Unfortunately delivery didn't seem to be this particular firm's strong point

Unfortunately, delivery didn't seem to be this particular firm's strong point. The leaflet was among a pile of several dozen in a litter bin, presumably where some bored terrestrial leaflet distributor had decided to dump them.. Even before the latest kidnapping of five Westerners, the Kashmiris had a bad reputation among tourists, going back centuries and undeserved. Once again, the Internet was to blame."All estate agents promise you the world Only we deliver it," boasted the leaflet.

Perhaps they're away at boarding school.All in all, it was a relief to return to the city, where no one under the age of 25 has a job - but they all have mobile phones; where tattooed spiders' webs on neck and chin are a popular fashion item; and where the hostility, especially in warm weather, is out in the open.How quickly new technology declines from thrilling, to commonplace, to plain tedious. One minute the famous Internet is going to usher in what the enthusiasts at Wired magazine wittily call "renaissance.2"; the next it's a replacement for the Yellow Pages.The Weasel's unending search for the world's least interesting Internet stories has struck gold with the discovery of a couple of absolute winners on the "World Wide Web". There is, for instance, a site operated by a family bakery in Whitby, which permits the bespectacled denizens of cyberspace to order fresh plum bread, biscuits and gingerbread, though what they're like by the time they arrive in California is anybody's guess.Now I read that the South Bucks Star has gone "on-line", ensuring that people crouched over terminals in Los Alamos or Geneva can be in constant touch with the big stories in Gerrards Cross, for instance whether anyone has lost a dog.The sheer preposterousness of this may, however, be matched by the promise I read on a handout recently, in which a firm of estate agents claimed that their customers' property details would reach 35 million people (they would need to, of course, given the current state of the property market). And all the while the village looks so peaceful, so clean, so bucolic: this may be, of course, because there are few children and no adolescents. Every so often open hostility breaks out, usually over that perennial source of neighbourly tension, car parking. The rest of the time it is sudden silences in the pub, terse exchanges in the village shop, a whole sorry saga of misunderstanding and embarrassment.Those who peddle Class War in Hackney and Moss Side don't know the half of it. The newcomers, who have the jobs in the City which provide the money to buy the houses that great- grandfather Jack built, talk mainly to each other.

The other villagers stay out of their way, except, of course, if they have a house to sell. "You could probably do better than most of them." "They don't pick this side on merit," came the reply, and out poured a sorry tale illustrating the remarkable capacity of English people to make other English people miserable.Like so many villages within commuting distance of London, this one seems riven with dissent. My host, no mean sportsman, essayed a few half-hearted swipes with an imaginary bat and let out a deep sigh "Why don't you join," I suggested, innocently. It took place in the garden of a thatched cottage in one of those villages that seems not to have changed in centuries. Lunch was served outdoors, beside fragrant rose bushes and trees of ripening fruit A gentle stream tinkled merrily beyond the lawn. Later, a flock of Beatrix Potter ducks wandered up to join us.Lunch over, we were drawn across the way to a cricket field bounded by mature trees and a lake, and watched for a few minutes as the home side collapsed.

Win or lose, your best jumpers would have to stay in quarantine for six months after the event, which would hardly help their training schedule.You could bring them back into the country: but you'd have to eat them first.An idyllic Sunday lunch in the country has left this decidedly urban Weasel contemplating a move: and rejecting the idea. "It's a very, very small part of the book," her husband tells me, in the long-suffering tones of one who wishes he'd never ever heard of the phenomenon.It is probably not too late for some enthusiast to enter the championship, but there is a snag. As yet, there seem to be no showjumping rabbits in the country Still, it's early days. The sport has only recently received its first write-up here, in a book called The Pet Owner's Guide to Rabbits, since when its author, Marianne Mays, has been bombarded with inquiries.