As somebody working in human sources who has spent years encouraging colleagues to make use of the phrase “staffing” moderately than “manning”, I discover it ironic that in reviewing the TV sequence Livid, which is “powered [by] feminine rage” (27 July), Lucy Mangan wrote that its lead character Alice Black “is manning the FBI tip line”.
Kathy Ashton
York
Mark Lawson states that Jimmy Cricket’s “retained native accent allowed him to rhyme ‘faffing’ with ‘laughing’” (No smut, no swearing, wrong-feet wellies and a foolish hat: the mild comedy world of Jimmy Cricket, 4 August). As many of the UK’s English audio system would say, these phrases do rhyme. It is just some from southern England and some different areas who pronounce laughing incorrectly.
Gordon Glassford
Corby, Northamptonshire
As Kemi Badenoch nonetheless helps Joshua Bonehill-Paine as a result of he has been deradicalised (Kemi Badenoch provides former neo-Nazi advisory function after he withdraws as Tory candidate, 5 August), maybe she’ll now marketing campaign to permit Shamima Begum to return to the UK.
Mary Hutty
Bathtub
“Vertical ingesting” just isn’t the issue (Council needs pubs in London’s Soho and West Finish to ban standing, 6 August). It’s the incapability to stay vertical whereas ingesting that’s the place the difficulty begins.
Austen Lynch
Garstang, Lancashire
I’ll solely settle for a security driver in a self-driving taxi whether it is Ann Droid (Leicester Sq., please guv’: Self-driving taxis cleared for London streets ‘later this summer time’, 5 August).
Margaret Squires
St Andrews, Fife

