Puerile prince
During a rather fumbling interview on Channel 4 on Friday, Prince William said: "Heaven forbid that I should listen to classical music." So far as I know, no-one has yet called him to account, as future king, for this irresponsible remark.
It was not merely an expression of personal taste, but rather of prejudice and ignorance. It was a slap in the face for our royal schools of music, all the internationally famous symphony orchestras in the UK - including the Royal Philharmonic - our chamber ensembles and soloists, the universally admired Master of the Queen's Music, Sir Peter Maxwell Davies, and British-based recording companies such as Delphian of Edinburgh - "the classical label in the city".
If the prince chooses to take pride in such puerile notions, that is his loss, but he should keep it to himself. He certainly shouldn't invoke Heaven to make a virtue of it.
Professor David Wilde, pianist/composer, 25 Torphichen Street, Bathgate.
Not linked to MMR
I have no answer for John Henery (Letters, June 30) but would like it to be known that I have no doubt that it was not inoculation that caused the Asperger's Syndrome which my son was only officially diagnosed with at the age of 30. He is now 33.
I felt from only months and even weeks old, that he might be autistic.
I now know that in international thinking Asperger's only appears around three years of age but is part of Autism Spectrum Disorder, and autism by definition is evident before the age of 30 months and usually apparent in the first year of life, so I had no difficulty with the final diagnosis.
I hope it may be of some help to know that, for my son, receiving the diagnosis and the interviews that led to that, were helpful for him understanding why he feels as he does and also for us as a family.
Karine Davison, 3 Ettrick Drive, Bearsden.
Statistically in error
Your Business page headline (July 2) was mistaken in saying the survey of Scottish firms, asked how an SNP-led executive would affect business in Scotland, revealed "only 25% of firms were upbeat". In the article, it says that, while 25% thought the impact would be good, 20% thought it would be bad: ie, more thought the impact would be good than thought it would be bad. Given that the SNP executive has had less than two months to make an impact of any kind, I suspect the 38% who thought it had made no significant difference are probably closest to the truth.
Andrew M Fraser, Cradlehall Cottage, Caulfield Road North, Inverness.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article