His proudest offering is a matched pair of 17th-century huanghuali tapered cabinets formerly in the Museum of Classical Chinese Furniture in Renaissance, Calif.

Gentry or not, the swaggies would go from place to place in the hope of being given work, a meal and somewhere to sleep.

The jokes are dust, and Blair, it is rumoured, is living on a jet full time, flying away from himself or, as I think more probable, under a spray-tan machine, staining himself that peculiar shade of orange that interior decorators call Atomic Tangerine, a fine mirror for his madness.

The study of defense mechanisms will remain incomplete so long as they are regarded chiefly as wardings off, renunciations and negative assertions.