Nation where football rules

THE Spanish economy may be on its knees with high levels of debt and unemployment, but there doesn’t appear to be much financial pain for its top football clubs. Where do Real Madrid get all their record-breaking euros from? Oh yes and will Gareth Bale now be jostling with Cristiano Ronaldo who he has eclipsed in the fee stakes to take free kicks? Football, clearly rules in Spain, but then they are the world champions (Yorkshire Post, September 3)!

Sign of casually wasteful times

From: Matthew Shaw, Golcar, Huddersfield.

YOUR story ‘Refugees create new wellington street’ (Yorkshire Post, August 2) on the aftermath of the Leeds Festival was a shocking illustration of our society’s casual attitude to waste. Youngsters leaving the Festival site abandoned wellington boots (worn once?) and goodness knows what else as they headed home. There appears to be so little value placed on so much in our throw-away all consuming culture. The lazy, wasteful and thoughtless actions of some of the younger generation does not bode well for the future.

Bongo the steam engine

From: Gordon Reed, Dale Croft, Garforth, Leeds.

READERS may be intrigued to know that amongst all the righteous, touchy, politically correct brigade uproar on Godfrey Bloom MEP’s comments, British Rail had a modern express passenger steam engine called Bongo. Its number was 61005 and was one of 410 built by the former LNE Railway at Darlington and the North British Locomotive works at Glasgow. Many of these engines were named after antelopes (e.g. reedbuck, gnu) but Bongo was seized upon by trainspotters as a nickname for these engines.