IT was with great interest I read your article about Aer Lingus, “Airline picks Capital for maiden flight” (News, May 9). Musselburgh Windsor FC under-10s are visiting Cork to play football in September and have been quoted almost £420 return to Dublin by Aer Lingus!

It is concerning that the Church of Scotland is struggling to recruit new ministers, especially young ones (your report 23 May); it is even more concerning that the General Assembly has been told that this is because of innate 
conservatism.

Neglect of patients in an NHS hospital was described as 
“unacceptable” (your report, 23 May). It is only unacceptable until the next report of abuse and neglect in a Scottish hospital.

JOE Darby (Letters, 23 May) concentrates on too narrow a picture: Scotland’s resources are not only oil and gas but much more.

Brian Wilson is right (Perspective, 22 May) to say that if Scotland were to introduce ­different immigration criteria to those of the rest of the UK then border controls would be an ­inevitable (if regrettable) consequence.

Building the new bridge over the Firth of Forth is one of the biggest construction projects yet undertaken in Scotland. It is publicly funded, yet we are being denied the opportunity to watch the progress of the construction from the obvious vantage point of the west walkway of the bridge it is replacing.

The threatened closure of the centuries-old sheriff court at Haddington and its partner JP court (your report, 23 May) is to be opposed. It is of concern that SNP MSPs and councillors have not opposed the move.

I’m far from being an expert in global finance and market pressures, but I do know the Bank of Scotland is wholly owned by Lloyds Bank, is headquartered in London, has many branches throughout the world, and many more branches in England than north of the Border.

I note with interest from your report, “Royal Mail on privatisation trail after big rise in profits” (22 May), that Royal Mail has ­reported pre-tax profits of a record £324 million in the year to March 2013, something like double the previous year’s figures.

Dr ADAM Smith and Tim Baynes (Letters, 23 May) sound like people pleading on behalf of sectional interests that may feel under threat from potential democratic land reform and are trying to extol their pedigree and usefulness in respect of that threat.

It doesn’t do much for the image of Edinburgh or indeed tourism in Scotland when a group of well dressed and no doubt well behaved service personnel are refused service in one of the Capital’s most historic bars, especially after having just been awarded the Freedom of the City (News, May 21).

Dr Trewavas (Letters, 11 May), in response to a study that I and others published in 2010, makes a number of incorrect and obfuscating claims that neither invalidate our study’s findings about the overwhelming scientific consensus that human emissions of greenhouse gases are the dominant cause of recent climate change, nor discount the urgency of acting to reduce risks from climate change.

I waS down at Ocean Terminal on Tuesday morning waving goodbye to HMS Edinburgh.

The new State of Nature report (22 May) reveals our nature to be in a poor condition. The Game and Wildlife Conservation Trust (GWCT) in Scotland welcomes this report as it alerts everybody to unwelcome changes in our countryside.

Training for the parish ­ministry, I spent a great deal of time on that classic duo: the problem of evil and whether biblical Christianity has any place for free will.

Many letter writers are obviously under the misapprehension that the recent demonstration against Nigel Farage and Ukip in Edinburgh was created by “left-wing Nationalists”. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Would it be beyond the wit of ScotRail to run trains through the night between Edinburgh and Glasgow? London and Brighton are thus connected.

As the representative body of the Jewish community of Scotland we remain concerned about the revised Church and Society report to the General 
Assembly on The Inheritance of Abraham (your report, 18 May).

The new State of Nature report (22 May) reveals our nature to be in a poor condition. The Game and Wildlife Conservation Trust (GWCT) in Scotland welcomes this report as it alerts everybody to unwelcome changes in our countryside.

Alex Salmond’s all-too-­familiar refrain that we will be rich when separate indeed rests as usual on all too many unquantifiable assertions (your report, 22 May).