The run-up to my prostate examination | Brief letters

At the doctor’s | Phone safety | Passwords | Heinz advert

Lucy Mangan, writing about her doctor joking about her kidneys (Digested week, 4 October), reminded me of having an examination for an enlarged prostate. As I lay on the couch waiting for the procedure, my doctor said: “In accordance with current NHS guidelines, I have to take a run-up.” It made me feel less discomfited.
David Noonan
Earley, Berkshire

• En route for Colombia in 2018, I threaded a chain through the case of my new iPhone. I kept the chain looped round my wrist to reduce the chance of it being snatched when I was out in the streets or dropped when I was leaning over a precipice. And it made it easier to find the phone in the dark of a hostel room or in the gloom of the Salt Cathedral. I’ve never taken the chain off. The advantages are as pertinent to London as they are to Bogotá (‘They rob you visibly, with no repercussions’ – the unstoppable rise of phone theft, 9 October).
Judith Harvey
Oxford