The advantage of life in the slow train

Photograph: Matthew Clarke/Alamy Stock Photo

You say the Advanced Passenger Train had been canned “partly because of the motion sickness it allegedly induced” (End of era for Virgin: Why track record is mixed for Branson’s red trains, 7 December). Pendolino trains do induce motion sickness, as I can testify. It’s one of the reasons (not to mention the price) I choose to travel via the slightly slower Chiltern line, which is more efficient as I’m not prevented by nausea from working on the train.
Margaret Jacobi
Birmingham

• I went to vote then came home to read my Guardian. The superlative collection on the letters page (12 December) left me weeping – and praying that all the thought-waves encapsulated there could somehow echo way beyond the confines of the Guardian chamber and save the country: hopeless, I know, but this naive girl has to dream.
Alexandra Shepherd
Aberdeen

• Your Birdwatch column referring to The 12 Days of Christmas (11 December) brought back memories of our first Christmas in our old chapel home in Northamptonshire. My son and I went into the garden on 25 December and disturbed a partridge on the wall who flew to the end of the garden and landed in our pear tree!
Gwen Mathews
Bulwick, Northamptonshire

• Bah! Humbug! What about There’s No Santa Clause on The Midnight Stage by the terribly exciting Captain Beefheart and His Magic Band or Lou Reed’s No Christmas in February (Letters, 9 December)?
Nik Wood
London

• 12 December: no Brexit or election natter on BBC TV and radio all day. Bliss! We ought to do this more often.
Toby Wood
Peterborough, Cambridgeshire

• Lisa Hallgarten for poet laureate (Letters, 12 December).
David Witt
Malmesbury, Wiltshire

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