Close encounters of the pheasant kind

SIR – I recently had a close “air miss” with a suicidal pheasant while riding my motorbike. It flew across me at chest height when travelling at around 50 miles per hour (me, not the pheasant). I am sure that, had I not instinctively breathed in, it would have ended in tears and feathers.

Nick Edge
Stoke Poges, Buckinghamshire

SIR – I told a local estate manager I had hit three of his pheasants, causing expensive damage to my car. He said he would send me an invoice for the dead birds.

Julia Boardman
Chipping Norton, Oxford

Price and life of milk

SIR – Dairy farmers throughout the country are being forced to sell milk for less than it costs to produce. We often pay more for bottled water than for milk.

Surely if the Government can propose a minimum price for alcohol, then it can do the same for milk and allow farmers to make a reasonable profit.

Kevin Platt
Walsall, Staffordshire

SIR – On Tuesday morning I finished off a four-pint container of skimmed milk with a use-by date of September 28. I have suffered no ill effects whatsoever. So much for food safety labelling.

Viv Coffey
Frinton-on-Sea, Essex

Not music to my ears

SIR – My greatest pleasure in listening to Classic FM is not just the film music, the adverts or the travel news, but hearing them trying to pronounce Eugene Onegin.

Geoffrey Hodgson
Leeds, West Yorkshire