Its slums for complex reasons are dangerous unsanitary and extremely violent places

Its slums, for complex reasons, are dangerous, unsanitary and extremely violent places. Around 5,000 people were murdered last year in the city, the vast majority in and around favelas. During the rainy season mud-slides kill others, destroying homes and property. Jeremy Atiyah, on a favela tour in Rio de Janeiro’s Rocinha, describes having his dark expectations pleasantly disappointed: “For the record,” he writes, “it’s clean …

Like all dialects and languages, Ebonics has its own consistent system of grammatical and phonetic rules. It has some stereotypical features which strike British ears as slovenly or incorrect – its supposed tendency to drop the final “g” in words like “runnin’”, its use of “d” for “th” in words like “that”; but these cannot properly be described as inherently wrong.
Indeed to my Canadian ear, they often sound a lot better than some of the worst annoyances of British English: your odd difficulties with “r” in words like “arm” (where it ought to be) and “law” in “law and order” (where it ought not); and your archaic use of “whilst” instead of “while” are two of the more irritating.Daniel Paul O’DonnellYork. You don’t have to like the name or believe the subject should be taught in schools to accept that black Americans speak differently from white Americans: you just have to listen. This differs in no significant way from the fact that people in Penzance speak differently from those in Glasgow

Nor is it fair to describe black American as “anarchic”. What is a reasonable level of profit? What is a reasonable level of earnings for a director of a national utility? What is a reasonable level of re-investment? The Government and the public (and I) appear to share the view that they have failed this test.It is to be hoped that the utilities will take a new view of their profits that will lead to a re-assessment of the money available for the massive investments required versus “reasonable” executive earnings. If they can’t, they will expose themselves to the sequel: “Windfall Tax 2″.Philip Edwardes-KerWeybridge, Surrey.

I object to John Carlin’s description of Ebonics as a “term employed to dignify the grammatically anarchic English spoken by rebellious black American youths” (“x plus y = PC insanity”, 25 May). The objective was not to provide substantial profits for re-distribution to the few shareholders who could afford to invest, nor to allow sitting executives to ride the incoming tide of profits and award themselves profit-related bonuses.
The first objective was achieved, though at a price set at a (low) level which would allow the new owners scope to re-invest The second objective has clearly not been achieved. Shareholders have benefited rather than the whole nation, profits have been excessive and re-investment has been patchy – certainly not at the levels required.The matter hinges on the question of “reasonableness”. If one goes back to the origin and purpose of privatisation, the tax is fair and justified. When the government privatised the utilities, including BT and BAA, there were two objectives: first to raise funds for the Treasury; second to supply a service to the nation at a reasonable level of profit with long-term programmes to re-invest in the infrastructure. As Melvin Burgess comments in the author’s note to Junk: “All the major events in this book have happened, are happening and will no doubt continue to happen I saw many of them myself and heard about many more The book isn’t fact; it isn’t even faction.

But it’s all true, every word.” Now that is scary.The Carnegie Medal shortlist (winners to be picked in July)’Junk’ by Melvin Burgess: Harrowing tale of teenage descent into drug addiction. Age 15 plus’Weirdo’s War’ by Michael Coleman: Tense novel about bullies. Age 10 plus’The Tulip Touch’ by Anne Fine: Charts intense friendship with a malign but charismatic girl. Age 11 plus’Secret Friends’ by Elizabeth Laird: A girl with big ears is bullied. Age 8-9′Johnny and the Bomb’ by Terry Pratchett: Time travel adventure story. Age 11 plus’Clockwork’ by Philip Pullman: Macabre tale with clockmaker who sells soul to the devil.

Age 8-11′Love in Cyberia’ by Chloe Rayban: Wry look at the internet, time travel and growing up. Age 11 plus’Bad Girls’ by Jacqueline Wilson: Funny book on over-protective mums, best friends and bullies Age 8 plus. Your leading article “Windfall tax that won’t hit fat cats” (25 May) presents only half the issue. But of course there are teachers like that.”Perhaps the trouble with the Carnegie shortlist is not the books but the world it reflects. Childhood still has its sunny moments but these days it also seems to linger on the dark side of the moon. This is generation that has never known anything but Aids and televisions that explode with one war or another.