They show a lack of comprehension of the structure of a doctor's working week. Having worked as a hospital doctor for four years I can think of a number of reasons for failing to answer a bleep. We may be (a) scrubbed in theatre; (b) out of range doing a clinic in a satellite hospital; (c) on the toilet, in the shower; or (d) off-duty and, therefore, not wearing the bleep. Since the British Medical Association managed to secure agreement on a maximum average working week of 72 hours for most junior doctors (previously it could be as much as 120 hours), the result has been that the available doctors are spread much more thinly on the ground.Static numbers of doctors with the same workload but a shorter number of doctor-hours per week leads to fewer doctors 'on call' at any one time and covering more patients.Doctors are, on the whole, responsible and hard-working individuals who realise that patients are their chief responsibility. The increasing pressures on our time, mostly from clinical duties, not, as Ms Willmott suggests, 'meetings, research, lecturing reading. and keeping up with medical gossip', make it difficult for us to be a constantly-available, smiling face on the wards.S H WalkerBelfast.

IF WE think it strange for the German Social Democrats to use Elgar's Pomp and Circumstance in a political campaign, was it not our very own Labour Party that used part of Brahms's first symphony as its signature tune some years ago? Tony Cole Deighton, Yorkshire. IT IS bizarre that the group of worthies appointed to allocate pounds 1.6bn on projects to mark the turn of the century cannot think of anything to spend it on ('Millennium team fail to agree', 18 September). What are we celebrating? The date marks the 2000th anniversary of the birth of a Jewish boy who grew up, and died, under Roman rule. He healed the sick and taught that we should love our enemies and give wealth to the poor (including beggars). What, in a modern secular world, is the significance of this? There are other calendars but this one took over in Europe and spread through the world, far beyond the range of Christianity. The millennium could be marked by something that recognises the continuing need for healing, peace and economic justice Sebastian Kraemer London SW2.

THE 'cruel and unusual punishment' of the slow hanging in Shanghai in 1937 pictured alongside your item 'New evidence of Japan's war atrocities' (18 September) was in fact current in China long before. I have a postcard sent by my uncle, Vallance Guttenden, from HMS Alacrity, then on the 'China Station', dated 19 April 1907, showing 'Chinese in death cages', identical with those in your 1937 picture. V CloutChipping Norton, Oxfordshire. IAN LANG, the Secretary of State for Scotland, said recently: 'It is inevitable that the Forestry Commission. should wish both to dispose of and to acquire small parcels of land with a view to rationalising. .' Since 1981, 425,000 acres of our public woodlands have been sold, all without public access agreements, and only 69,000 acres have been acquired. Of the 2,000 woodlands sold, 446 woodlands were over 100 acres in size and 47 were over 1,000 acres. The largest 'small parcel' sold was Glenlivet in Soctland - 8,694 acres. We have had nothing but lies over this forestry sell-off, including John Major's 1992 election promise not to privatise.