Tasty squirrels, hot dinner parties and beauty at 90

Lovely bit of squirrel

Your article “Red alert” (News, last week) is unnecessarily alarmist: the survival of the red squirrel and control of the grey is already in the best hands. The pine marten has now reached the New Forest. A treegoing member of the stoat family, it is the ideal natural predator of the grey squirrel. The much smaller, more agile and elusive red is not so vulnerable. As if that were not enough, humans are rediscovering the greys’ gastronomic value. Here in Norfolk, grey squirrel is sold in the butcher’s shop. So if matters are left as they stand, it looks as if pine martens and cooks together will soon make the grey as rare as they once made the red.
Richard Shepheard, Holt, Norfolk

Worm whole

The celebrity estate agent Ryan Serhant says the early bird catches the worm (Home, last week). Maybe so, but stay-a-beds should not feel downcast: that also means that the early worm is caught and eaten, while the late worm lives to see another day.
Lisa Blosfelds, Hunmanby, North Yorkshire

Dithering deputy

How refreshing to hear the new first minister, John Swinney, say he’s going to concentrate on the issues that matter to the people of Scotland. Such a shame that he didn’t do so when he was deputy first minister for nine years.
Violet Black, Edinburgh

Step up to the hotplate

Katrina Burroughs says plate-warming is coming back into fashion (Home, last week). For some of us it never went away. My cabinet-style hostess trolley has proved invaluable for the past 30 years. It takes the stress out of cooking, as I don’t need to have everything ready at the same time; and if a family member returns later than expected, or children need to eat a bit earlier, the food is kept at a good temperature without spoiling.
Amanda Jones, Guernsey

Shein in the spotlight

Your article on the fast-fashion company Shein is a damning indictment of its mainly youthful customer base (Business, last week). They preach concern for the environment until it hits their wallet; then they buy cheap tat manufactured dubiously in China, the world’s No 1 polluter, using cotton that has often been produced by abusing the Muslim Uighur workforce. After a few outings the clothes are landfill. What complete hypocrisy.
David Hoggett, Winchester

Owners’ bonanza

Further to Rod Liddle’s column “Pay attention: Britain did not get rich from slavery” (Comment, last week), if slavery did not significantly benefit Britain, why did the government pay £20 million — or £17 billion in today’s terms — to compensate slave-owners for their loss of “productive assets”?
Bob Gladding, Esher, Surrey

Human cost

Liddle asserts that only 2.5 per cent of our wealth came from sugar, but does not mention the cotton industry. And in any case, the problem with the argument is this: if we had made no money at all from slavery, would that have made it OK?
Gerald Cook, Nottingham

Age and beauty

You cite a pensions industry estimate that “a single person with no housing costs needs £43,000 a year of post-tax income for a comfortable lifestyle in retirement, which includes money for luxuries such as several foreign holidays a year and regular beauty treatments” (Money, last week). You don’t explain how the organisation concerned calculated a figure for regular beauty treatments on an 81-year-old bloke; or what that figure might be when he gets to 90. So perhaps the overall estimate is too low. I’ll check out the local Norfolk beauty parlours.
Professor Emeritus Les Tickle, Norwich