The Oldie, 23-31 Great Titchfield Street, London, W1W 7PA letters@theoldie.co.uk To sign up for our e-newsletter, go to www.theoldie.co.uk
Light relief
SIR: Like Gyles Brandreth, my husband and I are great fans of Bargain Hunt. As well as enjoying the banter between contestants, presenters, experts and auctioneers, we’re often amused by the discrepancies between what is actually said and the (presumably) computergenerated subtitles.
The best we’ve spotted to date relates to one of Philip Serrell’s finds, ‘ewer and basin’, being rendered as ‘urine basin’.
Maggie Cobbett, Ripon, North Yorkshire
Shell toil
SIR: I have just read Memory Lane in the November issue and it certainly brought back memories of my days as a petrolpump attendant back in the 1960s. I too had a holiday/Saturday job, at our local Shell garage, and in 1964/65 Super Shell was 5/6d a gallon while Shell-Mex was only 4/6d.
One had to be very careful of blowback in those days, and unfortunately the only time I mistimed
