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So it takes a study of 19,000 children to show that smacking leads them to struggle with exams (Report, 11 June). Probably true, but the main lesson they learn is that violence can fix a problem provided you are bigger and stronger than your opponent. A message picked up in the kindergarten and carried as far as the White House.
Geoff Wheeler
Balsall Common, West Midlands

• Your article had an interesting but only a partial analysis of bacterial safety (Is it true that … you have five seconds’ grace after dropping food on the floor?, 15 June). The full rule is “Pick it up within five seconds and then blow on it.” It’s the combination that works.
Malcolm Mitchell
Harrow, London

• Laura Orchard says there are “no authors from Africa” featured in your Guardian readers’ top 100 novels (Letters, 12 June). However, the list does have The Outsider and The Plague by Albert Camus, both set in French Algeria, where he was born and spent most of his life.
Andrew Carroll
Castletimon, County Wicklow, Ireland

• Baron Kinnock of Bedwellty describes Baron Hattersley of Sparkbrook, who died this week (Report, 14 June), as “a socialist of deep conviction” and “a dedicated democrat”. Roy joined the House of Lords in 1997, Neil in 2005.
Ian Short
London

• If humans have a tendency to walk anticlockwise (Letters, 15 June), is there a preferred direction of turning round when you go to sit on the lavatory bowl? Will it depend on handedness?
Michael Bulley
Chalon-sur-Saône, France

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