It's been a cracking month for Times conspiracy theorists. These are readers who, ignoring both the infinite capacity for simple human error on a daily newspaper and the commercial realities of newspaper publishing in the 21st century, doggedly insist on spotting some sinister agenda behind everything we do. This is the sort of thing we have to contend with daily, while resisting the urge to wonder if it's us, or them.

The September 29 issue of The Knowledge came with a four-page outer wraparound advertisement for Stella Artois, an advertising ploy that we have allowed once or twice before and probably will again; advertisers pay handsomely for the privilege. The actual cover inside showed a Victorian nude photo from the Barbican's erotic art show. One reader wasn't fooled: “How coy, and pathetic, you were in feeling compelled to cloak your innocuous-looking nude with a ‘false' cover. And hypocritical too. Sad!” Er, no, it was just an advertisement; we'd have used the same cover without it.

Next came this: “The English media love to keep telling us about how Hillary Clinton could become America's first female president and how Barack Obama could become the first African-American president, but never has your paper mentioned that Giuliani could become the first Italian-American president.

“Is it too much to ask for the English media to give Giuliani credit for having the same potential to break down a barrier? The only reason I can think of is that editors in England hate Italians, which is somewhat surprising considering the significant contribution to the cultural, social and economic life Italians have given to the world. Maybe you don't like them because Liverpool lost to AC Milan in the Champions League final? If that's the case you guys are pathetic.”

While I was still reeling from that one, in came the next, prompted by a stunning, but by no means unique, picture of a jumbo jet skimming the roofs of a row of houses as it took off from Heathrow (news, October 10). Stand on a residential street in Hounslow any day of the week and you could get the same shot yourself, although here's one reader who wouldn't believe you: “I really think it was a montage designed to cloud your readers' clarity of thought and opinion.

“Why did your ‘photo' show a street of suburban houses with an El Al aeroplane almost perched on the roof of one of the houses? Were you unable to locate a photograph of a British Airways aeroplane to put in your obvious ‘montage', or were you trying to be deliberately provocative?” Er, no again.

To complete the quartet, here's a comment on a large photograph of a beautiful, smiling African mother and her baby that we used in a Body & Soul article on an anti-tetanus campaign in the Democratic Republic of Congo (October 6).

“The main photo is cleverly not attributed to a photographer. No wonder! This photo has absolutely nothing to do with either the Democratic Republic of Congo or the campaign to eradicate tetanus. I know because I recognise the mother and child. I stared in disbelief. But the motif on the baby's hat was the giveaway, assuring me I was not seeing my friend's double. Can you explain yourself?”

No, but I know a woman who can. The photos were taken for The Times by Rebecca Hearfield, an African-based professional whose credit appeared elsewhere on the page, and who says: “I shot the photo at one of the clinics in Kinshasa where they were giving the tetanus vaccinations. The mother and baby were standing in a queue with all the other people. I hope that helps.”

It's good enough for me, Rebecca, although evidently not for everyone.

A reader from Cumbria was deeply moved by a photograph in last Saturday's Times of a small boy in short trousers, his socks around his ankles.

“Please pass, to whoever it was who selected for publication the picture of Master Alex Wall as he searched for his late father's name on the newly opened National Armed Forces Memorial, my very sincere thanks and congratulations. It was an inspired choice from the many that must have been taken that day.

“I am 72 and have been a Times reader since the mid-1940s. No photograph that I have seen during that time has so moved me. The image of that small boy, in his school uniform, proudly wearing his late father's campaign medals, reduced me to tears. Those socks of his were the final straw.”