A TV commercial for a product to eradicate the bad breath of a pet dog puzzled me as it is something I have hardly ever been concerned about.

However, many folk must have been repulsed by the offensive and obnoxious odour of other peoples' breath - worse than a dog's - caused by their indulging in excessively pungent, alien spiced foods, maybe from the night before, which, in recent years, has become increasingly common. Some folk's homes also reek of it.

It is discourteous and inconsiderate to impose this horrible stench upon others who are unavoidably forced to tolerate it - especially those in public face-to-face occupations.

Evidently, there need to be TV adverts by manufacturers of bad breath repellents to prompt oblivious culprits.

J A MARSDEN, Scarborough Road, Blackburn.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.