Despite previous comments made by the Prince of Wales about the decline in the proper use of the English language, I'm forced to report a howler he made in a speech on Sunday. At the unveiling of the Battle of Britain monument on the Victoria Embankment, Charles announced: "It gives my wife and I the greatest possible pride."

Clearly, what Charles meant to say was: "It gives my wife and me."

"It's bad grammar, a schoolboy error and one that any good script doctor should have noticed," says my pedantic mole.

Language boffins at Oxford University Press confirm the gaffe. "This is a very common mistake," says the English language expert Angus Stevenson.

"The technical term for this error is hyper-correction. People tend to commit it when they try to sound posh, which is ironic in the case of Prince Charles, who's heir to the throne."

(From a recent "Daily Telegraph" article)

At the weekend, I was on the South Coast and, on entering the small town of Emsworth, I noticed a Total filling-station that was displaying the price of unleaded petrol at 102.9 pence per litre.

On leaving the town, about a mile further on, another Total filling-station was selling the same fuel at 92.9 pence per litre!

You don't have to ask which one had the queues.

There are difficulties when the price of a litre goes over 99.9 pence.

Today's Daily Telegraph reports: "Thousands of petrol pumps will need to be changed if, as feared, prices reach £1 a litre. More than two thirds of Britain's pumps are unable to show a petrol price above 99.99p per litre."

However, there are ways round it and, when we last had high fuel prices, a petrol station in the Scottish Highlands displayed this notice:

"IMPORTANT"

The pumps at this station
are set to compute the
total cash sale at half the
advertised price.

Customers must pay
DOUBLE
the Cash Amount
shown on the pumps.

What about the receipt for expenses though? I suppose they give two.

P.S. My local Sainsbury's was today selling unleaded petrol at 91.9 pence per litre. So I filled up!