Melissa kite

How to fix Detroit Sir: When I last flew over my native Detroit five years ago, vast tracts of it still resembled Machu Picchu. From the ground, it was little better; in what had been a prosperous Italian-American neighbourhood when I lived there in 1964, there were only five houses left standing. Stephen Bayley (Arts, 27 June) marvels that ‘You could buy an entire house for $10,000’ — but in truth the taxes needed to support Detroit’s notoriously corrupt governments are so high that you can’t give them away unless they are in one of the few islands colonised by the middle classes. Indeed, the city filed for bankruptcy in

Disband Ofsted Sir: Dennis Sewell’s damning indictment of Ofsted (‘Ofsted in the dock’, 13 December) stopped short of the logical conclusion of disbanding it, arguing instead that the chief inspector, Sir Michael Wilshaw, should be supported in his efforts to purge inspectors promoting the progressive educational agenda that the coalition inherited. We’ve been here before. Chris Woodhead was chief inspector for six years, and despite his best efforts concluded that his organisation had ‘become a part of the [progressive] establishment, and arguably the most lethal part…’. Wilshaw has been chief inspector for almost three years, and apparently is only just discovering the extent to which his inspectors are still promoting

We need religion Sir: Roger Scruton (‘Sacred hunger’, 31 May) describes a reason, dare I say a ‘purpose’, for religion in society. Evolutionary biologists such as the evangelical atheist Richard Dawkins should accept the concept of evolution in the social behaviour of Homo sapiens. Archaeological and anthropological evidence suggest that some form of religion played a part in the earliest of primitive societies, going back tens of thousands of years. If religion is so toxic to society, how could it have developed into so many complex and varied forms around the world unless it had powerful social ‘survival’ value? Indeed in countries where religion was outlawed, such as the USSR and

Nuclear reaction Sir: Peter Atherton questions whether a new nuclear power station at Hinkley Point is a fair deal for the UK (‘Nuclear fallout’, 22 February). However, his conclusion is based on some unvalidated assumptions. In May 2012, he wrote that EDF would need £166 for each megawatt hour of electricity produced to get a ‘realistic return’. Now he says that an agreed price of £92.50 offers rewards which are ‘eyewateringly attractive’. Neither claim is justified. It is a balanced deal which will unlock £16 billion of investment at the lowest possible cost for consumers. He claims returns to investors of up to 35 per cent. As reported last October,

Goers and go-getters Sir: In her interesting article on the rising equality in the female world (‘Sex and success, 27 April), Alison Wolf states that A*/top-stream girls stay virgins until 20 ‘because they have more important things on their minds’. I am not sure about this. I certainly remember that this was not the case when I was at Wellington in the late 1990s: the A* girls were usually the goers. Nolan Walker London EC1 Ms Kite’s elitism Sir: We would like to take issue with Melissa Kite’s piece (‘Two-wheeled tyranny’, 27 April). I write on behalf of CTC, the national cycling charity. I was delighted to find two of

My nerves were already shot to pieces when my phone rang and a faint little voice said, ‘Hallo, this is Vodafone, we’re just ringing to let you know we’ve got some offers for you.’ I was about to hang up when I remembered, in some sunken recess of the shrivelled left-hand side of my brain, that my phone contract is up for renewal soon and if I didn’t speak to the little voice I might soon have to visit the Vodafone shop (a direct replica of the underworld and God’s way of showing us what hell will be like if we don’t behave) and negotiate a deal involving unlimited gigabytes

After a lot of false starts, I am now the proud occupant of a small weekend rental in the country. It is very exciting. No more commuting from Balham to Cobham to ride the horses. I wake up on Saturdays in a converted barn down a farm track and drive two minutes to the stable yard to see Tara, Grace and Darcy. The three mares have now moved from their expensive livery yard to what we horse-owners rather disingenuously call a DIY yard. I say disingenuous because it’s not really DIY. A nice lady called Sue looks after them on weekdays and I ‘do them myself’ at weekends. Somehow, it

Some sadistically cheerful young popsy called Keeley or Tasha, I can’t remember which, terminated the call because I breached security. My own security. This is a bit rich, even if I didn’t keep completely to the rules. I always cheat during the beginning of the recorded message when the Patricia Hewitt sound-alike tells you to enter your membership or connect card number. I did enter the details once, you see, and the automated hell into which I descended was so macabre that I vowed never to risk an encounter with it again. Since discovering that the more you co-operate with an automated system the more options it generates, I have

Golden corn spread out on the road; women washing in rivers; pots and baskets and sugar cane balanced on heads; a dead man in his best clothes being carried to his pyre; goats, bullocks, monkeys everywhere; baby elephants ambling through traffic… After a week of it, I turn to my guide Rajai and announce somewhat dramatically, but meaning every word, ‘I think I have lived more in the past seven days than ever before.’ ‘That’s India,’ says Rajai matter-of-factly, as if I’m just one more Westerner having an epiphany. Rajai, a multilingual expert on art history and architecture, is a little frustrated by my emotional approach to sightseeing and is,

Deck the halls with anti-wrinkle cream. Fa-la-la-la-laaa-la-la-la-la. ’Tis the season to be racked with insecurity. Fa-la-la-la-laaa… I don’t know why Christmas should remind us of failure and doom. It’s meant to be a celebration of the greatest beginning of all time, the birth of Jesus and the possibility of everlasting life (albeit it after death, although I’m not fussy — I’ll take everlasting life in whatever format it’s being offered). And yet all it does is make me think about how old and lonely I am. It doesn’t help that my birthday is on 1 January, or that I sat next to a famous chef at a Christmas party the

Insurance is a mug’s game. It begins with a sensible attempt to guard against catastrophe and escalates into risk hysteria. With the onset of the cold weather, I only wanted to take out some simple cover on my radiators, but I ended up in a frantic scramble to insure myself against everything bad or even just mildly annoying that could possibly happen to a human being, ever. Last winter, my boiler broke down so I made sure it was heavily insured this year. Naturally, therefore, my boiler did not break down this year. My radiators leaked. Or rather one of them leaked and fell off the wall for good measure.