Message received

SIR – Further to the discussion of No meaning Yes (Letters, July 2), I travelled a few decades ago to many countries on behalf of the Overseas Development Administration and discovered that, in many of them, receiving the answer Yes in response to a request to do something did not imply it would be done, merely that the listener had heard the question. Bruce Denness

Whitwell, Isle of Wight SIR – Yes, we have no bananas. Derek Brumhead New Mills, Derbyshire