However odd the updating can get, I wouldn't want the references removed, though -they are how AF wrote the books and I agree that they add to the characterization to some extent - even if Patrick does sometimes seem prematurely middle aged. Maybe this is a bit off the point but I do think that the atmosphere of Peter's Room is a little more fifties than late forties when it is supposed to be set - eg Ginty's dress, which sounds fifties, although I suppose it could be very advanced New Look from London. I'm pretty sure that The Cruel Sea was published early fifties as well. That was only a small slip up, but I wonder if someone pointed it out to AF and she decided she might as well update for the next one - she could reference books TV etc with no problem which can be one of the more enjoyable aspects of the books - they couldn't have been reading Tolkien, Mary Renault etc in the forties (although I consider that interest in social change was likely to be the main reason). The updating would make a TV series of the books difficult though - I'm not sure how it would be done (and probably won't) but I suggest early to mid-sixties, a world that was changing rapidly, but still traditional for many families.