27 October 2014 No Answer!

I jog around the park I still have arthritis in my left knee, but I manage to get round the park. A busy day sweep the lawn some trouble over a ‘Servas’ visitor won’t answer the phone!

Mary’s back much better today, breakfast weight down rabbit for tea and her back pain is still there but decreasing.

Obituary:

Sir Ronald Grierson – obituary

Sir Ronald Grierson was a banker and public servant who served with the wartime SAS and became an international networker par excellence

5:12PM GMT 26 Oct 2014

Comments

Guardian:

Martin Kettle must be exceptionally naive if he believes it’s unthinkable that MI5 would be interested in the surveillance of historians today (Being a communist was all it took, 24 October). He backs his case by listing a group of contemporary historians with unimpeachably conventional views, equivalent, let’s say, to the Trevor-Ropers, Veronica Wedgwoods and even Toynbees of an earlier generation. Does he seriously think that, in today’s climate of manufactured fear, infiltration and snooping, our “security services” are uninterested in academics with links to environmental or anti-globalisation campaigns, let alone anyone with an interest in the affairs of the Middle East? History doesn’t repeat itself, as we know, but it does have a habit of just keeping on going.
Jane Caplan
Emeritus fellow, St Antony’s College, Oxford

• Martin Kettle rightly points out that the historian Eric Hobsbawm’s continued, lifelong membership of the Communist party after the 1956 exposures of Stalinism was greatly valued by the more intelligent CPGB leaders, despite their many arguments with him.

But he should not persist in the oft-repeated myth that Hobsbawm was one of the “critics of the Soviet invasion of Hungary” in that year.

What Hobsbawm actually wrote – to the Daily Worker on 9 November 1956 – was that “the suppression of a popular movement, however wrong-headed, by a foreign army is at best a tragic necessity … While approving [my emphasis], albeit with a heavy heart, of what is now happening in Hungary, we should … also say frankly that … the USSR should withdraw its troops … as soon as this is possible.”
Terry Brotherstone
Honorary research fellow in history, University of Aberdeen

• The fact that MI5 spied on some of the most prominent post-1945 British intellectuals such as Christopher Hill and Eric Hobsbawm tells us something unpleasant about how liberal our democracy actually was in the cold-war era. One hopes that in these austere times MI5 is not still at it. If they want to know what modern-day socialist historians are thinking and doing they can read the Guardian and check our Twitter feeds.
Dr Keith Flett (@kmflett)
London Socialist Historians Group

• Martin Kettle rightly draws attention to the difficulty MI5 would have had in trying to decipher Christopher Hill’s notoriously illegible handwriting. The only writing known to me that was worse than Christopher’s was my own. I remember taking back to him a start-of-term “collections” essay for him to tell me what he had written on it. (This was the 1960s.) “What I’ve said,” he explained, “is ‘I can’t understand your writing’.” Great man, great historian.
Professor Gareth Williams
University of South Wales

• Your headline, “Being a communist was all it took”, was exactly right. MI5 wasted time and taxpayers’ money keeping tabs on rank-and-file members of the Communist party like us in addition to well-known ones like Eric Hobsbawm and Christopher Hill. In the early 1950s, when we were involved in campaigning on behalf of Franco’s political prisoners, our letters were opened and read, and private conversations were bugged. Even a public speech Chris made at a political demonstration outside the Spanish embassy was carefully recorded.

All this and more is now on public display at the National Archives at Kew, but our personal files, we were told, are exempt from disclosure under the 2000 Freedom of Information Act. No one, not even the clowns working for MI5, could have seriously believed that we were a threat to national security. We were merely members of a legal political party whose aims and policies were anathema to the establishment.

Unfortunately, undercover police officers did not sleep with either of us, so we are unable to claim compensation from the Met.
Chris and Betty Birch
London

Independent:

Janet Street-Porter is of course correct (The Independent, 25 October) that any mansion tax could hit hard those people who bought a house that has risen greatly in value many years ago, but who do not have a large income.  This could in its way be as cruel as the “bedroom tax” in forcing people to move. However there is a way of dealing with this by basing the tax on the price when the house was last purchased. This figure should be readily available from the Land Registry and would save a vast exercise to try and identify and  value homes in the mansion tax bracket.

By using older prices the revenue coming in would be lower unless the price threshold is lowered. This could, at least in part, be made up by introducing a capital gains tax surcharge on the sale of homes  that are not a primary residence. This would also be useful in discouraging the keeping of empty homes, or rarely used second homes, simply as an investment. Indeed the threat of the introduction of such a tax at a future date would be enough to generate a large number  of properties for sale lowering prices for new buyers particularly in holiday areas.

N J T Long

Bristol

Taking action against domestic crime

I was pleased to be able to help contribute to the recent article in The Independent about  dowry-related violence.

Further to that, I would like to reassure victims that the police take their plight very seriously.

Although dowry-related violence does not have a separate category in police databases and is, for various reasons, something of a hidden crime in our communities, I am keen that the police service does all it can to help those caught in its grip.

All domestic violence is wrong – whatever the reason – and the police will brook no cultural sensitivities in pursuing perpetrators.

The best route to finding out the true scale of  dowry-related violence is for victims to feel confident to report it. However you can, please come forward and let us help you. You will be believed, your complaint will be investigated thoroughly and, where we have enough evidence to satisfy the CPS, we will prosecute your abuser to the fullest extent of the law.

I will, in the coming months, be approaching colleagues around the country to inquire as to whether they have noted any cases of dowry-related violence and to look at ways of addressing it as part of the national honour-based violence strategy which  I have the honour of leading on behalf of the police service.

My message is very clear: where this pernicious form of violence infiltrates our homes – which should be the safest spaces in our lives – we will act with all the powers open to us to protect victims.

Commander Mak Chishty

National Policing Lead on Honour-Based Violence

Recreation and the issue of health

Robert Tuck (letter, 25 October) suggests that people who deliberately risk damaging their health should be charged for all medical treatment they receive. I assume he also includes those who indulge in potentially hazardous activities such as skiing, climbing, horse riding, parachuting and many more “middle class” pastimes which carry risk.

It is easy to blame other people for damaging their health by doing things that one does not do oneself, but one man’s recreation is another man’s vice.

Patrick Cleary

Honiton, Devon

I spent many years starving myself in a useless attempt to stop gaining weight. Realising I was ill I would try to get a diagnosis only to be told that all that was wrong was that I was overweight. I had to give up work, I couldn’t think and I became more and more depressed. I began to  think I was actually going mad and was eating  without knowing I was doing it. Knowing that Robert Tuck (letters, 25 October) would regard  me as morally deficient didn’t help.

After about 20 years a severe metabolic illness  was diagnosed, and at last  I got the treatment I needed. But it was not before my career and many relationships had been destroyed. If Mr Tuck had had his way I would have been made to pay a  financial penalty in  addition to my loss of income. People do not  often become obese from living an “idiotic lifestyle”

Sara Neill

Tunbridge Wells, Kent

Keeping Farage in a safe place

John Dakin is puzzled as to why The Independent gives Nigel Farage a weekly column (letter, 25 October). I sympathise, but – if I may be allowed a leap to this great organ’s defence – it is a long-standing newspaper tradition to employ a columnist or two whose opinions are teasingly at variance with editorial policy and readers’ likely views, to spice up the mixture and encourage lively responses to the Letters page.

Moreover, consider this: Mr Farage won’t win many converts among Independent readers. His efforts are far more likely  to be counterproductive, since they will doubtless  be met mostly with scorn and derision. If, however, he were to resume his regular column in the  Daily Express, he would  be far more dangerous. Contracted to  The Independent places  him where he can do the least harm.

Bob Gilmurray

Ely, Cambridgeshire

The legality of police relationships

In her article (25 October), Alice Jones writes that  for a man to get a woman  to have sex with him by “trickery” is tantamount  to abuse.

Unless legislation has removed it from the definition, it is rape if a man gets a woman to have sex with him by “force, fear or fraud”. It would be an interesting legal discussion as to whether police officers who pass themselves off to women as sharing their views and activities in pursuit of a particular issue and form a sexual relationship with them can be tried for rape.

One assumes that a defence would argue that the sex was consensual but if that consent was obtained by the kind of “trickery” to which Alice Jones refers, surely that is, in fact, fraud.

Over to you DPP/CPS.

John Crocker

Cheltenham

European Commission is deaf to pleas for reform

David Cameron has angrily denounced the European Commission for demanding an extra £1.7bn contribution from British taxpayers. Last year, the UK’s net contribution to this undemocratic organisation was £8.5bn.

The UK is now being penalised because its economy has performed better than expected while countries like France and Germany, whose economies have under-performed, will receive multimillion-pound rebates. France will receive €1bn and former industrial power-house Germany will get €779m.

The Brussels behemoth and its gravy train thunders along immune to austerity and deaf to pleas for reform.

Staff are far too numerous, overpaid with gold-plated pensions, led by unaccountable mandarins who send out directives like confetti and who are about as useful. This unelected, unaccountable, overstaffed organisation has never had its accounts signed off by the auditors.

Cameron must act decisively and freeze further payments especially with Ukip now a force to be reckoned with.

Clark Cross

Linlithgow, West Lothian

If Mr Cameron is not going to pay this £1.7bn EU demand, why not take the political initiative and make a desperately needed gesture to the Ebola catastrophe and divert these very funds, on behalf of both the UK and EU, to this tragedy. This really would leave the European Commission shame-faced if anyone dare raise an objection.

Peter Gibson

Chipping Norton, Oxfordshire

If the non-binding pledges announced by European governments in Brussels on Friday morning are an indication of the global response to climate change, the world and its inhabitants are in big,  big trouble.

Members of the European Commission and European Council championed the commitments for emission reductions, energy conservation, and the increase of renewable power sources that were contained in the agreement, but the targets simply are not strong enough to reduce greenhouse gas emissions at the rate demanded by the science of climate change.

To describe 40 per cent emissions cuts as adequate or ambitious, as EU leaders are doing, is dangerously irresponsible. 40 per cent is off the radar of climate science. This deal does nothing to end Europe’s dependency on fossil fuels or to speed up our transition to a clean energy future. It’s a deal that puts dirty industry interests ahead of citizens and the planet.

Alan Hinnrichs

Dundee

Groucho Marx (1895-1977) once said: “Please accept my resignation. I don’t want to belong to any club that will accept me as a member.”

Our Prime Minister David Cameron could well say the same of the EU in an angry response to the shoddy treatment being handed out by a club that  is now in many ways far  too expensive to be a member of.

Dennis Forbes Grattan

Bucksburn, Aberdeen

Times:

Sir, One aspect that is overlooked in the NHS England Five-Year Forward View (“Crisis in the NHS”, leading article, Oct 23) is the significant role that digital technology can — and must — play in providing sustainable and affordable care. Targeted use of a range of social media and other low-cost technologies (such as apps to monitor diet and exercise) can be used to change behaviours and encourage healthy lifestyles. Further investment in telecare technology can immediately support the provision of sustainable at-home care to our ageing population. In the long term, technology such as wearable patches that monitor vital statistics will enable practitioners to provide significantly better focused care. With smart use of digital technology, a better NHS is possible without blowing the budget.
Andy Vernon
PA Consulting Group, London, SW1

Sir, Another reorganisation of the NHS may help to cut costs, but it will do nothing to solve the underlying problem with the health service, which is that the country simply cannot afford it. There is not the remotest possibility that we can go on providing medical care for all patients and all conditions, free of charge; we will either have to cut demand or cut supply. Attempts to limit, let alone cut, demand have proved useless. Nor is there much likelihood that preventive measures will do much to lessen demand. So we must cut supply. Perhaps the NHS can only be free for emergency treatment, and all routine treatment paid for by insurance or through means testing.
Professor Tony Waldron
London N11

Sir, The assertion by the chief executive of NHS England Simon Stevens’s of a rigid barrier between primary and secondary care is true of today’s NHS and is one of the major failings in the patient journey. In the days before market forces were introduced there was a healthy relationship between local GPs and their consultant colleagues. I could pick up the phone and be able to talk to a specialist with whom I had developed a personal relationship over several years. In the present system, both primary care and secondary care are separate entities, both fighting for their share of a diminishing pot of cash. The only way I can talk to a consultant colleague nowadays is on the golf course at the weekend, and even this route of access is now threatened by Mr Cameron’s plan for seven-day working.
Dr AW Cairns
Swan Surgery, Petersfield, Hants

Sir, The solution to NHS funding (“NHS: the £8 billion black hole,” Oct 23) is a hypothecated tax. Rename National Insurance as “NHS Tax”. NI revenue is at a level close to NHS spend. The rate is set annually and increases to reflect the country’s projected NHS expenditure for the following year, including overspend for the previous year.So that everyone feels ownership of our National Health Service, contributions start at the minimum wage threshold and are paid on every pound of income above that.
Adrian Cartwright
Newcastle-under-Lyme, Staffs

Sir, Reading about the plans of NHS England leaves me deeply concerned. What is worrying is the acceptance of of privatisation, with its emphasis on personalisation, local flexibility in rules and regulation and a focus on efficiencies.The key issues facing the NHS are chronic underfunding, wasteful internal markets and bankrupting PFI deals. We pay at least £5 billion annually on an internal market that does not improve patient care. We have just seen an unnecessary £3 billion top-down reorganisation of the NHS. The answer to the health of our nation is manifestly not efficiency savings and use of the private sector.
Dr Carl Walker
National Health Action Party, Worthing, W Sussex

Sir, In the same way that charges were introduced for dental treatment and prescriptions, charges of £10/£20 must be introduced for every visit to a GP. This will eliminate most of the unnecessary “casual” visits which take up far too much of the GP’s time. Also, as the result of the absurd agreement which the last Labour government concluded with the BMA, GPs’ salaries are the highest in Europe and should be frozen for at least the next five years in order to make them realistic.
W Anthony Pike
Cambridge

Sir, “Treatment Centres” are nothing new. Twenty-odd years ago, tired of years of ineffectual treatment for my chronically ingrown toenails, I asked my GP about removing them. No problem. He phoned another local practitioner who specialised in such matters, made me an early appointment, and within a few weeks the job was done.
Laurence Payne
Ilford

Sir, Simon Stevens would like consultants in GP surgeries to “consult” with patients. Just imagine the number of hours consultants would spend in a car or train or bus. This would amount to a huge waste of specialist skills, of time spent doing no useful skilled work instead of operating on patients at their tertiary base hospital. Thousands of hours would be lost to reducing waiting lists lost at the cost of increasing pollution. What we need is a more efficient referral system to the centre.
David E Ward
Consultant in cardiology and electrophysiology, London SW17

Sir, It is disappointing that your editorial repeats the falsehood that the British Medical Association opposed the formation of the NHS. It was in the 1930s that the BMA produced plans for general medical, hospital and maternity services for the nation. Many of these themes were revisited in the 1942 Beveridge Report that looked at providing a national health service. Doctors’ opposition to parts of what was proposed at the time was related to the detail of the government’s initial plans for how the system would operate, not to the principle of a publicly funded and comprehensive service that was free at the point of use for all patients.
Dr Mark Porter
Chairman, BMA Council,
London, WC1

Telegraph:

Fossil fuel is still required to manage and maintain wind farm equipment

6:56AM GMT 26 Oct 2014

Comments

6:58AM GMT 26 Oct 2014

Comments

SIR – Raymond Blanc, the French chef, believes the demise of many varieties of English apple has been caused by our country’s sugar addiction.

SIR – Janet Daley’s article resonated with me.

6:12PM GMT 26 Oct 2014

Comments

SIR – Dental disease is entirely preventable. Prevention works long-term, whereas every other form of treatment is prone to long-term failure.

Irish Times:

Sir, – Robert Grant (“Philosophy in our schools is a necessity”, Education Opinion, October 21st) argues his case well. He is not the first to argue it. But there is absolutely no hope of his wish being implemented. How could it happen when contemporary Irish culture resolutely values only one kind of creative writing, namely fiction?

Aosdána is the living proof of this. This state-sponsored encouragement of creativity admits even photographers to membership but excludes philosophers. The recent institution of a Laureate for Irish Fiction awarding €150,000 to the winner is merely the latest evidence of this resolute cultural bias.

Week in, week out, the absence of books by Irish philosophers at home and abroad from the book-review pages hammers home that the administrators of Irish culture have no regard for such work (if truth be told, they fear it). They have brought about that in common parlance “Irish writing” means only Irish fiction.

Our acquiescence in this bias, unique in Europe and reflected in the shallowness of Irish public discourse, shows that it accords with our nature as a nation loving the artful creation of made-up stories, fearful of minds probing and presenting the realities of the human condition and the present-day world. To introduce such minds to our schoolchildren would in the Irish case be offensively anti-cultural; simply too much against the grain to be practically possible.

Dr DESMOND FENNELL,

Dublin 4.

Sir, – Various reporters and commentators in The Irish Times have, rightfully, pointed out that the Ebola outbreak in west Africa contains lessons for all of us, beyond the obvious immediate need of containing the disease.

Those lessons are that we can no longer afford to treat social and economic problems abroad as of little relevance to us here in Ireland.

If the world had not ignored the inadequacy of healthcare and public services in Sierra Leone and Liberia, the situation would not have snowballed into a major global crisis, with ramifications for us here. Furthermore, if the global community had acted sooner, the response to the Ebola outbreak would have required far less resources.

It is accepted wisdom that prevention is always better than a cure. Yet, when it comes to global crises, the public and our politicians prefer to act only in the face of (media covered) disaster.

This week 30 years ago, the world was alerted to the famine in Ethiopia. Michael Buerk’s broadcast of a “biblical famine” went viral and galvanised celebrity-led action of an unprecedented scale – obscuring the fact that aid agencies had alerted the world months earlier, but, in the words of BBC correspondent Mark Doyle “famines are sexy, predicting them is not”.

It is high time that we as citizens and policymakers accept the fundamental interdependence of our societies and lives. We cannot continue to treat our economic and social challenges here in Ireland as somehow divorced from realities in other parts of the world.

An investment in the type of structures and initiatives that build resilient societies is clearly preferable to “fire-fighting” after poverty and insecurity have erupted into a full-fledged crisis.

Ebola, Ethiopia, climate chaos and Rana Plaza in Bangladesh remind us that as citizens of Ireland, we must acknowledge that we are citizens of a global village, where situations of injustice, poverty and institutional weakness are a problem for all of us. – Yours, etc,

HANS ZOMER,

Director,

Dóchas,

1-2 Baggot Court,

Lower Baggot Street,

Dublin 2.

A chara, – Michael Jansen suggests that among the solutions to the horror taking place in Syria is a programme of “re-education” (“Islamic State is a cult that cannot be bombed out of existence”, October 20th). Possibly even as she was writing these words, an unnamed 17-year-old boy was entering into his final moments of agony in Raqqa, the group’s de facto capital. He died after enduring an excruciating three days on a metal cross in the town square. His crime? Apostasy, leaving Islam to become a Christian, along with an accusation of espionage. His killers proudly posted images of his battered body on social media.

I am sure I am not alone in longing and praying for a peaceful solution to the barbarities taking place under this regime.

Ms Jansen’s programme of education needs to begin now; could she please provide some concrete examples as to how it might take place? There is no time to wait – Islamic State has many more crosses of metal and wood standing in the public squares of Raqqa and other towns. These are part of their own educational programme; to teach all who see them of the fate that awaits those who oppose them in any way. – Is mise,

Rev PATRICK G BURKE,

Castlecomer, Co Kilkenny.

Sir, – Minister for Justice Frances Fitzgerald announced additional terror offences in the Seanad on October 7th and expressed concern about the “recruitment and training for terrorist activities” (“Three new terrorism offences introduced in Bill”, October 7th). This decision is to be welcomed.

Terrorising people is a very serious crime, especially when the tools of terrorism including horrific killings, torture and most serious abuses of women and children. The Islamic State, in Iraq and Syria is guilty of all these crimes but it is not alone.

The state of Saudi Arabia is reported to have executed at least 26 people in the month of August 2014 by publicly beheading them. Drone strikes by the US have killed over 2,400 people over the past five years, almost half of whom were innocent civilians, causing widespread terror in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Yemen, Somalia and elsewhere, in clear breach of international laws.

Ms Fitzgerald stated that the Irish terrorism legislation was to combat terrorist activity and ensure that “there were no gaps in Irish laws by dealing with more subtle and indirect aspects of modern terrorism”. The Minister also said that “there is considerable concern across Europe and elsewhere at the phenomenon of individuals travelling to conflict areas in the Middle East”. We should expect then that the new anti-terrorist legislation will include sanctions against Islamic State and states such as Saudi Arabia, as well as steps to prevent recruitment of Irish citizens into foreign armies that have been fighting unjustified wars causing terror in the Middle East, including the UK and US.

Should we also expect that armed “individuals travelling to conflict areas in the Middle East” through Shannon airport will be arrested and tried under this new Irish legislation? – Yours, etc,

EDWARD HORGAN,

Castletroy, Limerick.

Mon, Oct 27, 2014, 01:06

First published: Mon, Oct 27, 2014, 01:06

Sir, – David McConnell (October 13th) should be commended not just for bringing a number of the major issues into clearer focus, but for his tolerance towards Christians. It is indeed refreshing to see such a prominent member of the Humanist Association allow that Christianity is itself a humanism; all the more so given the tendency of some humanists to assume that the very word “humanism” is commensurate with “atheism”.

Nonetheless, it is understandable that Patrick Davey (October 20th) should find in Prof McConnell’s attitude that “limitation of allowable evidence” that some would apply not only to science but to the empirical philosophical tradition as a whole.

A famous comic stage routine, now of venerable age, which emerged, I believe, in the closing years of the Austro-Hungarian empire, has achieved a certain longevity because it has been interpreted as a satire on positivism (or science in its most assertive form). On the stage is revealed a man walking around in circles under a street-lamp, apparently searching for something he has lost, with the benefit of the limited illumination the lamp affords. He is joined by a second man, who asks: “Have you lost something?” To which the first man replies: “Yes, a valuable coin”. So the second man joins the first in his circular quest. Nothing is found. The second man then asks the first: “Are you sure you lost it here?” To which the first man replies, pointing to the surrounding darkness; “No, I lost it over there – but there’s no light over there . . .”

Rather than spell out the allegory, it seems more appropriate, given the context, to let this stand as a parable. Readers are well able, one assumes, to join the necessary dots. One might further add the pithy admonition given by Blaise Pascal: that there are not one, but “two extremes” – not only “to exclude reason”, but “to admit reason only”.

The interpretation of our existential situation requires the application of the full range of our faculties; and there are those, not only Christians, who feel that a strict reliance on reason and empiricism will not disclose all we feel the need to know. – Yours, etc,

BRIAN COSGROVE,

Dublin 18.

Sir, – I find it ironic that most of my godfaring friends believe in only the god or gods of one religion and not in the gods of all religions. There is much documentation on the number of deities that have been documented since the beginning of recorded history. (I am basing this on the invention of writing by the Sumerians 6,000 years ago but other measures are possible.) Records put this number somewhere between 2,870 and over 12 million. The current Hindu religion records more that 300 gods at present.

Using the lower number here, then most of the Irish monotheistic religious would agree with atheists on at least 2,869 of the documented gods and all 300-plus of the Hindu gods. The only difference between the sides is the tiny increment of extending that agreement to one further god. – Yours, etc,

ANDREW DOYLE,

Bandon,

Co Cork.

Sir, – On a recent blustery morning, a large contingent of Mallow people and friends paraded through the grounds of Trinity College Dublin to honour one of the college’s most illustrious alumni, Thomas Davis. The occasion was the launching of a commemorative stamp by An Post.

Marching through the main gates on to one of the busiest junctions in Dublin they processed to the Davis monument on College Green to lay memorial wreaths to commemorate the bicentenary of their fellow townsman.

The event recalled another time in September 1945 when tens of thousands attended a full week of commemoration events to Davis and the Young Irelanders. President Seán T Ó Ceallaigh dedicated the site at College Green on which a monument would be erected to honour this 19th-century hero who preached a gospel of multicultural respect and Irish nationality. In the early 1960s, one of Ireland’s foremost sculptors, Edward Delaney, was commissioned to create the long awaited monument. The sculpture was not without its critics, a Dublin Opinion cartoon declared “sixpence to see its inner beauty”, the same price as a trip to the top of Nelson’s Pillar before it was blown to oblivion.

Pranksters occasionally embellished the fountain in front of the monument with soap powder, a tradition that continues to this day.

But Davis stands magnanimous above it all. He believed that the purpose of politics was to work for all the people and not just the privileged few. He was a nation-builder whose enduring legacy was to articulate the ideals and ambitions of our country.

The town of Mallow is immensely proud of its connection. – Yours, etc,

AIDEEN CARROLL,

Dublin 6.

Sir, – May I add a Dublin dimension to Patrick Freyne’s account (“A day rehearsing an opera for farters and drunks”, October 17th) of the lowbrow origins of The Magic Flute ?

With the opening night fast-approaching and the opera not finished, Mozart was locked in the summer house of Vienna’s Freihaus Theater until it was completed. A ready supply of wine, oysters and sopranos increased Mozart’s productivity – the overture being completed with two days to spare. Whether this frenetic activity contributed to his early death just two months later is not known.

Mozart conducted the premiere of The Magic Flute from the fortepiano with his sister-in-law, Josepha Hofer, in the demanding coloratura role of the Queen of the Night. The polyglot, German polymath, Carl Ludwig Giesecke, the stage manager, took the part of the First Slave.

Giesecke was later appointed professor of mineralogy at the Royal Dublin Society.

After settling in Ireland, where he lived for 20 years until his death, Giesecke claimed that he, not Emmanuel Schickaneder, wrote the libretto of The Magic Flute. Though the claim has never been fully substantiated, the accurately described alchemical allegories in the opera would have come easily to a trained scientist.

Giesecke lived in Hardwicke Place in Dublin and was buried in the adjoining churchyard of St George’s Church, where a memorial plaque, making no mention of his operatic career, was erected in his honour.

I write this letter on the site of the Freihaus Theater; at the door of my apartment a charming stained-glass window, “Dedicated to the Genius Mozart”, marks the spot where he wrote his greatest opera. – Yours , etc,

Dr JOHN DOHERTY,

Vienna.

Sir, – A review of the efficiency and extent of bus lanes in Dublin similar to that carried out in Liverpool as suggested by Frank Greaney (October 18th) sounds like a useful exercise. I’m certainly aware of several locations where their presence and times of operation is now questionable. However, there is another aspect of Dublin traffic movement that also needs urgent review – traffic lights.

Dublin, compared to similar UK and continental cities, has an extraordinary amount of traffic light locations; and at some of these locations an even more extraordinary number of individual light fittings.

Recently, while stopped at red lights at a Dublin quays junction, I counted 11 displays where two had successfully maintained order for decades.

Furthermore all these were on stainless steel poles and brackets which are seriously expensive compared to traditional galvanised or painted ones – and more suited to Dubai’s budget than Dublin’s.

Occasionally one encounters traffic light failures, with common sense and courtesy keeping the traffic moving. Perhaps it would be worth seeing what would happen to traffic if some lights were turned off as an experiment? Chaos or improvement?

I think we may be surprised and save a fair bit of electricity as a bonus.

Something else that happens in the Liverpool area is the operation of some sets of traffic at rush hour only or as required.

Maybe our 33rd county is pointing the way to move? – Yours, etc,

DAVID REDDY,

Dublin 4.

Sir, – In her article “Tech sector needs to dig far deeper in philanthropy field” (October 23rd), Karlin Lillington writes: “Multinationals are part of their local community and should be involved in giving back to it”. The American Chamber of Commerce Ireland could not agree more. That is why we commissioned independent measurement of our members’ social impact in Ireland. The study found that our member companies support over 4,000 community-based projects in Ireland and they support the donation of 160,000 volunteer hours by their employees to these projects every year. This is in addition to the very significant financial and non-financial donations made by our companies and their employees.

Our member companies are very proud to have created 130,000 direct and 100,000 indirect jobs in Ireland. We are equally proud that, every day, we are enhancing lives in communities throughout our country. – Yours, etc,

LOUISE PHELAN,

President,

American Chamber

of Commerce Ireland,

Dublin 2.

Sir, – Winter is closing in and footpaths have become dangerously covered in wet leaves. Most road-sweeping nowadays, particularly in suburban areas, is undertaken by sweeper trucks that have little impact on footpath clearance.

I would appeal to the local authorities to make the clearing of leaf-covered footpaths at this time of year a priority.

Footpaths in this condition pose a particular risk to elderly pedestrians. A fall on these slippy paths can have life-changing consequences for some elderly victims. For others, the fear of a catastrophic fall can confine them to their homes, depriving them of much-needed pedestrian mobility.

Local authorities have not been addressing this very real problem in recent years. Perhaps budgetary constraints were to blame. Now that local authority funding has been put on a more solid basis, it is hoped that the necessary resources will be allocated. I would ask that the Minister for the Environment would encourage the local authorities in this regard.

Individual businesses and households can also assist by keeping their footpath frontage clear and safe. – Yours, etc,

DERMOT IGOE,

Blackrock, Co Dublin.

Irish Independent:

Mahatma Gandhi once said “recall the face of the poorest and the weakest man whom you may have seen and ask yourself if the step you contemplate is going to be of any use to him”.

Gandhi’s words – in a world torn asunder by conflicts, wrestling with urbanisation, climate change, income and wealth inequalities, diseases, chronic poverty, food insecurity and water scarcity – are more pertinent now than at any other time. It is not that we were unaware of the landing of Ebola on our doorsteps – this is, after all, the 25th outbreak in our contemporary history. We simply were unprepared at best and indifferent at worst.

We are in the grip of fear, bewilderment, indecisiveness and rambling thoughts fed by private pharmaceutical companies interested in commercialising their stockpiles of vaccinations. I wonder where were the millions of doses of Ebola vaccines during the past outbreaks?

We knew Ebola is like cancer – a remorseless, merciless and unrelenting disease. We knew Ebola was bound to ravage countries emerging from decades of civil strife with broken health systems.

Why then did we fail to read the writing on the wall? The answer is simple and straightforward: underestimating the value of human rights is what brought us to this grim set of affairs.

Dr Munjed Farid Al Qutob

London, England

Water charges

In ‘Real dangers to lives if meter protests escalate’ (Editorial, October 23) the author says the following in relation to the recent alleged attacks on water meter installers in parts of Dublin city: “if true, these attacks represent even more damning evidence – if such evidence were required – of the extent of the failure of the Government to adequately explain and implement one of its key priorities”.

I agree that the peaceful rallies in recent days are demonstrative of strong public disillusionment and confusion about the water charges. However, I cannot accept that a physical or verbal attack on any person could ever be a manifestation of frustration at a Government for inadequate clarity and implementation of a new measure.

People who spit at water meter installers whose work they disagree with and at whom – entirely illogically – they shout the word “paedophiles” are not expressing their frustration at the water charges. Their behaviour is merely symptomatic of their own ignorance and lack of engagement with their fellow citizens, it symbolises nothing more.

They do not deserve to be recognised as ‘protesters’ in the same way as those who peacefully make their frustrations known by walking down streets holding placards or by writing to newspapers. Including those people in the same category is disrespectful to the majority who wish to protest on issues by speaking their truth without causing undue harm to others.

Sinead O’Loghlin

Portobello, Dublin 8

Could the Government have thought up of a more difficult, controversial and inefficient way to introduce another tax as they have done with water charges? It defies any sense of respect to the people of this country. They are prepared to bully us into paying yet another tax, this one on a commodity that is a basic human right.

Of course it costs to produce water. I’m well aware of that, but I should think that somewhere in among paying income tax, VAT and property tax, that a basic right is covered. Evidently not with this latest extortion.

What is equally galling is that we fund the wheels of this rollercoaster with monies gleaned from the property tax, which we paid on their good word as being for local services. Are we foolish or were we conned?

I, for one, will not pay it. I won’t pay it as I cannot pay more, in financial terms and in principle. Taxpayers are becoming fish in the proverbial barrel for this government. We have already been asked to pay for the barrel, now we must pay for the water.

Name and address with editor

Ungrateful ‘Scorpion’ banks

Your editorial piece on Friday – suggesting that Irish banks must never forget that they wouldn’t have a business if it wasn’t for the Irish taxpayer bailing them out – was admirable, if not simply academic.

I don’t doubt that the boards of banks across Europe know to whom they owe a huge thanks. However, like the scorpion from the fable, it is not in a bank’s nature to be grateful. A bank is a living, eating, drinking, all-consuming organism that’s only philosophy is making money.

It is the job of legislators to legislate against the type of mess the financial world has endured in the recent past. It would also be funny, if it wasn’t for the fact that how we deal with white-collar crime in Ireland is so tragic. In Ireland if a person is killed and a suspect is charged and convicted of murder, the guilty person goes to prison.

However, if an anomaly is discovered in relation to an account and somebody’s pension or savings are stolen then it is described as a system error and the State picks up the bill.

Darren Williams

Sandyford, Dublin 18

Kenny should look to the future

I had to catch my breath while viewing ‘Tonight with Vincent Browne’. About five minutes into the show Vincent starting complimenting Enda Kenny. I was shocked (in a good way). Vincent said he found Mr Kenny very impressive, he got the hang of the job and was more than able to deal with the job and was becoming quite capable and spoke knowledgeably about many things without notes.

This is the same Vincent Browne that a couple of years ago suggested that Enda Kenny should go into a dark room with a gun and a bottle of whiskey. How the times have changed.

I personally think that Enda Kenny is doing a good job as Taoiseach. I agree with a lot of his decisions. One negative is still blaming the old government for today’s troubles.

May I suggest he forgets what happened in the past and make it happen in the present for a better future.

Kevin Devitte

Westport, Co Mayo

Cumann na mBan

Kate Casey’s contention that Cummann na mBan supported regime change that “denied them their basic rights” (Letters, October 20) is based on two misconceptions.

The Free State that developed out of the dust of the Anglo-Irish treaty and subsequent Civil War, was not “the regime change” that most Cummann na mBan members struggled for. In many cases Cumann na mBan were even more vociferous opponents of the Free State than their IRA brothers, fathers and sons.

Their opposition was based on the grounds that it was not the republican ideal they had fought for, but a different form of state imposed on this country under threat of “terrible war”. This significant fact is overlooked by most critics of Ireland’s republican roots.

It was a Free State government that removed women from juries in 1925. Secondly, to assume that Cumann na mBan members considered contraceptives “a right” is to project one’s own feminist politics onto a very different type of early 20th-century feminist movement.

Lastly, Ms Casey’s assertion that “all significant innovations were Anglo-American” is breathtaking in its Anglocentrism. One could point out the litany of examples to the contrary, eg – Louis Pasteur (French) – pasteurisation and germ theory; Marie Curie (Polish) – radiology; Gregor Mendel (Hungarian) – genetics. Or one could add for balance that Anglo-American ‘innovations’ have included the tank and atomic bomb.

Nick Folley

Carrigaline, Co Cork

Irish Independent