Observed...

The lovely Graham Rawle's studio has been photographed for an article in the Observer Magazine this week. There it is in all its headless doll glory but how could they have lit the model of the Emerald City from above? It looks so beautiful glowing like kryptonite in the far corner of the room while this photograph made it look the way I do in a restaurant.

I was particularly taken by the Getting Your Own Graham Rawle Style Tips at the end of the article. Forget being an artist, lovingly collecting items from car boot sales - if you ever wanted a reclaimed, vintage, shop display unit, now you know where you can pick one up for a mere six hundred smackeroonies. Buy your quirky credentials at the Conran Shop with retro toys! And where do you go if you want a stack of old Beanos and a couple of broken dolls with the soundboxes exposed on their chests forlornly bleating 'Mama'? My attic, perhaps? It's stuffed full of all the casualties of my own offspring's childhood - toy zoos, wooden trains, lego and a thousand tiny cars, none of which they will allow me to throw out. But if a Graham Rawle groupie wants to make me an offer, I could be persuaded...

Though Graham and I are of the same generation, my childhood was obviously a lot more austere than his. Far from being populated by push along dogs, comics and painted wagons with ABC blocks, I had the Scottish version: Everyman classics, my sister's cast off pram (full size) a crib made by the blind (which should tell you something about how attractive it was) a doll's house without any furniture (all my miniature people slept in cast off Embassy Regal packets) and a Sindy with a duffel coat.

Other girls got tarty Barbie with the high heels and the frilly knickers, but no - I got the duffel coat.

But I'm not bitter.

My Sindy never wore pants at all.