Perhaps Bob & Co. would like to do a concert in Myanmar?

SO Bob Geldof is handing back his Freedom of Dublin City because he doesn’t want to be associated with fellow honouree Aung San Suu Kyi. The question is, what took him so long?

The genocide in Myanmar has been going on for ages.

Who cares about his futile protest? Because the great Bob Geldof has given back his honour means nothing in Myanmar.

Maybe he was missing a bit of the old limelight.

Maybe he could get the Boomtown Rats to do a concert out there. That would certainly have people running for shelter.

MARTIN STRINGER, Barnacogue, Co. Mayo.

Lay off Halligan

I CAN’T understand what all the hullabaloo is about John Halligan asking an interviewee whether they were married or not.

Surely an interviewer is entitled to know basic background information about a person who they could be possibly spending 40 hours a week in the company of.

I think the interviewer would be more concerned about the person’s reaction to the question rather than whether they were married or not. Could this be political correctness gone haywire? MARTIN HENEGHAN, Fairview, Dublin 3.

Kids need science

THERE have been two stories of scientific investigation in the recent papers: a super supernova and a new skin repair technique. Both should be used as illustrations for students to consider in order to show what science can and can’t do.

A seven-year-old boy has had his skin’s faulty genetics repaired with stem cell technology and he no longer suffers from painful blistering skin. The technology was not even a thought in the Star Trek future of the 1960s when I studied science at school. What will those at school now see by the time they retire – apart from probably more Star Trek?

The other story of a supernova that has erupted and re-erupted is a valuable tale as it shows that science cannot yet, and may never be able to, solve a number of questions. The future is again unclear.

There is a general world wide decline in the number of students studying science and especially in the more difficult sciences but why?

There are still the same number of capable students, but maybe they don’t see the value of it as most scientists are underpaid and certainly under-appreciated.

If we are to have the scientists we need, then the work they do needs to be publicised far more widely and prominently and that is the job of our media. OK, get to it! DENNIS FITZGERALD

Melbourne, Australia.

Help Yemen

AS the British Prime Minister goes to her local church this coming Sunday, I hope that she will take a moment to think of the mil- lions of people who are facing a famine in Yemen, due to a blockade imposed by that despotic regime in Saudi Arabia.

Theresa May has a role to play in stopping this famine. She can pick up her phone and tell the Saudis to stop the blockade?

PAUL DORAN, Clondalkin, Dublin 22.

Present tense

I WAS going to buy some Christmas presents, but then I thought that if the recipients really wanted the gift, they would have got it for themselves.

So I would be wasting my money by buying something they do not want and placing them under an obligation to get me something in return.

And if I buy someone a gift they want, but can’t afford, I am placing them under an obligation to reciprocate with a gift of equivalent value that they can’t afford.

Such a logical Christmas would be very far from merry! PETER COUCH, Plymouth, Devon.