Your Letters
Regardless of Buster's actual age, I am sure that his claim to have run the 2008 marathon is easily verified.
Ralph, Cumbria
Re "Star Trek gun or posh cat flap? Large fascinator or small hat? Paper Monitor ponders Princess Beatrice's odd headwear": It's Viviene Westwood. It's allowed to be bonkers.
Andrew Oakley
Monitor note: It's Phillip Treacy, darling.
Ross (Monday's Letters), thank you for your clear conversions of Royal wedding statistics. However, you cannot convert a 2400Mw power surge with cups of tea. A cup of tea is a measure of energy which, as high school physics will tell you, is power multiplied by time. A better comparison for the surge in power demand when the service finished might be 40 million lavatory lights (60watt) being switched on.
Ray Lashley (Guardian of Monitor Weights and Measures since 2005), Colchester, UK
Sorry to be a pedant (gentle lie) Ross of Norwich, (Monday Letters), but no amount of megawatts will brew tea. Cups of tea are only brewed with seconds, or minutes if you like them strong, after the megawatts have been used. Megawatts, used for a few seconds, will boil water in kettles. A tiny pulse of bright laser can be a megawatt, but it only lasts a small fraction of a second so the total amount of energy in the pulse is microscopic - enough to boil maybe a pollen-grain-sized drop of water for a cup of tea. Megawatts are a *rate*, like cups of tea per second, or barrels of tea over the dam per day. Megawatt-seconds, or megawatt-hours are fully boiled water - complete cups of tea. Of course, everyone knows that even with megawatt-hours you still need leaves and a pot. And nice, fresh milk.
John, England
Dear Monitor, despite using every net curtain in the house, we fell some way short of recreating the elegance of Catherine's frock (a plan foretold in Your Letters). Instead Eddie donned a Moose Head "8 pointer" Antler fascinator, but a large Sheffield man sitting behind suggested, quite forcefully, that it be removed. Couture fashion is not always appreciated outside London.
Richard Martin, Doncaster, UK
Monitor note: Well, we did suggest an embellished coat and dress instead.
May I wish all your readers a very happy "Star Wars day" for tomorrow. May the fourth be with you!
Ralph, Cumbria