Greasy Joan
Sir: In your issue of July I, Veronica Orme's rather dismal article about restaurant cooking has been given a rather inaccurate title — 'When Greasy Joan doth keel the pot.' The old song says: "To-whit, to-whoo, a merry note, While greasy Joan doth keel the pot."
To use the word ' when ' instead of ' while ' carries a faint implication that the owl hoots only while pot-keeling is going on! If your contributors cannot get their own quotations right, could not your literary editor do it for them?
I venture to draw your attention to this because I am rather distressed by the recent lowering of standards in your paper — I have been a regular reader of The Spectator for half a century, and I shudder to think what the Maxse family would have thought to see this sort of mistake!
Ann Bridge 27 Charlburv Road, Oxford
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