Sir, – Further to “The messages: Alison Healy on great shopping lists of history”, An Irishwoman’s Diary, July 21st), Michelangelo’s pencil sketches of tortellini, anchovies and fennel may be the most beautiful shopping list ever, as Alison Healy writes, but Beethoven’s note to buy a metronome, a lighter, three razors, soap and a mousetrap not only reminds us that the composer of the Ninth Symphony faced the mundane realities of life, but achieved €70,000 at auction a decade ago. – Yours, etc,
Dr JOHN DOHERTY,
Stratford-upon-Avon,
Warwickshire, UK.