That was my boyhood, too. "Sparkle" strawberries. "Country Gentleman" white sweet corn. "Martha Washington" asparagus. And Mrs Heritage's lemon curd at church suppers, Mrs Carter's apple pie, Mrs Thompson's raised yeast rolls.

But that boyhood, mine, not yours!, is fifty years gone.

You move from "It was thus" to "It is thus". Is it? In Chicago, in Missouri? I can't say.

I think that I've given a faithful rendering of how things are now among the people I know in London.