London

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