ALISTAIR Coe, Deputy Leader of the Opposition, is reported on citynews.com.au as having scoffed at the cost of a cardboard model of a possible carriage for the Capital Metro light rail (“$11,000 for a cardboard tram?”, March 6).

I did not see it, but the model appears to be half-size.

Alistair Coe obviously is unaware of the skills and knowledge that would be required by a professional model maker to construct such an object, not the cost of the materials that would be required.

He also is said to have dismissed it on the basis that it is a lot of pay for a “cardboard box”. Once again, the skills and knowledge of artists are dismissed by members of the Opposition in the ACT Legislative Assembly.

I draw to his attention that $11,320 (the precise figure he quotes) is a small amount to pay.

The tram would have to have been structurally sound for people to be able to go inside and, therefore, be of a heavy duty material. It obviously had some seats – these can be seen in the background behind the child.

Will he blast the Federal government for commissioning a full-size mock-up of the Royal Australian Air Force’s F-35A Lightening II on public display in Russell?

When will the Opposition take Canberra artists and the works they create seriously and give them the respect they deserve?

Meredith Hinchliffe, O’Connor

A grammar ‘grrr’

ONE of my pet grammar “grrrs” is the substitution of “fulsome” for “fully”  and the Canberra commentariat constantly misuse this overworked and misunderstood adjective.

Look it up, Robert Macklin (Seven Days, CN, March 5) “fulsome” is not a substitute for “fully” – in fact it has quite a different meaning and one that may surprise you.

Note to the Canberra media – longer words may sound more impressive, but may also be incorrect.

Tina Faulk, Swinger Hill

Doing tourists a favour

AT the same time a Bangkok-based columnist in another publication bemoans Canberra’s lack of ubiquitous public wifi networks and how this makes the place seem like a “backwater” to tourists, in “CityNews” the highly tech-savvy John Griffiths tells us to never ever ever use a public wifi network!

Maybe we’re doing the tourists a favour – not only will they have to find a more secure way of communicating, but they might actually stop looking at their screens and start looking around at the place they came to visit!

Vanessa M, via email

Weather or not?

THERE was a suggestion recently that Prime TV was considering a fully local afternoon news broadcast given WIN’s Canberra news hadn’t been well received following its relocation to Wollongong.

Sorry, but I can’t see Prime doing it successfully if its 5pm weather report is anything to go by. Some of the weather maps don’t even show Canberra, although Alice Springs and Broome do appear.

And when weatherman David Brown does a whip around of “the capitals”, he (more often than not) skips over Canberra and its forecast as if he’s reluctant to admit that Canberra even exists, or maybe he feels it’s not important enough to rate as a capital.

M Mcgregor, Curtin