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I can't find them anywhere. In truth I found them unsatisfying and slightly eery. I wanted to like them, for they had the solidity of the old. They were round, transparent, but too much geared for 'childlike fascination', i.e. for poets, not for real children. There was an ugly flake in the middle, representing a colour, but always an unattractive shade, and the shape and texture of the flakes were definitely rather horrible.

And what, precisely, could one use them for? Eventually, just as I should by rights have been feeling too old for them, I found a use, thanks to David Vine. Substitute snooker. But then next Christmas my parents gave my brother and me an actual quarter-size snooker table. I liked the motion, the motion of the body in playing a shot and the motion of the snooker balls. Solitary snooker accompanied my meditations: a misspent youth - meditating.

So, as quite often, I feel slightly guilty and regretful for not being more excited about things of which I approve.

But anyway, aweeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee, the sun has got his hat on (or has she?), Miriam Margolyes, abracadabra Unreliable Witness, zxcvbnm. And a packet of cheese and onion flavour crisps, please.