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At Christ Church, Oxford, Michelle Obama told students from an inner-city school where 54% receive free school meals: "All of us believe that you belong here" (Report, 26 May). Does this include a government which last October abolished the education maintenance allowance designed to encourage and support students such as these to stay on and achieve? Does she include David Cameron in her request to "every last one of you" to "reach back and help others get here too"?
Harold Mozley
York
• The finale of Schiller's Ode to Joy is not the message that all mankind will be brothers (Why Beethoven's ninth always comes first, G2, 25 May). What Schiller says is that all mankind become brothers when they are experiencing joy (though he puts the point rather more poetically). He is stating what he takes to be an unvarying truth, not making a utopian prediction. You can see what he means by watching the behaviour of football supporters when their team has just scored a crucial goal.
David McAvoy
Cautley, Cumbria
• Your report (24 May) states that the former mayor Gary Shaw uses the expression "tonnes and tonnes". I rather think not. He would most likely have said "tons and tons". We may be two great nations divided by a common language, but surely not in this expression?
Hugh Scullion
London
• 10cc had it right (Letters, 25 May): "If your mind is trippin' / but your disc is slippin' / here's what you gotta do – / Nothing / In any tempo and any rhythm / C'mon Mac do the sacro-iliac."
Chris Williams
Rufford, Lancashire
• Steve Bell is not the only one who has failed to recognise Edwina Currie's "enormous contribution to the country" ('He's never kind and affectionate', G2, 25 May).
Jim Wilson
Broughton, Oxfordshire
• Spooner would have been delighted: Shagging gambles lead to gagging shambles (Privacy laws in chaos as MP names Giggs over injunction, 24 May).
Chris Bennett
Sutton, Cambridgeshire
