Booze, not shoes, may have caused medieval bunions

You report that research on skeletons in Cambridge suggests pointy shoes worn by medieval monks caused hallux valgus (Medieval fashion for pointy shoes linked to rise in bunions, 11 June). A more likely cause may be that the monks suffered from gout due to excess alcohol consumption, given the British Medical Journal report that found a “high prevalence of hallux valgus in gouty patients”?
Trevor Lyttleton
London

• I’m only 53 so don’t qualify for all this septuagenarian stuff (Letters, 20 June), but last week I rode a 10-mile time trial in 21min 43sec. Decent, but I did 20min 55sec last year, albeit on a faster course. Later on, I farted the first three notes of the main theme from Mars, from Holst’s Planets suite. I have to say that the latter achievement was more gratifying.
Bill Hawkes
Canterbury, Kent

• A typical day for this 71-year-old: Wake up. Listen to the Today programme. Get incensed. Read the Guardian. Get incensed. Go for a walk to let off steam. Watch the evening news. Get incensed. Go to bed.
Bob Epton
Brigg, North Lincolnshire

• What chance a photograph of any street in any UK city could match the litter-free one taken in Tokyo that was published in your print edition?
Sam White
Lewes, East Sussex

• To add to Mary Bolton’s letter (17 June), my school’s navy-blue knickers had a pocket for your hanky – something that reduces my granddaughters to howls of laughter when I describe them.
Kate Burgess
Boston, Lincolnshire

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