"We continue to maintain a cautious view of the housing and macro-demand environment, and are focused on what we can control," Niblock added.

''Loungewear'' is to pyjamas what the computer is to the typewriter. "Once upon a time a man might have put on his smoking jacket at the end of the day," says Rose, "and then it was jeans and a T-shirt. Now it's become even more relaxed." The stand-out ''loungewear'' items by Derek Rose are its Basel shorts (?6 and T-shirt (?6, which are made from an Austrian beechwood fibre, MicroModal, blended with Lycra, and which feel disconcertingly as if they aren't there at all.

"Two key near term benefits of Smart Grids for utilities are operational and asset efficiency, along with improved reliability and quality of electrical service," said Allan Schurr of IBM Global Energy and Utilities. "Smart meters will enable their consumers to use energy more efficiently. Finally, Smart Grids will improve the reliability and lower the cost of incorporating significantamounts of renewable energy supplies."

She is defensive but amused by the bad reputations that Nigerians have in parts of Africa, and outside it. It is down to what I call the aggressive confidence of Nigerians, that is why we are not very popular. In South Africa we are not liked at all; they think we are all drug dealers, and that Nigerian men are taking women away from South Africans. There is an idea that Nigerians come to a country and want to take it over.

Perhaps the most interesting speculation revolves around the Labour candidate, John O'Farrell. It was not in any off-the-cuff, over-the-top, spur-of-the-moment that Mr O'Farrell expressed his support for the SinnFein/IRA terrorists who attempted to murder Margaret Thatcher in the Brighton bombing. He put his thoughts into a book. It was published. They are on the record.