THE figure of 33,000 kids who cannot afford shoes may be a wee bit misleading (Evening Times, September 21).

I have claimed the uniform grant for my son in the past. We were certainly not too poor to buy shoes but it did help a great deal.

I know a lot of people at my son's school claim the grant and the kids are running around in expensive tracksuits and trainers. They also seem to have the latest football tops as soon as they come out and their parents never seem to be short of money for fags.

This puts peer pressure on other kids and if they are seen with a pair of Asda trainers at gym their life is made hell.

The fact is, while many parents can afford to buy shoes for their kids, not all of them can afford to buy the right' shoes. Gordon Wilson, Via e-mail Pie in the sky

A GREGGS at Glasgow Airport, that's just brilliant (Evening Times, September 22). At least now foreign visitors arriving at the airport will know what to expect when they eventually reach the city centre - crowds of overweight people stuffing their faces with fatty and sugary snacks and then dumping their paper snack bags in their wake.

Welcome to Glasgow: Scotland with pies! Frank Walker, Craigton GHA won't meet us

FURTHER to Marianne Taylor's articles about Glasgow Housing Association, can I draw attention to the fact that we, 40 owner/occupiers of the New Gorbals Housing Association (block six), are being treated in the same way as the people in Maryhill. We have been told the rent-paying tenants are more important than owner/occupiers and we should start saving up now if we do not have the money to pay for work to be done.

It will not allow us to have a meeting with officials to talk about our properties. It is acting like a dictator.

The article has highlighted practices that have been going on for many years. Jim Harrigan, Hutchesontown Tagging a waste

THE £12million wasted on the failed youth tagging scheme (Evening Times, September 21) could have been used to build new prisons on remote islands off the west coast.

Stop treating these hooligans with kid gloves.

At least when they are locked up, decent people can get on with their lives. George MacLeod, High Possil I saw no ship

I WENT to Greenock to see the QE2's return and what did I see? Shipping containers!

Surely the great ship could have been moored at a quay where the public could have got a good look, and good photographs, of the great lady of the Clyde?

Unless you were one of the great and the good, you could only glimpse bits of the ship.

A wasted opportunity. Neil Fleming, Via e-mail WHAT DO YOU THINK? Email your views to us here. WRITE: Evening Times, 200 Renfield Street, Glasgow G2 3QB. Please include your name and address. TEXT: key in the word 'etletters', leave a space then send your comments to 88010. Max 160 characters. Please include your name or initials and where you're from. Texts cost 25p at all times. HOT TOPIC: Forget the fossils, build the road

ALTHOUGH I'm delighted the archaeological dig in Eglinton Street has turned up an old toothbrush, an elderly milk bottle and some false teeth, I'd be far happier if we simply got on with building the M74 extension.

At the current rate of progress, I'll be a fossil before the link ever becomes a reality. Alex Newlands, South Side Our own Time Team

I WENT along to the open day at the Eglinton Street dig and it was fascinating, our own little bit of Time Team in Glasgow.

The foreign archaeologists were a great bunch and, despite some language difficulties, gave a fascinating glimpse into the history of our city.

Keep up the good work. Claire Wallace, via e-mail We still have tenements

A TENEMENT from 1856 - is it just me, but that wasn't that long ago and we have thousands of tenements.

I would much rather they got on with building the flaming extension! Ian, Glasgow Make capital move

SOME people would happily concrete over their granny if they thought it would cut 10 minutes off their journey time to Edinburgh.

If they are so keen to work there, let them live there. That would cut traffic congestion on the M8 at a stroke. Brian Elder, posted online No more motorways

I WONDER which part of Glasgow will be the next to vanish under a motorway when the traffic on the M74 extension becomes gridlocked?

It's not more motorways we need, but better and cheaper public transport, better rail freight links to take the lorries off our roads and some way of compelling selfish commuters to leave their cars at home.

Most of the gas guzzlers on the M8 are running empty, with only the driver onboard. How about taxing drivers who refuse to share their car with other commuters? Micky Craig, posted online Sign of intelligence?

YEARS from now, a team of intergalactic archaeologists will dig up the M74 extension and the rusting hulks of millions of cars and wonder what kind of backward race thought the solution to traffic congestion was to build yet more motorways.

Intelligent life on other planets? I'd be happy with some on this one. Tony Napier, via e-mail