Like Ian Donaghy (Bloke on Telly Comes Out, Letters, February 10) I am always amazed by what the media reports. Every study ever undertaken has shown that human sexuality is a gradual spectrum from male at one end to female at the other, with each of us positioned somewhere in that range. Homosexuality was decriminalised in 1967 but the way the media reacts to gayness 53 years later beggars belief. The planet is heading towards runaway climate change at an alarming pace but when did you last read banner headlines about that?

Meanwhile it is Phillip Schofield’s moment of revelation and I hope that he and his family are coping at this difficult time.

Quentin Macdonald

Church Lane,

Nether Poppleton, York

We should be told about council ‘early retirement’

So the city council can’t be as open and transparent as it usually is when granting someone early retirement ‘on the grounds of efficiency’ (Council manager set to retire, February 10). As council tax payers are we not entitled to know who is so efficient they have to be ‘let go of’? Is it coincidental that the savings made will just cover the increase to the councillors’ allowance they so eagerly voted for a couple of months ago?

Brian Watson,

Beckfield Lane, York

I’ll buy a monthly £1 DVD with my pension rise

This morning I received a communication from The Pension Service informing me that I will be entitled to a higher state pension as I am approaching 80. This generous addition amounts to 25p per week. This won’t go far: spending a penny at a public convenience in York costs 40 pence!

In June, we senior pensioners will lose our free television licences and, in our house, the radio will come into its own once again. I shall save my weekly 25 pences and purchase a £1 DVD each month from the pound shop for my visual entertainment.

Mary Morton, Hob Moor Drive,

Holgate, York