Sir, My understanding of the word twit is that it means daft-stupid-idiot, in the sense a “person given to twittering” (Collins Concise).

The Sainsbury store at Heyford Hill, in promoting the DVD of the film Twelve Years a Slave, used a mannequin dressed in clothing depicted in the film. It wasn’t real, it was a depiction. Maybe if some boot polish had been applied, it might have appeased the trivia critics.

However the self-appointed progressive guardians of what we are and are not allowed to see stepped in, apparently using Twitter to harass Sainsbury into taking down this display. In the 1960s and 1970s, it was Mary Whitehouse, today it is twitters.

It makes you wonder if these twitter people should get out a bit more, see a bit of the real world instead of wrapping themselves up in their own peculiar electronic comfort zone, oblivious of how the real world is and surrounded in a sort of unrealistic trivia mist.

However, my real annoyance is with the Sainsbury spokesman for bending the knee to this pathetic critical tirade. It seems to be happening more and more, never mind the really serious issues going on in the world, let’s concentrate on the trivial.

Ooops, I should have been more inclusive and referred to the Sainsbury spokesperson, not man, sorry about that.

Alan Lester

Abingdon