Measuring indicators of life chances is an excellent idea (Could do better? Report card to test social mobility, 31 March). But since it is not just life in the womb but the first 1,000 days of life after conception that are crucial to a child, using its height when two years old would supply a more sensitive baseline than its weight at birth. The Changing Body, which I co-wrote, shows that height rather than birthweight is the best guide to a child's standard of life and predicts longevity, health and even earning power.
Roderick Floud
Haddenham, Buckinghamshire
• As an American and Anglican priest may I say that the burning of a Qur'an carried out by a so-called Christian church in the US was a despicable act, an affront to the gospel and another blow to global Christianity (Report, 2 April). The blood of those brutally killed in retaliation is on their hands, as it is on those who perpetrated the killing.
Rev Canon Dr James Rosenthal
St Nicholas Foundation, London
• Perhaps Pastors Terry Jones and Wayne Sapp would like to go to Kabul in order to explain their views. I hear that the CIA has a first class transport system to render them there extraordinarily.
Roger Harris
Leighton Buzzard, Bedfordshire
• You had a picture of the "Marks & Spencer chief executive outside the Paris store" (Tea and scones on the Champs Elysées, 2 April). It consisted of a middle-aged man, and two glamorous young women. But you did not specify which one was the chief executive.
John Richards
St Ives, Cornwall
• I am glad that £96,000 was raised to save for the nation Keats' letter where he fears to pass on TB to his lover with a kiss (Report, 30 March). Would that governments had the same political will to scale up prevention and treatment of TB, as without this it is estimated that 10 million people will die from TB by 2015.
Sister Gillian Price
Much Hadham, Hertfordshire
• I hope the students owning "five or six" silk shirts aren't the same ones protesting about student tuition fees (Report, 2 April).
Edward Bick
London