... By C. Patrick Thompson In all its aspects it is a gigantic business which cannot be ruined without creating economic, financial and social problems of a dangerous character UNDER the blackout in London a strange night life is blooming like an orchid in a dark jungle. It has a double bloom: part private social life, and part commercialised pleasure. It is gay, amusing, colourful, and it has its ...

... By JEAN BUItNlJP Kditor Women's Department omen all over the country are experiencing a kind of clothes hangover, not from too much, but from the wrong kind of indulgence in buying. The long dark winter, the completely unexpected pattern traced by this curious war into our lives, has been responsible in part for a we-will-make-anything-do mood, in part for crazy, unplanned, and often ...

... r)aiy hcr Some children carry it like a torch; an irrepressible vitality, a bloom of health that keeps them perpetually on their toes. In others it is not so evident, though in most it can be acquired. Vitality is often spoken of as something intangible bestowed at birth or not. Actually, the vitality which we associate with energy, with alertness, often with cheerfulness is very largely a ...

... c* Every woman can have fragile-looking hands-- however hard she works and whatever their natural shape-- provided she knows what tricks to use. Sympathetic nail -tone cannot help but lengthen the shape, a dissenting note on the finger-tips must inevitably cut it. Brown hands, for instance, should not wear a bluey-red cyclamen nail-polish. An orange or ochre- red will suit them better, one ...

... ! The revival of tea-time as an important social function is one of the more pleasant consequences of the war. Hospitality seems always to have been at its best at tea-time. Perhaps the hour or the informality of the setting or merely the English adoration of tea does it. Tea-time is a tradition and it dies hard. Every Victorian and Edwardian novel will supply a picture of it. Firelight on ...

... Just to walk into a shop and buy a perfect skirt that will make all your old jumpers and blouses look like something Schiaparelli created is the kind of dream many women are having nowadays. I said a dream, but you can do this in reality now that Gor-ray skirts have come to settle the clothes question. Gor-ray skirts fit as though the best tailor in the world has made them for you personally. ...

... New Life for the i OLD HOMES of ENGLAND I H|MM| agyr 11 yLzm M- ■V. We !-;*r TSSLi-ii.' m Left: Some disused outbuild ings were demolished at Old Clack Farm, Ruislip, and this lovely old cottage erected from the salved materials Centre: Crows Nest Farm stands beside the stream at Ruislip where Captain Davis has recently brought to life an old-world English village Below: The dining-room of Old ...

... I W (ki%!^ CMmt f, II> Winifred Lctvi.% I married with a youthful self-confidence in my ability as a home maker and an hereditary con viction that a man's heart is part of his digestive system. That was ten years ago. I gave the self- confidence a decent burial after six months. I It must be proof either of the capriciousness of life in general or the accuracy of my hereditary conviction that ...

... ly|f ecor alive Vegetable Gardens Br Eleanour Sinclair Rolide Dig for Victory confronts us on every hoarding. That means vegetables, that means grow our own food. Well, we can do this and still have a good-looking garden. Some of our most useful vegetables were first grown as ornamental plants. tor instance, we grew scarlet runners for their beauty for two centuries before it occurred to any ...

... ARE YOU Colours are like people. Some are stimulating, good mixers, others are hard to handle. But, also like people, colours need understanding. the psychological influence ot colour is so great that it is hard to think why we do not understand it better. There are some authorities who go so far as to say that certain colours have a healing quality. Doctors have experimented with colour as a ...

... Is WE ATE It This couldn I be neater to look af or simplei I to knit. The plain rib design I breaks into moss stitch for I the yoke. Iplllovek No man, ii I or out of uniform, can have I too many hand-knit pullovers I I HAT AND MITTS I The snood is crochet, the I padded rolls which make the I hat plain knitting. So are the I two-colour mitts. I ABBREVIATIONS 1 K.= knit; p. purl; sts. I stitches ...

... , , 3 Announcement by THE SILENT POOL. as J ZZ* I H) pool or not to pool, became a question of vital importance to the community. In a trice the motorist was invited to forget all he knew about his favourite branded juice, and every town and village pump bade him take to Pool Here was an example of standardization which everybody agrees is fully justified. Fortunately, the early months of ...