A lovely piece, as usual, by Mr. Keillor. But he has rather hamstrung his budding sonneteers by providing them with a first line that doesn't scan. Since most mothers have picked up, among the vast array of skills that motherhood requires, the ability to count up to 10 ("You've done what? Wait now, 1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-10 - there, there, dear, mother will sort it out."), they really aren't going to be fooled. Can I suggest, as an alternative:

"I couldn't count to ten, so here's these chocs"

Just to get it straight, Charlie Brooker isn't a Guardian reader (well, he might be), he's a Guardian columnist - hence this week's column, I Hate Macs.

An honourable mention for Jack Clayton's "The Innocents". Deborah Kerr's finest hour, and even scarier because it may not be a ghost story at all.

Historically, MPs have not been particularly well paid. In fact, for most of Parliamentary history they have not been paid at all. It was assumed that members would be men (oh, definitely men) of independent wealth who would not require payment. It wasn't until the advent of the Labour party that the possibility arose that members might be elected who were ordinary working men and women, who might require some form of recompense.

Since voting for one's own pay rise has always been seen as politically sticky, an "expenses" culture grew up over the years with the tacit understanding that these were not so much an attempt to reimburse genuine expenses as to pad out an inadequate salary.

None of which is meant as an excuse for the money-grubbing swine, who richly deserve to have their arses kicked all the way from the Lobby to the nearest JobCentre. This is just part of a much bigger problem, that Parliament wallows in medieval flummery, kow-towing to a useless Crown, when it should be trying to drag us kicking and screaming into the nineteenth century with a proper written constitution and bill of rights.

I'm voting Monster Raving Loony!

In your review of The Strain you mistakenly put Dracula ashore in London. He may have arrived there in the movies, since London was probably the only part of England that Hollywood knew about, but Stoker brings the SS Demeter to port in Whitby, Yorkshire. If you care to visit, it won't take the local tourist industry long to remind you of the fact.

... we're NOT being ruled by a crowd of evil bozos?