Going behind the Iron Curtain with help from Hefner
The death of Playboy founder hugh hefner brought back memories of living in Vienna with my wife in the Seventies while working as a computer engineer for an international company which had customers in Communist countries such as Poland and hungary.
It was necessary to take large floppy discs which could incur at best a large fine (i.e. bribe) or at worst confiscation and maybe arrest by any of the guards at the Communist borders.
But with the help of Playboy magazine, we always managed to drive through without being searched. Packing the boot of the car, the discs went in first, suitcases on top, then our jackets and finally a copy of Playboy placed casually on top.
At the border, the inside of the car was searched first, then we were told to open the boot.
We feigned surprise at the copy of Playboy lying there as the guards started looking through the pages, often taking it into their hut for all their colleagues to look at (all ‘glamour’ magazines were banned). The magazine was then thrown back into the boot, and we were waved through. It worked every time! roger whitaker, Buxton, Derbyshire.
Chuck out dead wood
LEADERS sometimes have to be ruthless — they cannot be everyone’s friend.
we see this with theresa may who, instead of rolling her eyes and saying ‘boris will be boris’ should axe her disloyal foreign secretary. is mrs may the only person in the land who cannot see mr johnson wants to be PM regardless of his lack of ability?
and the SNP are the same — nicola sturgeon has kept so many second-raters in her top team for no other reason than misplaced loyalty. the dead wood — shona robison, humza yousaf, angela constance, paul wheelhouse, fiona hyslop, michael matheson — must go. karen ford, Paisley, Renfrewshire.
Unlucky general
I feel sorry for Theresa May after her shambolic conference speech.
No one is immune to a sore throat. The wonky sign behind her was not of her party’s making and her security should have nailed that so-called comedian the second he left his seat.
But as the Mail says, Mrs May is ‘an unlucky general’ and Napoleon knew the value of them — zero.
Mrs May has to go for the sake of Britain, not the Tory party.
And similarly, she must not be replaced by Boris Johnson, the buffoon’s buffoon.
Stuart martin, Perth.
Reality of dying
NOEL CONWAY, who has motor neurone disease, wants the law to be changed so that he can choose to die when he wishes ‘properly supported by a doctor’. We agree.
Mr Conway writes that he has ‘researched’ how he will die and that ‘the prospect fills me with dread’. The reality is otherwise. Mr Conway already has the right to have any life-prolonging treatment removed when he is ready, including breathing support. The Association for Palliative Medicine (APM), whose members specialise in such care, has guidelines for ensuring patients’ comfort during voluntary withdrawal of ventilation. Better public understanding of how we die is needed. To suggest that seriously ill people have a binary choice between living with their illness and taking their own lives is wrong. The debate should be how we live and not how we die. Proper provision for end-of-life care helps make this a reality for all. DR amy proffitt (honorary secretary to the association for Palliative Medicine; DR idris baker, consultant in palliative medicine, Swansea; DR rob george, past president, apm and medical director, St Christopher’s hospice, London; and DR kathryn Mannix, retired consultant in palliative medicine, northumberland.
Fracking failure
The Scottish Government believe they have positioned themselves to occupy the moral high ground by continuing the ban on fracking for gas.
I fully support Jim Sillars’ statement that this is an absurd and cowardly decision to pacify pressure groups with no scientific or economic logic.
If gas is not obtained from fracking wells, then it will be imported from the same sources in the USA or from the remainder of North Sea supplies, so that there will be no reduction in Co2 emissions. There will however be an adverse effect on the balance of trade that will reduce government income and harm the poorest. It cannot be claimed that the gas can be replaced by renewables. Being weather-dependent, wind power is either feast or famine.
There have been days when wind turbines generated more electricity than was needed, but for six days in September, the wind contribution to UK electricity was less than 2 per cent.
There would have been blackouts had we not been able to call upon gas, the remaining coal stations and imports of nuclear electricity from France.
P. SPaRe, Davenham, Cheshire.
Baffling ban
JIM SILLARS (Mail) is correct that the SNP’s fracking decision is short-sighted.
had they bothered to go to America, the government would have seen fracking can work.
It has made power for homes and business cheaper and made the US much less reliant on imported oil.
There have been some environmental issues, mainly in Pennsylvania where a quirk of the geology meant some methane seeped into groundwater.
We in Scotland could have used the lessons the Americans have learned over a decade of successful fracking.
Instead, we’re losing out on the basis of a lot of green mumbojumbo and prejudice.
It was the SNP’s Paisley MP Mhairi Black who said the first duty of a government is to help its citizens financially.
how does holyrood’s baffling fracking ban sit with that?
BILL HOOD, glasgow.
Christmas betrayal
FURTHER to planned strikes by postal workers at Christmas, I am an ex-postman and was a union rep until once when we were on strike and the head of the union went on holiday instead of supporting us. I woke up to how useless unions are.
Unions should donate their money to a fund to offset some of that lost in pension rights and pay by struggling postal workers.
ALEX GODDARD, Lincoln. HOPEFULLY those kind and considerate militants will time their strike before Christmas and give us enough warning so we don’t waste our money on cards and stamps. We can take the opportunity to end this rubbish-generating practice for ever.
CHRIS PHASEY, Dover.