Now it was time to put them back on with some serious tax evasion by drinking to excess at pre-Budget prices.It was only at 7.30 when Roundpeg, our Square Mile squatter, arrived with his Budget Analysis that we realised what a bad day it had been. It is customary to place bets on who the Budget will be for. Everyone dresses outrageously and everyone selects their favourite Budget tipple which will see them through the afternoon. More soberly I bet it would be a Budget for those who wanted to buy a house but were struggling to find anywhere to live.As it transpired it was a Budget for those with nothing better to do on a Tuesday afternoon than sit around listening to a sartorially challenged Scotsman droning on in a way which made a mug of Mogadon-laced Horlicks look like Ecstasy.Worry not The Budget was not for the regulars at the snug. All Budgets are for something as in "This is a Budget for jobs, growth, stability, Britain, etc etc..." This year Pedro wagered it would be a Budget for Ruritania. His girlfriend, Grumpy Spice, suggested it would be a Budget for Buddy Holly. The evening starts around lunch time when in true Parliamentary style the regulars arrive early in order to secure a good seat.

ONE OF the great social events in the snug bar at the Fount of All Knowledge is the annual Post-Budget Analysis and Tax Evasion evening. Now that would be ideal.q The Daily Mail Ideal Home Exhibition at Earl's Court runs until 13 April Ticket Hotline 0990 900090.. Visitors to the exhibition between them generate 1,250 tonnes of potentially dangerous waste each year and throw away pounds 36m worth of unused food. The exhibition should have evolved to educate us on the effects of aerosol cans and dead batteries, or the benefits of filling the washing machine to maximum capacity, and putting a brick down the toilet. This has also united garden and home but in a rather more practical style, with a "secret" courtyard within the building and a roof terrace - both features providing outdoor space in a limited area."The pretty flint exterior appeals to people who like the conventions of British building and also inflicts nothing offensive on the landscape. But the interior can be as contemporary as you like, and with the versatile space you can have fun experimenting," says House Beautiful editor Caroline Atkins.The exhibition also has the usual array of home furnishing ideas, DIY products, furniture and kitchen equipment But there is an important omission. And sound-proofed walls would be more use than open-plan living.

Electric guitars and the Disney Channel can prove equally tortuous.Have any such radical house designs yet taken off? Round aluminium pods in the Fifties, polygon glass domes in the Sixties and pyramids in the Seventies - yet we are still living in boxy bricks and mortar constructions.Moving with the times, rather than tearing off into the distance, is House Beautiful magazine's "Flint House" in the Showhouse Village. Perfect for the one sunny week in the average British summer.Standing on a star-shaped deck, the house has open-plan living with partly enclosed bedroom spaces upstairs Nice idea, but not an option for a family When the kids are small you may be leaving the door ajar Within a few years they'll be slamming it on you. "We ran over four mines here once on a single trip," he said. "I cannot count how many times we have been attacked by the Khmer Rouge - too many times. During the civil war, three or four people a month were killed on this line alone."Although attacks on trains have become less common, particularly since Khmer Rouge forces along the southern line defected to the government in July 1996, Westerners have only recently been allowed back "Railway stations were not allowed to sell them tickets.