Your views on the redesign are still coming in, as many readers decided to give it a week to settle down. Michael Cole, a regular correspondent, e-mails: “I have just cancelled my daily delivery of your paper. I could just about accept the revamp, but the up-to-date photographs of your bylined writers, coming on top of Cherie Blair's unwanted revelations, are too much to bear. You might have left us our illusions.” Speaking as one who has just been forced very much against her will to have a picture byline in the paper, that hurts.

Lesley Russell, of Kingston upon Thames, writes: “I wrote to a friend this week that The Times had gone through another change, but I did add that you have to gain new, younger readers somewhere, so I suppose times2 was as good a place to start as any. Nevertheless, I really do like and feel very comfortable with the new Times; you have just caught me on the cusp, as I was becoming so disillusioned that I even considered giving it up and going elsewhere. I love it seeming more serious again; the new pictures (everyone looks so much nicer/ prettier/more handsome/more serious/more cultured/Simon Barnes even has a tie on!); the page 2 leaders; the colour coding; the new gravitas.”

Papal bull

My colleague Peter Brookes drew some ire from Roman Catholic readers with his cartoon (June 4) of the Pope holding aloft a packet of condoms under the heading “World food crisis summit, Rome: One solution ... ” We carried a long letter the following day from the editor of the Scottish Catholic Observer, who protested that population increases are but one factor in the current world food crisis, but many of you dismissed that argument and further accused us of discrimination, as we “wouldn't venture to vilify Islam in the same way”.

My point precisely: as a Christian, I rejoice in a faith that has the confidence, tolerance and good sense to withstand the taunts of newspaper cartoonists.

Literary illusion

A number of readers are convinced that we have short-changed them by reducing the length of both Paul Simons's Weather Eye and Derwent May's Nature Notes (in its new home on the Daily Universal Register page): we haven't, not by so much as a word. Nor, despite your insistence otherwise, have we reduced the text point size; off to the opticians with you all.

Predictable protests from relatives of émigrés to, among others, Wellington and Brisbane that the weather page has had to cull a few of the cities listed under “The world” and now omits, among others, Wellington and Brisbane. And as a Kentish maid, or maid of Kent, or something, I am grateful to James Paterson, of Walmer, for pointing out that the “Around Britain” list now ignores the garden of England completely - scandalous. I've passed that one on smartish, and the editor of the Register is hoping to review both lists soon.

Geoffrey Barlow writes from Sandwich: “My congratulations on the new layout. In the constant striving for perfection I hope that, unlike the rest of the British press, you will spell régime and débâcle correctly.” Sorry to disappoint, but the style guide has long since opined that these words have passed into English, and that therefore their accents are unnecessary.

Sole search

Another regular correspondent, Alistair Cooke, writes: “The Times makes clear that letters must be exclusive to it. Recently a letter on accommodation for the House of Lords appeared both in The Times and Another Paper. The order of the sentences was a little different but it was essentially the same letter. Is there a blacklist on which miscreants go so they do not have another letter accepted? That would please people like me who contribute letters and always keep to the rules.”

The present letters editor maintains the traditional Times rule on exclusivity; the problem is that we rely on the honesty of our correspondents when we put to them the question: “Is it fully exclusive to The Times?” There's not much we can do if they fib, other than gnash our teeth the following day. And while of course there's no blacklist, letters editors of The Times tend to have good, and long, memories.

The blog of war

Finally, a bouquet from Thomas Thompson, of St Louis, Missouri, not for me but for someone much more deserving: “I am writing to say how much I enjoy and look forward to reading Deborah Haynes's blog Inside Iraq. The topics covered and the writing style used are wonderful and they always leave me wanting to read more.

“I would also like to congratulate Ms Haynes for being nominated for the British Press Awards Foreign Reporter of the Year. I can only imagine how difficult it must be for her to do her job when it requires living and reporting from a place like Iraq. Please pass along my thanks and good luck; I hope she returns to her family and friends safe.”

Actually Deborah has just come out for a well-earned break, so I'll be delighted to pass that on to her in person here next week. She goes back to Iraq in July; meanwhile, her colleague James Hider will fill the blog slot.

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