Consuming Interest

Present Indicative

By LESLIE ADRIAN MANY is the time I have longed to break a leg around Christmas I have been looking into the ways in which one can give an imaginative present without stirring outside the front door; and there are surprisingly many. To start with, there are instalment presents.

A weekly or monthly bunch of flowers, starting on the day, can be arranged with some florists. Briggs, 3 New Quebec Street, WI (PAD 6608), will take such orders from 10s. a time at monthly intervals. A regular bottle .of wine over how- ever short a period would gladden any heart: Hedges and Butler, 153 Regent Street, WI (REG 4444), and 22 The Arcade, Bournemouth, will handle such orders and have a wide free-delivery area. They will also post single bottles, but that costs 3s. 6d. extra. A season ticket for the Zoo (Regent's Park) runs from October to Easter, but at 7s. 6d. for a child and 15s. for an adult is still a bargain for animal-lovers who get it for Christmas. Or you can buy membership of the Zoo's XYZ Club for a little friend for 10s. a year; it includes three free visits to either Zoo, a quarterly copy of Zoo Magazine, an information bureau service about animals, meetings and competitions. A Hampstead artist, Tamo de Jongh, does pencil portraits of children for two guineas. Phone him at SW1 5067 or write to 33 Christchurch Hill, NW3.

Suttons (69 Piccadilly, WI) offer seed tokens from 7s. 6d. up (the card is 6d. above the value of the gift), and are delighted to send catalogues either to you or the person the token is intended for-or you can simply order some named rose trees.

John Voges, Pine Trees, Portsmouth Road, Esher, have agreed to accept orders (mark your envelopes Dept. Gifts) for vouchers to be fol- lowed by a catalogue for the recipient to choose his own selection of bulbs. These will be sent, with planting instructions, at the right season. And another practical thought might be a month or two of the nappy service to a new mother. Deposit £1, returnable, and 35s. a month from Sunwhite, 3 Hythe Road, NWIO (LAD 6456). Other instalment presents could be regular supplies (or just one, if money is short) of liver pate (2s. 6d. for 4 oz. and multiples up to 9s. per lb. from Clanhouse Produce, Clanville, Andover, Hants), of Devonshire cream (4- lb. weekly for a month, 23s. 6d., or 6s. singly, from J. K. Ashe, Churston Ferrers, Brijham, South Devon), or herbs (three bunches for 3s. at any interval in the season from Country Style, 18 Ship Street, Brighton, Sussex). For 25s. you can arrange with Mr. Rowse, of Ewelme, Oxon (Ewelme 55), that you have 6 lb. of his English honey sent anywhere in the UK.

Even if you are compulsorily drawn to the bright lights and giddy rush of 'personal shop- ping,' there is a lot to be said for avoiding the concrete-mixer department stores in favour of smaller specialist shops in London's side-streets. In New Quebec Street, at No. 23, I 'found (not for the first time) J. and A. Ostmo (PAD 7474), a Norwegian firm specialising in clean-cut jewel- bright pottery and glass, but with such dainty things in stock as cotton handkerchiefs for chil- dren printed in gay, Norse patterns, money boxes in the shape of hand-carved wooden cows, and colourful herb jars. The handkerchiefs cost 3s. and 5s. 6d., the cows 7s. 6d. and 18s. 6d., and the jars 6s. 6d. An idea not confined to Ostmo, but beautifully executed in the Scandinavian manner by them, are their tiles for the children's rooms, with their names on them, made to order for 13s.

Finland Designs, 2 Norris Street, SW1 (TRA 1188) provide the elongated elegance in everyday objects which one has come to expect from north- eastern Europe. Tall glasses in smoky grey, clear green and red (30s. for six, matching jug 19s. 9d.), coffee cups about four inches deep (6s. with saucer), cane-handled teapots with deep-seated lids (looking like ginger jars with spouts, 19s. 9d. and 32s.) and for sheer magnificence (plus munificence) a double decanter, one nesting in- side the other, with stoppers reminiscent of old Baghdad (five guineas).

For pottery in many shapes and muted colours there is Mrs. Eileen Lewenstein's studio at 1 Park Village West, NW1 (EUS 6497). The prices tend to be from a guinea upwards, for platters, bowls, jugs and ornamental shapes. These as gifts will certainly attract applause for originality. The Briglin Pottery, 22 Crawford Street, WI (WEL 0605), sells some of Mrs. Lewenstein's work, as well as its own, which includes tiles designed by Kenneth Clark and a pottery table lighter not from the Ronson stable, for a change. The tiles (8s. 3d. each) in greens, blues and blacks, and bearing leaf and tear-drop motifs, are handsome enough to stand alone, on duty as a base for hot pans or teapots. The lighter costs 30s. (In fair- ness I would add that there is a Ronson ashtray and lighter set in black and white Wade pottery which would make a most welcome gift, but costs £3 19s. 6d.) Monica Howie, 3 Thurloe Place, SW7 (KEN 5354), also sells ceramics, stainless steel flatware and glass. Well worth a visit, and notice the mobiles (if it's decorations you want) priced from ls. 3d. and the washable furry toys (with irremov- able eyes) from 10s. 3d. to 34s. I Id.

In Sloane Street. SW1, is Primavera (No. 149, SLO 5779, and 10 King's Parade, Cambridge), where the proprietors bring back from their European safari an annual bag of out-of-the-way ideas which are guaranteed to keep any would-be Father Christmas well supplied. From Devon come the hand-carved toys which keep Sam Smith steadily busy all the year round : his fishing boats cost 22s. 6d., silly sheep, cheerful lions, and dash- ing horses are 12s., 30s. (lions are extra) and 15s. respectively, and the little cribs in special gift boxes 21s. There are almost unbreakable shell alphabets by Sam Smith and Gladys Jewett (his, limpets, 25s.; hers, small 15s., large 21s.), a fascinating wood-block cat who is versatile enough to turn into a house or a truck costs 10s. 6d., and a profusion of other presents which the curious must simply go and see for themselves.

Two department stores with initiative which deserve credit are Heal's and Hamptons. Among the possible gifts I noted at Heal's were a set of six blue and cream mixing bowls fitting one inside the other (31s. 6d.), really long toasting forks meant for barbecues, I imagine (wrought iron, 6s. 6d.), fine flower and herb prints (unframed, 10s. 6d, and 21s.), Swedish oven mitts, bright enough to lighten the heavy work (5s. 6d. each-a pair would please more than twice as much), and for the car owner the `Magniray Map-reader,' which illuminates and magnifies the ordnance map and eliminates signpost climbing from the Christmas journey.

At Hamptons: the nutcracker which does everything else as well, and earns its name of the 'open-all' (23s. 9d.), a hand balance for the air traveller-use it before you set out and avoid excess baggage charges (at 12s. 9d. this gadget could pay for itself if it were used only once), Swedish glass beer mugs (9s.), a mahogany wall rack with six glass jars, ground glass stoppered, for spices (34s. 6d.).

Such lists could be much extended, especially where the amount to be spent is about £1. For inspiration, a look in at Liberty or Harrods costs nothing; and Harrods will provide a gift-wrapping service from 2s. upwards, if you are hopelessly tempted by something lovely but unwieldy. A word of warning here: they will pack either for decoration or for the GPO-not both.

Finally, here is a suggestion for the Christmas guest-an alternative to the traditional orange- and-lemon slices and a bottle of sherry. Alcoholic crackers-each containing a miniature liqueur bottle-are made by Benedictine at 35s. 6d. for six. antique and junk shops can produce some Icively things—and some pretty terrible ones too. Their prices often seem quite haphazard : a glass pear that costs 25s. new in Knightsbridge is 27s. 6d. secondhand in Hampstead : and 1 went into a second-hand shop not far from these offices a week or two ago to try to stop them selling an old Chianti bottle, empty and without straw, for 37s. 6d. When challenged, they said weakly that it was 'one of a pair.' Only an exhaustive know-

ledge of all the cheaper glass and pottery on sale (even in Woolworth's) for the last twenty years is an effective safeguard against this sort of thing.

A few weeks ago I mentioned that Payton's Artists Supplies do picture-framing in twenty- four hours, This apparently brought such a rush of trade to the shop that Mr. Roberts, who runs it, told his assistant in jest that 'At this rate, it'll

be taking us three weeks to frame a picture!' After which he went out to lunch, and returned to discover that the assistant had actually told someone that three weeks was the time it took, and the someone had understandably gone off in disgust. So he has asked me to mention the inci- dent in the hope of mollifying the unknown reader : 'If he reads this,' he writes, 'will he please bring in his pictures and I will frame them immediately and also apologise to him.'