As the world's drug habit shows, governments are failing in their quest to monitor every London window-box and Andean hillside for banned plants. But even that Sisyphean task looks easy next to the fight against synthetic drugs. No sooner has a drug been blacklisted than chemists adjust their recipe and start churning out a subtly different one.

He was a strongman and an understander for the acrobats.

For the sake of convenience, we may call these pointings or signifyings the secondary phase of meaning.

In their bedroom I found a wetsuit and handcuffs. The mind boggles!