With few exceptions some pathetic excuses are made for the racist content of the act

With few exceptions, some pathetic excuses are made for the racist content of the act. The wonder is that the offensive nature of these acts has only just featured in a TV documentary and in the press. As a once semi-professional musician, working on cabaret bills at weekends for a number of years, I have lost count of the number of racist, sexist and generally objectionable comedians who have bored me and my fellow- musicians to death. Sir: Sadly, there are dozens of so-called comedians of the Bernard Manning stamp performing regularly in public clubs and at private parties, week in week out, all over Britain ("Action ruled out over Manning's racist cabaret", 26 April). The voter then enters a booth and places one of these slips in an envelope, which is then put into a ballot box by the voter. The weakness is in the first stage - the voter can be subjected to peer pressure not to collect one type of slip - be it a stern father forbidding his offspring from voting Green, workmates ensuring that their colleagues don't vote for one extreme or other or, dare I say it, the more serious organised coercion, backed by violence, that has occurred in other European elections this century.Yours,MARK R BAKEROxford.

While I was impressed by the efficiency and professionalism, I noticed what appears to be a serious oversight in the process. Votes are cast by the voters selecting a number of voting slips, each printed with a candidate's name, from a table in full view of the public. Sir: On Sunday I had the privilege of witnessing the voting process in the French elections first hand. Surely "Lady Margaret Thatcher" has a better - and familiar - ring to it than "that Baroness"?Yours etc,RICHARD RUTTERLondon, SW3. Lord Rosebery was already a KG when he came to office in 1894 and received the Thistle upon retirement in 1895 and is unique in this respect, since no other subject who was already a Garter knight has received the latter honour.Lady Companions of the Order of the Garter may prefix the title "Lady" before their christian and surname. It has long been the convention that both could not be held at the same time (hence Lord Bute surrendered the latter upon admission to the English order), but there have been some exceptions: Lord Aberdeen - who had received the Thistle as long ago as 1808 - added the Garter the day after relinquishing office in 1855.

Lord Home, of course, holds the Order of the Thistle - considered rightly to be on a par with the Garter as the senior Scottish order. It is perhaps interesting to note that of the 50 persons to hold office since Walpole, 31 have received either the Garter or the Thistle. In fact, this century there have been 10 prime ministers honoured with the Garter. To your list may be added Balfour (1922), Asquith (1925) and Baldwin (1937, receiving the honour on the day of his resignation). Sir: You state that Baroness Thatcher is the seventh former prime minister appointed to the Order of the Garter and include in your list Earl Attlee (report, 22 April).

While he was appointed by the Queen, he held office during her father's reign. Where posters have long urged the weary, but wary commuter to ceaseless vigilance for unattended luggage on Guildford station, there now appear a new set of left luggage lockers on the platform. How long will it be before we can trust our society enough to welcome back the much needed litter bin? I hope that the threat of bombs will soon seem to be ancient history for our children.Yours faithfully,J PAUL STEPHENSReading, Berkshire24 April. Not just the arrival of spring, but the beginnings of a relaxation of tension as the IRA truce continues The signs were unmistakable. Sir: I noted the arrival of the first tangible signs of a thaw this week.

Such an irresponsible use of the term "ethnic cleansing" not only does not reflect the reality about the Kurdish problem in Turkey, but is also tantamount to an insult for the Bosnians and to a trivialisation of their predicament.Sincerely yours,SINAN AKINALManchester24 April. A look at the Israeli-Palestinian situation should warn us against the dangers of forgetting about "the victims of the victims".Finally, Mr Griffiths makes the nonsensical claim that Turkey is involved "in ethnically cleansing its 12 million-strong Kurdish community". We must note, however, that that blockade was imposed because this "tiny land- locked" country, which is "suffering severe hardship" (Mr Griffiths's words), occupies the Nagorny-Karabakh enclave in Azerbaijan, as well as 20 per cent of Azerbaijan proper. 21)I think it is time that we Turks accept the terrible tragedy that befell the Armenians and encourage our government to make a public gesture which would work towards relieving the pain and agony of Armenian survivors. After all, the founders of modern Turkey fought against the Ottoman government in their struggle for an independent, secular republic.As for Mr Griffiths's claim that Turkey is blockading aid to the Armenian Republic, Turkey is preparing to ease its embargo on Armenia. About the third, I agree with Erik Zurcher, when he argues in his brilliant book Turkey: A Modern History, that: There are indications that, while the Ottoman government as such was not involved in genocide, an inner circle within the Committee of Union and Progress under the direction of Talat wanted to "solve" the Eastern Question by the extermination of the Armenians and that it used the relocation as a cloak for its policy (p.