ON April 5 this year, you published a letter of mine which you entitled ‘Market sign in sorry state’, alluding also to the exceedingly drab Union flag – or Jack, for those of you on first name terms with the banner – on display outside one of the High Street entrances.

At a time when, ostensibly over such a symbol and whether and when it should be hoisted, Tweedledum and Tweedledee are at it again in Belfast, I noticed that its counterpart above Oxford Crown and County Courts, to which the flying of ‘per se’ I am also pretty indifferent, was looking decidedly and almost literally ropy.

What kind of message is this sending out to our visitors?

DAVID DIMENT, Riverside Court, Oxford