Why has behaving like a stupid prat suddenly become a crime (Police accused of over-zealous reaction to poppy burning, 13 November)? From posting a picture of a burning poppy, to skateboarding past a Remembrance Day parade in a pink suit, to tweeting about blowing up an airport. All these perpetrators got arrested, and it cost us all a lot of money for an appeal court to see sense about the last one. Why can't we do what we always used to do: point the finger and say "Pillock!"?
Halifax, West Yorkshire
• News of General Petraeus's resignation over his affair (Report, 13 November) comes shortly after reports about the forthcoming auction of a letter Nelson sent his mistress in 1802, referring to the birth of their daughter. Good job things were less strait-laced in those days, as otherwise the subsequent Battle of Trafalgar might not have gone so well for us.
• These 2012 dates and times are all very well, but can Mr McKinney (Letters, 10 November) or Ms Tansley Thomas (12 November) tell us where they were at 12.34 and 56 seconds on 7/8/90? We were on a beach in France and opened a bottle of wine to celebrate. We'd have opened it anyway, but it seemed a good excuse.
Rev Canon John James
• Another rugby season, another slew of massively disproportionate column space about England. You even describe England as "the national side" (Sport, 10 November). I nearly choked on my laverbread. The British and Irish Lions are the team that represent our nation.
• Rita Fairclough observed in the late 80s that the Weatherfield buses were less frequent since deregulation, prompting a Norman Tebbit sally against lefty media bias (If only soap operas didn't wash their hands of politics, 13 November).
• Exciting though Wade Davis's book on Mallory undoubtedly is, can there be a safer, less challenging job than "explorer-in-residence" (Report, 13 November)?