Roundabout
Ox-Eyes
Therefore this year he was offering his. 'Garden of Eden' hair styles. A sumptuous programme explained that `Mr. Raymond is not, as perhaps the first glance implies, turning towards the Bible for inspiration.' It was simply that : The world started with Eden, and he has chosen flowers at random from all over the world to inspire his creations. In place of the gardener's rake Mr. Raymond uses his comb; in place of shears his famous golden scissors; and in place of feeding the earth, he uses his lotions to enrich the growth and texture of the hair.'
Mr. Raymond kept up a commentary while girls ballet-danced about to display their hair, or were trundled on in outsize wicker baskets from which the sides of tulip-shaped canopies fell away, petal- like, to reveal models within. China Aster, Clematis, Dahlia, Marigold were among the flowers Mr. Raymond had selected. The girls were extremely pretty. The hair of one was bright pea-green—'reminiscent of 1910, I think,' mused Mr. Raymond. Another had lilac-coloured locks : `I call this my dancing flower.' Other exquisite lilies were gilded with colours ranging from `Sovereign Gold' to 'Caribbean Green,' Cherry Blossom' (`with the little black bow-bows seamed up at the back, you notice') to 'Daffodil Blonde.' Twice girls overbalanced and fell hair-over- basket, but each time 'Mr. Raymond made his brave, patient little moue and carried on unper- turbed. Subsequently his assistants, or 'artists' as he referred to them throughout, presented Mr. Raymond's 'new perforated net-less wigs,' many said to cost more than a hundred guineas. Each creation was greeted with gasps of delight and applause. 'And so,' said Mr. Raymond with his little smile, 'It is fini.'
But in a banqueting room downstairs there was champagne by the magnum, while ladies argued the merits of Mr. Raymond's new bouffant style, feathered bandeaus, veiling-vizors and his other miracles. Then at last it really was fini, at a reported cost of three thousand pounds, and the ladies flocked out, agreeing that Mr. Raymond Was a truly fabulous hairdresser. Some of them stopped a moment to buy an evening paper from the old-age pensioner outside in Regent Street.
Bull's-Eyes
EYE TO EYE, the archers squinted at baleful targets which lay propped on the grass like magnified, monster bull's-eyes on a sweet-shop shelf. A dozen women involuntarily tightened their stomach muscles, drew back their bows, and released arrows, all of light alloy and unnervingly accurate. Eighty yards away they plopped in a swift shower like raindrops made of dough. After every six arrows the referee bulged and whistled, and his archers advanced over the grass in Lincoln green. Empty leather quivers for carrying arrows slapped against their buttocks. Scorers barked and kept to heel, modelling themselves on bookies' runners. Mystified, a father stumbled and grumbled among abandoned bows, swollen violin cases, tangles of knitting and other odd- ments from an archer's knapsack. 'They need a motto,' he said, 'like the Hounslow Horrors.' Do be quiet,' said his wife. 'our Doris might hear you and I don't know what she'd say.' These women were shooting for their honour—champion female archer of Middlesex. Unflinchingly, unsociably, they fired and retrieved 144 arrows each. The sun went down. Cars along the West London road to Oxford began blinking at the bull's-eyes. And after some old-fashioned clerical work on the score cards a champion was born.
'Oh, the strain was terrible,' wheezed the winner (694 with a basic six arrows). 'Oh, shockin'. Absolutely shockin' agreed her greatest rival and her only visible congratulator. A man hovered, eyes lingering on this champion with her fetching beauty spot, tilted nose, and corduroy jockey cap dotted with matching green badges. `You're a proper Maid Marian,' he said, hesitantly, happily.
'What did she ever shoot on TV?' asked the champion sternly. 'But there is that bleeding awful opening shot, when an arrow goes be-doyng., Whoever does that doesn't know how to keep an arrow under control.'
'It's usually memories of playing cowboys and Indians that starts us on the game,' said a tall, angular man.
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