Ours is definitely the era of the fancy petrol station selling fancy cheese and jolly wine - in addition to lubricants and other mechanical goodies.

Some, it seems, still hanker after the days when added value meant a garage man doing obscure tasks with an oily rag.

Fergus Cahill, chairman of the Irish branch of the Institute of Petroleum, has made a plea to salvage the old-style garage.

"It is quite impossible nowadays to find someone who will admit to retailing motor fuels," he told a function last week. "They all want to be grocers, fast food purveyors or hirers of doubtful videos."

"In fact, and I hope that my many friends will forgive me, I'm beginning to think that petroleum retailers have a lot in common with brothel keepers, in that neither will ever admit publicly to it being their core business."

Ah Fergus. Things can't be that bad. Garages were garages in the good old days and wineshops were wineshops. Now they're one and the same. Brothels? Well, brothels are still brothels.