MORE THAN ONCE in the past I have complained about
silly or misleading advertisements put out by the tourist authorities here, designed to lure dollar spenders over. There was one, I remem- ber, which actually boasted about the meals on British Railways' restaurant cars. Professor Patrick Cruttwell, of the University of California, has sent me another prize specimen, a brochure which, he says, has been circulating in California, attracting some derision there. It begins with a quiet grammatical error—`ceremonies, the origin of many of which are older than recorded history'—and goes on to describe the seasons in Britain with a heavy-handed levity illustrated in the sentence : 'Autumn leaves. if not as thick as the leaves in Vallombrosa, wherever that may be, are nevertheless plentiful.' But the prize for the year's dottiest boost for Britain must go to a qualification (after an assurance to the summer traveller that he will have plenty .to do): 'that is not to say, however, that should he be so minded, the visitor is not at liberty to lie in a hammock beneath a shady tree sipping a glass of chilled Barsac.'
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