Your Letters
17:05 UK time, Tuesday, 25 March 2008
I'm trying to figure out the best way to be marooned on a desert island for the next several months. Google and Wikipedia have both failed me. What advice do Monitor readers have? I'd like to be funded, if possible.
Christy, Chicago, USA
Re , can I just say I really liked the phrase "emergency supplies of water, blankets and commodes".
HB, London
Oh Derek (Your Letters, Monday) get off your high horse. Yes, railway repairs are always annoying but they affect different groups of people at different times. Repairs during the week primarily affect commuters: season ticket holders who get compensated for delays. Repairs during holidays affect large numbers of people who travel more infrequently - e.g. car-less young people heading home for Easter. As long as the repairs are scheduled in advance, none of these people, who buy one-off tickets, get compensated for the delays.
Jenny, Cambridge
Derek, engineering work used to be done at night, back when allowing passengers to actually travel somewhere on the railways, and not over-crowded replacement buses, was seen as somehow important.
Michelle, London
Along with about a 1,000 or so other people, I was stranded at Ingatstone this morning by the overrunning engineering works carried out by Network Fail. A bus finally arrived and upon reaching London a couple of hours late, how nice to find a story in Metro that all the weekend railway works had finished on time.
MJ, Essex
Re Teresa, Norwich (Your Letters, Monday), heart/cardiac failure is a slow terminal disease, not to be confused with cardiac arrest, where the heart suddenly stops. In cardiac failure, the heart does not pump properly, which causes the body to detect low blood pressure and tries to compensate by retaining water. However this water has nowhere to go and so ends up in the lungs (causing breathlessness) and pooling in the legs, causing ankle swelling. Ankle swelling (also called pedal oedema) is a significant finding and a clinical sign looked for on all full patient examinations.
Lottie, Merseyside
An Australian colleague has claimed that a Kanagaroo can disembowel a man with one kick. Wikipedia seems to agree with him. I have attempted to show that the Mute Swan is just as deadly, but have found a dispiriting lack of proof, particularly on the old "wings are limb breakers" myth. Can anyone help me out?
Mark, London
Re Sue (Your Letters, Monday), that's not Robert Redford, it's Donald Trump!
Mark, Reading
An unfortunate spelling error seen on scaffolding in a London street next to Bakerloo:
"Apologise for any inconvenience"
(Or is this the church taking a more direct approach to encouraging the flock to confession?).
Pete, Banbury
So the Honda's handbrake won't stick () when you press the release button? And this is a bad thing - am I missing something?
Phil B-C, London
Anyone else enjoy the article about bendy buses, where such a vehicle was compared in size to... a double-decker bus! Magazine, you should have chucked a telephone box in as well for good measure.
Simon, London
After reading the Magazine archive, the letters sections have almost become like a novel to me, with many characters such as Basil taking headlines literally, Adam from London and his arch nemesis MJ Simpson - the battle of who can get the most letters posted! Family rivalry with Sue and Stig on the (much missed) Caption Competition and Punorama, I imagine them now lamenting said loss round the kitchen table. Romance with Stu and Molly and some international flavour courtesy of Candace. Of course I am left wondering what happened to Pix6. Did she disappear along with the Caption Competition?
Sam, L/Spa
Re the identity of PM - I think s/he is from over the Pond - "Green thumbs"? In England we say "green fingers".
Have a nice day now, PM.
Polly S, Lichfield
So nobody knows exactly who the fifth Beatle was (Paper Monitor, Tuesday). Are we all agreed on who the fourth Beatle was, then, or the third?
Graham, Purmerend, Netherlands
The 
