Scene. A drycleaner.
Date. When I was in a hotel without access to washing.

Me: How much does it cost to wash a shirt?
She: It depends.
Me: It depends on what?
She: It depends.
Me: What does it dep... oh, eighty pence.



Nicholas, where was that exchange? The Belfast lady I mentioned earlier would have sounded just the same. She told me when I first her that her husband was "idiot". The absence of an article puzzled me, until I realised that she was telling me his age, eighty-eight.