Balls, Buckfast and bothersome gadgets | Brief letters
Suzanne Moore is not alone (Gadgets are supposed to streamline life, G2, 15 December). I always ask myself two questions: is it just because we are in the midst, rather than the end, of a technological revolution that so-called labour-saving gadgets and their bits often pose problems or go wrong? And, will technology and algorithms ever find a way to give us the chance delights found in the diversity of nature or in a bookshop?
Rowan Roenisch
Leicester
" Regarding the speculation on WH Auden's scrotum, it wasn't David Hockney who used the phrase (Letters, 19 December). It came about after he and Jim Dine had been drawing Auden's portrait. As they left, Dine turned to Hockney and said: "I wonder what his balls are like?" Alan Bennett made the same misattribution, and when I wrote to him about it he sent a reply which began: "Thank you for your letter about Auden's balls".
Alan Byrne
London