IT may be of interest to note that yet again during this pandemic the UK power grid has had to rely upon Europe.

Since last weekend, Scotland and the rest of mainland Britain has had to depend upon European imported power to keep our lights on and our hospitals and labs functioning as wind generation has collapsed and solar output in the cloudy, short-daylight weather has been typically low and brief.

As at Tuesday mid-afternoon (March 2) Scotland was importing more than 1000MW from England, almost equivalent to a second Torness, who in turn are importing 5000MW, the maximum possible, from Europe ­– mostly nuclear power from France, where the new interconnector commissioned just recently is running flat out.

UK wind with a connected capability of greater than 25000MW was producing 0.59MW, equivalent to 1.47 per cent of our demand.

Besides the European imports the UK is running close to maximum on primarily imported gas at 52%, nuclear at 9.5%, burning of imported and environmentally questionable American woodchips at 7.4% which we subsidise at circa £780m per year through our bills, elderly coal stations using imported coal at 6.7% and even filthy Open Cycle Gas Turbines.

We have been running coal almost every day over the last month with wind having seriously nosedived yet again since midday last Saturday.

Whilst the French may have been reluctant initially to accept the Oxford vaccine, we are obliged that they continue to power us in the continuing absence of adequate UK baseload and standby capability during this latest UK energy collapse.

DB Watson, Cumbernauld.

WHY HAVE AN OMBUDSMAN?

I HAVE just written to the Ombudsman concerning the poor response time by a Scottish Ambulance Service (SAS) ambulance. My mother is 99 years old and fell at 9pm, breaking her pelvis. She could not move and lay on the floor of an unheated house until being found by police at 11.50am the following day. The police then summoned the ambulance which arrived at 2.59 pm; 18 hours after the fall and three hours after the call.

After requesting background information from SAS on the incident, a form letter with little substance and no evidentiary material was received. I contacted the Ombudsman for an independent assessment of the SAS performance and received five pages of platitudes repeating what the SAS had said.

The office of the Ombudsman made no independent investigation, just asked SAS for its views and added no value to the process. What is the value of the Ombudsman?

David MacLean, Somerset.

SUB NAMES ARE NOT ANGLOCENTRIC

IAN Graham (Letters, March 2) suggests that the names of the next three attack submarines to be commissioned by the Royal Navy, Anson, Agamemnon and Agincourt are "Anglocentric".

Does he know that Agamemnon was Greek?

The names are in fact those of Royal Navy battleships and, in 1905, the Agamemnon was the first battleship to be launched at the new Naval Contruction Yard of William Beardmore in Clydebank, so the name does have a Scottish connection.

In Greek mythology, Agamemnon was the brother of Menelaus, whose wife, Helen, had the face "that launched a thousand ships", the navy that sailed to Troy to avenge the fact that the said Helen had gone off with Paris, son of the King of Troy.

In view of this perhaps the next rowing boat required by the Royal Navy could be named "Peter Murrell", as his wife has launched one ship which so far, for reasons that are still to be fully explained, has not sailed anywhere after three years.

Peter Wylie, Paisley.

HARES DO DESTROY TREES

IN response to Bernard Zonfrillo (Letters, March 3) giving a point of view on the diet of white or mountain hares that they don't eat trees, I beg to differ. Personal experience gained during my youth in Sanquhar and the Forest of Ae tells me that white hares do eat trees. When young, conifers often protrude through snow cover, leaving the growing tip of the tree poking out of the snow at a perfect height for the hare to eat. This destroys the tree, making it unable to grow to proper maturity.

I confess I did shoot the hares at that time, however I would not do so now. It must be at least 60 years ago and the trees saved will probably be cropped by now.

Wallace Milligan, Ayr.

UM... WHAT'S THE PLURAL?

MAY I end the puzzlement of Forbes Dunlop (Letters, March 3) regarding the use of plurals ending in “a” as singulars? This is due to the absence of Latin from school curricula; anyone under 50 is unlikely to have had much exposure to the subject, and therefore has not learned that for singulars which end in “-um”, the plural ends in “-a”.

Those of us fortunate – and old – enough to have had an education in the classics now regularly have our teeth set on edge by such usages – I have even seen “alumni” used as a singular.

Hilary Shearer, Cumbernauld.

* FORBES M Dunlop is more puzzled than pedantic. I may be accused of both.

The frequent media use of stadia as the plural of stadium grates with me. The plural of the Latin word stadium is indeed stadia, but we speak English here, not Latin. We do not pronounce Paris as Paree. Singular words are often adopted from other languages, but the plurals are used as in English.

Such conundrums, surely not conundra, will persist.

David Miller, Milngavie.