Set against the seductive visual and textual imagery of these soft-focus fantasy worlds, the stock list details offer the reader a very real solution to achieving the look themselves, ‘Hair, including coloured fringes (obtainable from Joseph, £3.50) by Paul Nix’ (Baker 1972a: 68).

My favorite of the moment: a sleeping man in a long cattle trough, planted with thousands of a Sedum album called Red Ice, now turning ruby red in the cold, with sempervivum eyes on a head-size volcanic rock, and two farmer-like feet made of same.

The big advantage such multiples can offer over a purely catalogue operation is that winners can be given shopping vouchers enabling them to choose from goods on display in the multiples' many outlets (Woolworths, for example, has 1,000).

Mr. Cooke at once began a tirade against the residents of Asquith for permitting a sandy and generally disgraceful condition of the roads. So roundly did he vituperate the inn management in particular, and with such a loud flow of words, that I trembled lest he should be heard on the veranda.