I said hello to the skinny, sweet-faced salesboys and did a preliminary tour of the room trying on jackets and blazers.

Eventually, the ramshackle Chou government fell apart. In 771 BC the barbarian Jung tribes sacked the Chou capital at Hao, and forced the court to flee eastwards down the Yellow River to Lo-yang. Most of the king's vassals failed to support him in this crisis. This is the context for the famous story about the foolish emperor who called out his nobles with their troops for a joke, to amuse his concubine, so that when a real invasion occurred they no longer took any notice. Whatever the truth of this, the Chou ruler could no longer rely on his over-mighty subjects.

The American Bar Association ruefully admits that the legal profession is overcrowded, especially in large cities. It has a committee studying the situation. Last week an editorial in the New York Law Journal urged a youthful revolt against the city, twanged an idyll of lawing in the country.

Through the Internet, we have access to an unprecedented amassment of information.