Bad hair day | John Smedley | ‘Pearl-clutching’ | Ska’s origins | Budleigh Salterton
The south Ealing hairdresser who antagonised the North Korean embassy by displaying a photo of Kim Jong-un (Letters, 2 November) later replaced it with a picture of Donald Trump, with a warning that any customer who wanted a look like this should seek satisfaction elsewhere. To date no visit from the US embassy has been recorded. Stephen Pound Ealing North MP 1997-2019
John Smedley may have “stayed true to its roots” (Fashion and tradition: how John Smedley is innovating in a tough marke, 1 November). However, I wonder how many loyal customers (like us) it lost due to the “Get Brexit Done” scarf it made for Boris Johnson in 2019. Gillian and Bill Heard Monkseaton, Tyne and Wear
At the risk of appearing thin-skinned, can I object, as a Villa fan, to your use of gendered stereotypes such as “pearl-clutching” in relation to the club (Aston Villa, ‘unacceptable insults’ and thin-skinned clutching of pearls, 2 November)? I almost had to use my smelling salts. Dr John Doherty Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire
“Ska couldn’t have come from anywhere else” but the UK, according to the rapper Skepta (‘Ignorance towards immigration is horrible. It’s not British’, 30 October). Really? The ghosts of its 50s Jamaican originators, such as Prince Buster, Coxsone Dodd and Duke Reid, might beg to differ. Graham Larkbey London
Budleigh Salterton. It’s the perfect name for a 1930s West Country cad, driving the highways and byways in his soft-top MG roadster (Letters, 2 November). Mike Abbott Chiswick, London
