The Old Un’s Notes

When the Old Un was in short trousers, he was taught French by singing familiar songs in the language. And now you can do the same with Latin.

In her new book, Latin Rocks On, classicist Sarah Rowley translates pop lyrics into Latin, from Madonna to Michael Jackson. Proceeds from the book go directly to Classics for All, the admirable charity that raises money to teach classics in state schools.

So, here’s your starter for ten. What famous English lyric translates into Latin like this?

‘ Lucia in caelo cum gemmis…’

And here’s a really tricky one:

‘ Quod tu velis, cara, id habeo. Quod tu requires, scisne edo id acceperim? Rogo modo paucam reverentiam.’

Answers at the end of the Old Un’s Notes.

Happy 110th birthday to Britain’s two oldest men, who, by an extraordinary coincidence, were born on the same day.

Alf Smith, from St Madoes, near Perth, and Robert Weighton, from Hull, were both born on 29th March 1908. They’ve never met but, in a heartwarming way, they each send the other birthday cards.

As is so often the case, there seems no magical elixir that keeps them going to such a great age. They appear to have little in common except for both spending some time in Canada – and for both being born on that mysteriously blessed day.

Smith puts his long life down to plenty of porridge and working happily on his farm until he was in his eighties.

Weighton, who worked as an engineer across the world, puts it down to luck and laughter. ‘I think laughter is extremely important,’ he says. ‘Most of the trouble in the world is caused by people taking themselves too seriously.’

The Old Un couldn’t agree more and wishes them both many happy returns and plenty more laughter.

Miles Goslett is the investigative journalist who first exposed the wicked ways of Jimmy Savile in The Oldie. As he wrote in the Spring issue of the magazine, he also first sensed something was wrong with the children’s charity Kids Company at the Oldie of the Year lunch in 2014.

Now he has written An Inconvenient Death: How the Establishment Covered Up the David Kelly Affair. Readers of The Oldie helped to raise £40,000 for a judicial review of the decision forbidding a coroner’s inquest into Dr Kelly’s death.

One of the book’s gripping revelations is the £4.15 scoop that launched the whole tragic affair. That was the cost of the Coca-cola and the Appletise that Andrew Gilligan, then the defence correspondent of the Today programme, bought at the Charing Cross Hotel on 22nd May 2003.

Gilligan was buying the drinks for himself and Kelly. And, in return, according to Gilligan, Kelly ‘allegedly then went on to tell Gilligan that there was considerable unease within the intelligence services about the accuracy of a dossier published by the British government on 24th September 2002’. This dossier – called ‘Iraq’s Weapons of Mass Destruction, the Assessment of the British Government’ – made the infamous claim that Iraq could deploy chemical or biological weapons within 45 minutes.

Does that £4.15 bill make Gilligan’s story the cheapest scoop in Fleet Street history? The dossier exposing the 2009 MPS’ expenses scandal cost the Daily Telegraph £110,000 – cheap at the price, given the scoop’s impact.

Then again, the British Press Awards Scoop of the Year the previous year cost absolutely nothing. That was the 2008 story about Russell Brand and Jonathan Ross making obscene