‘When did ‘at’ the weekend become ‘on’ the weekend, and why?” asked Kate Wade, of Henley, in a letter to the Daily Telegraph on Tuesday.

It was news to me that Brits are saying ‘on the weekend’. If they are, though, it has clearly become another linguistic import from North America.

Many of my readers, I am sure, will remember its use in the title of the first track of Harvest, an album by the Canadian Neil Young: On the Weekend. The disc was released in 1972.

Almost as old is the comic ‘chestnut’ which featured yesterday in the letters column of The Times. “Lillee caught Willey bowled Dilley,” which was said to be still delighting cricket fans.

By a strange coincidence, Graham Dilley, the England player referred to, died yesterday, aged just 52.

Another commentary line likely to be offered soon (today?) by another Times reader — is “the bowler’s Holding, the batsman’s Willey”, said to have been uttered on air by BBC commentator Brian Johnston when Michael Holding of the West Indies was bowling to Peter Willey of England in a Test match at The Oval in 1976.

Johnners and others said the line had never gone out over the airwaves. But Henry Blofeld, who was present on the occasion, swore it had.