Letters: How can the good people of Israel sleep at night?

It is beyond me that politicians, religious leaders and the UN accept this continuing slaughter ostensibly to destroy Hamas. This is just an excuse by Israel when their agenda is quite clearly to wipe out the Palestinian population.

What has been done to put an end to this? Precious little.

Meanwhile human beings shelter in tents in freezing overnight conditions, children left orphaned, often injured, walk the streets. Elderly relatives struggle through cold and disease to stay alive.

I can't understand how the good people of Israel can sleep and their religious leaders can condone this.

Neil Stewart, Balfron.

• A RECENT letter rightly questioned the apparent silence of the Church of Scotland in relation to the suffering of the civilian population of Gaza. Reports at the weekend were of children being fed with ground-up animal feed because there is nothing else to give them. In the name of God - if He is listening - can nobody soften the hearts of their oppressors in Israel to spare families this terrible suffering? The aid agencies seem to be doing their best to get through to where the need is greatest but it is never enough. Water, food, sanitation and hygiene products are all running out.

A louder clamour from people and politicians worldwide is surely needed for a resolution to be found, starting with the national Church in Scotland to use its contacts in Jerusalem to say enough is enough.

Elizabeth Mueller, Glasgow.

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Parking solutions

The problem with street parking, whether on or off pavements, is not the width of streets but of car widths and numbers.

The Institute of Structural Engineers advises that, for undercover and multi-storey car parks, bay widths and lengths should be increased by 200mm to suit SUVs and the like. Even that barely allows for door sizes and driver/passenger access. Likewise on streets just wide enough for small to medium cars to pass similar parked cars it is impossible for a lorry or van to pass a car going in the opposite direction. Hence parking on the pavement is standard procedure.

Solutions include parking on one side of streets only, narrower pavements to widen the carriageways, and abolishing the parking of bigger cars within certain streets. As present residents would fight against the first of these options and the second is too expensive, not to say dangerous to pedestrians, something like the third option might be the compromise.

It might also help if road tax was based more on the size of the car instead of on engine power. After all, a more powerful car does not necessarily use more road.

Finally, drivers should drive more carefully and realise the actual width of their vehicle. Driving more slowly past parked cars can be done. I know of owners who drive bigger and higher cars only because they do not feel confident and safe in smaller ones, and these often will not proceed through adequate gaps but stop until the vehicle going towards them has passed. The result is unnecessary delay to those behind.

I will not mention the role of cyclists in this problem, whether they be on road or pavement. I saw both today and a police van parked on a pavement too.

JB Drummond, Kilmarnock.

Promote social enterprises

IF we're going to reduce poverty across the country, social enterprises such as Apparel Xchange and Social Bite require more publicity to make sure anyone in need knows what they do and how to contact them.

These bodies already make a huge difference to people's lives, especially in the current economic climate, saving hundreds of pounds for their users.

If our Government circulated free leaflets (detailing information on these fine organisations) to colleges, schools, clinics, community centres and social hubs their benefits would reach far more people in need.

Our overwhelmed NHS would benefit, too, due to the health benefits of people being able to source healthy food and affordable clothes, meaning fewer visits to hospitals caused by lack of warm decent clothes in winter months and malnutrition.

Stephen McCarthy, Glasgow.

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From Mr Angry to Mr Disappointed

STEVE Wright's death ("Tributes as veteran DJ Wright dies, aged 69", The Herald, February 14) is another nail in the coffin of British radio light entertainment. You only have to tune in to his afternoon show replacement Scott Mills for a few minutes to see what I mean. I doubt we'll ever again hear the likes of "'ello boy, it's Sid 'ere" (Sid the manager), "I'm so angry I could throw the phone down" (Mr Angry), or the priceless Gervaise the hairdresser, who once called to say he had a terrible cold and told Steve "I'm gonna go home and rub Vick on me chest", then remembered "oh no, Vic's on 'oliday!"

I rarely listen to Radio 1 or 2 these days, apart from Sunday for the magisterial Johnnie Walker's Sounds of the 70s.

We baby boomers are rapidly becoming the forgotten audience of the good old days.

Allan Sutherland, S​tonehaven.

Fool marks

I WAS a maths teacher for 35 years and to encourage pupils to memorise facts I told them I had memorised an entire telephone book. To prove it I handed the book to a pupil who chose a page. He handed it to a second who chose a column. A third pupil chose a position, say 10th down and was asked to copy the name, address and phone number. As he was doing this I proceeded to write these exact details on the board to the astonishment of the class. I did this with classes for over 20 years.

Was it magic? Unknown to them, I had a colleague in the corridor out of sight of the class with an identical telephone book. He copied the details on a sheet of paper which he held up for me to see. Sorry, kids. You CAN fool all of the people all of the time.

Tom Strang, Barrhead.