Wise words, soldiering on and what might have been.

1. A mother on the phone comforts a distraught daughter: 'I know, I know... but you've got to learn to bite your tongue... When people are in the wrong... When people are in the wrong and they know it, they'll defend themselves to the... Well the drink doesn't help.'

2. I am drawn again to the bright colours of tiny Chinese street scenes at the toy soldier show. I also liked the Ancient Egyptian set, complete with a painter at work on a sarcophagus. On another stall, there are Aztec warriors who, though dressed to kill as wild beasts, are about to find out that they have brought obsidian-studded clubs to a gun- and crossbow fight.

3. The Cold War Modern exhibition shares a future that might have been, overlaying a future that was. In this world, houses are machines for living. People dress in Captain Scarlet tunics and catsuits, but the spacesuits have lace-up boots. An technology fair, housed in a geodesic dome, is hosted by Afghanistan, and the USA and the USSR compete to produce the best washing machine.