The team at Antigone love a good letter – and this week’s mailbag did not disappoint. We received a fascinating missive from an esteemed reader wh

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2021-06-14 08:30:04

The team at Antigone love a good letter – and this week’s mailbag did not disappoint. We received a fascinating missive from an esteemed reader who daintily signs off as “A Shy and Now Retiring Professor of Classics”. It is the only letter we can remember that had already been dropped to the floor in shock before the toast fell from our mouth onto it.

Perhaps you can help me with something that has puzzled me for six decades and more? I remember it well in the Chuckery Hotel: it was the summer of 1969, and I was leafing through the Walsall Observer while waiting for a gig (by Earth, I think: whatever happened to them?). I was desperately hunting for a car with more than three wheels, and my eye was caught by the enclosed advertisement:

I knew technology was moving fast but I was shocked not to have any clue about what this hot new lingo heralding the Vauxhall range meant. Since I could not “overcome the language barrier”, as the advert breezily suggested I should, a quick bike ride to Sutton took me to the Jennens team. The forecourt manager (with a face like fourpence) told me in no uncertain terms: “It’s Latin, yow saft clarnet”. So I spent the rest of the summer trying to make the Latin work. I understood diddly-squat – sweet F.A. – but at least it inspired me to give academia a pop.

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