If the implication of your article (UK houses near top state secondary schools cost £40,000 more, research reveals, 1 September) is that parents are willing to pay this premium to facilitate entry, Henrietta Barnett in London is a misleading example. This highly selective school draws from a very wide area, far beyond the NW11 postcode cited. The real premium is paid by those parents who can afford the intensive private tutoring that they hope can improve their daughters’ chances.
Dr Anthony Isaacs
London
• During the war, my mother used to make “winter eggs” (No eggs, no potatoes but ‘a lot of imagination’: how Spain cooked in war’s hunger years, 2 August). A plain-flour batter was dropped into a frying pan, producing egg-shaped pancakes. They were delicious when fried in the fat from that single rasher of rationed bacon.
Dr Allan Dodds
Bramcote, Nottinghamshire
• When I was a student in the 1960s, a chemistry lecturer said we should “acquire a smell library” to help us identify organic compounds (Smelling test: children need education in sniffing aromas, scientist says, 31 August).
Dr Joseph T Nicholson
Balerno, Edinburgh
• In our house we call it “party tea” (The hill I will die on: No self-respecting adult should use the term ‘picky bits’, 31 August).
Gillian Warson
Bicester, Oxfordshire
• I do tire of these petty arguments about nominative determinism (Letters, 2 September).
Dave Bicker
Barrow upon Soar, Leicestershire
• My letter will do us all a favour.
Alison Boon
London
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