The clutch of letters concerning Weymouth’s promenade lights on June 12 preceded by numerous others on the same subject over the last few years prompts me to “Make a statement” as your headline suggests I do.

A friend of mine did some research this year and found that virtually every cinema in the USA enables the ‘hearing impaired’ (to be politically correct) to read sub-titles at virtually any and every film performance. This is done in such a way that it avoids inflicting subtitles on that section of humanity gifted with good hearing.

Anyone who is deaf can simply ask for a special pair of spectacles to be provided when he or she arrives at a cinema. These have the effect of superimposing subtitles over the screen as if they are floating in the air like holograms. The good thing is that you can’t see subtitles unless you are wearing these glasses and conveniently, they are invisible to everyone else. Heaven forbid the lucky so and so’s being inconvenienced in such a way. Needless to say, us ‘deafies’ can’t wait for Dorchester’s Plaza and Odeon cinemas to provide them.

Surely, it isn’t beyond the capability of the borough council to install ‘multi-purpose’ lights on its promenade which can produce several types of lighting simultaneously; twinklers’, ‘lasers’ and ‘fairy’ are just a few I can think of. This would give wearers of these special spectacles a wonderful choice to suit their mood. I can already hear landladies offering them to their visitors. “How are you today me love? Feeling a bit down? Want to put a bit of sparkle in yer life? Try these when you stroll down the ‘prom’ after your fish and chips’. They’re only £2 a night to hire. Take your pick of lighting types. If they don’t appeal I’ll lend you me hubby’s torch."

Disgruntled residents, and I guess there must be thousands of them, could pay for theirs by a rates surcharge and could also ‘pick and choose’ the type of lighting to suit their mood, provided it’s dark of course. Anything to make them happy and stop them bleating on about a rather unimportant subject when the world is collapsing all around them.

Mike Joslin

Dorchester