Mike Moore from Potterton, Aberdeen (responding to last week's piece on 'apologies by sides of the body'…).

I've done a lot of DIY work over the years and have often found myself, on behalf of my right hand, warning and apologising to my left hand for the pain and, or, injury which might follow a careless slip. Such damage continues to occasionally occur to my left hand despite the fact that when I was at secondary school in the fifties pupils who cut themselves were summarily caned because they'd quite obviously broken the golden rule of 'keeping your hands behind the cutting edge.'

And how about this from Duncan Kirk of St Andrews who'll do anything to keep his brain ticking over…

When climbing stairs, I always subconsciously count them as I go up, and again count them as I come down. The totals usually tally, but sometimes they don't. I don't know why I do it, but it was probably put in my mind by Miss Grubb, a teacher when I was at school "some" years ago. She told my class that she did that when she ran up stairs, and it has been in my mind ever since.

In my job over the years, I've had thousands of occasions to count the stairs, and I wouldn't like to guess how many I have stepped on, but thankfully I will be retiring soon and will keep on the level as much as possible.