Couldn't Banksy be called a vandal too? | Brief letters

Banksy mural defaced | 'Don't learn to type' | Plastic-wrapped fish | Folk music | Pop and rockYour report (Report, 30 January) says a Banksy mural was "defaced by vandals". But why is Banksy's work "art" while its erasure is merely the work of vandals? That one man can paint anything he likes on any property in the country, and have it unquestioningly praised simply because he's famous, is a great example how our celebrity-obsessed inequality has become normalised. Maybe that's the real message of his art.Phil GyfordLondono Diane Abbott's piece (G2, 31 January) on the 1980s rang a bell. I was given the same advice - "don't learn to type" - by my headmistress in 1956 on leaving school to go to Oxford, so obviously nothing much changed in 20 years. I originally worked as a research chemist so certainly avoided being "shunted into a secretarial role" but eventually had to struggle to find my way round a keyboard when I retired and acquired a home computer.Barbara YoungBury, Lancashire Continue reading...