Following Nicola Sturgeon’s performance on BBC One’s Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg programme, a reader has suggested that the phrase “the elephant in the room” may soon be replaced by “the motorhome on the drive”. The comment comes after the former first minister said she felt as if she were serving a sentence for a crime she did not commit.
In other correspondence, a reader praised Alan Rickman’s narration of Thomas Hardy’s The Return of the Native, saying that the actor could make even a weedkiller bottle compelling. Another reader recalled his grandfather’s dismissive remark about Carlisle United: “If they were playing in our front garden I’d close the curtains.”
On the subject of mathematics, readers debated the nine times table. One pointed out that 11 x 9 = 99, but 9 + 9 = 18 and 1 + 8 = 9, so the digits still sum to nine. Another noted that for any multiple of nine above 90, repeatedly adding digits eventually yields nine, calling it a “primitive but satisfactory feature of the beauty of mathematics”. A further example was given: 9 x 9,999 = 89,991; 8 + 9 + 9 + 9 + 1 = 36; 3 + 6 = 9.
