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I'd be interested in Simon Hoggart's tips on what to do to silence a screeching baby on a plane, since he claims the mother "did nothing" – presumably he thinks she was OK with being kept awake for seven hours herself (Simon Hoggart's week, 16 April). When comforting and feeding a baby do not work, the usual method of preventing a baby disturbing other people is to leave the room, but this is obviously not possible on a plane. The only other options I can think of would be to inject the child with a sedative drug or perhaps smother it. If Simon knows how to enforce "acceptable behaviour" in a baby, he could make his fortune with childcare manuals, and for the sake of harassed parents everywhere, he really shouldn't keep this secret to himself!
Nicola Normandale
York
• So not many economists spotted the credit crunch coming (World economists unite to urge Robin Hood tax on City, 14 April)? OK, but how many theoretical physicists, geographers, geologists et al predicted the seismic upheavals of recent times – and they don't have to contend with nutty CEOs, dodgy accountants, and the others who hide or distort the data. Prediction of actual events, dear chums, is difficult.
John Churchill
Christchurch, Dorset
• Your report on the gay protest outside the John Snow pub in Soho says organisers "urged same-sex individuals to engage in kissing" (No kissing here: pub in homophobia row closes in vain bid to thwart gay protest, 16 April). What precisely is a "same-sex individual"?
Simon Edge
London
• Who'd have guessed W Stephen Gilbert (Letters, 16 April) was such an old romantic? I'm taking a leaf out of his book and signing off my love letters with the acronym SWTQSOONCB: Sealed With The Quite Sufficient Ostentation Of Non-Carnal Bussing.
John Bevis
London
• Jonathan Jones (The shock of the old, 15 April) states that Louis Smith uses the skill of painting "simply to pleasure himself". That's a new way of doing it.
Jennifer Henley
London
