Letters: Targets in practice | Accordion joke | Vanishing wildlife | Perfect pug | Duck versus hen

Forgive me for being a daft woman, but I’m a little bewildered by the promise to halve violence against women (How can Labour deliver on its pledge to halve violence against women and girls?, 13 October). What happens to the women in the remaining half? Shouldn’t the target be to eliminate all violence again women, or is this just an example of the irrelevance of targets?
Joy Mead
Great Missenden, Buckinghamshire

• My favourite accordion joke (Letters, 9 October) is the one about the man who drives to the supermarket with his accordion on the back seat of his car. After parking, he walks about 20 yards, but then realises he hasn’t locked the car. So he runs back in a panic. Too late! There are already 12 more accordions in the car.
Michael Bulley
Chalon-sur-Saône, France

• We are in a strange place indeed when the finding that global wildlife populations have plunged by an average of 73% in 50 years (10 October) isn’t the main talking point in our news, analysis and bus-stop encounters. Why? What comes next?
Tom Boyd
Culbokie, Highland

• In a world of trouble and strife, Noella Cooper’s beautifully written piece on Verity the pug (The pet I’ll never forget, 7 October) was moving, showing so well how much pets are able to give and to help through their open, guileless and courageous souls. Thank you.
Jane Farrington
Leamington Spa, Warwickshire

• Here in Scotland, instead of “duck” (Adrian Chiles, 10 October) we get “hen”, though it isn’t applied to males, and even for females seems to be age-limited.
Margaret Squires
St Andrews, Fife

• Do you have a photograph you’d like to share with Guardian readers? If so, please click here to upload it. A selection will be published in our Readers’ best photographs galleries and in the print edition on Saturdays.