You folks might find this amusing.

We need a bit of redcoration done inthe house following some building work
so we asked my brother in law (who is a painter and decorator but lives too
far away to be able to do the job) how much it would be likely to cost.
He said he would charge about  £200 to £300  for the job, and he is not at
the cheap end of the scale.
Its some fairly basic repainting and some painting of new plaster. A days
work, maybe two half days as they might need to leave some stuff to dry.

So..... we got three painters out to give us an estimate and their prices
ranged from £600 to £900.

[punchline]
I phoned my brother in law back and he says it would have been £200 if I had
parked the Mercs round the corner when they came!