At the infamous Waxy O'Connors, near Shaftesbury Avenue and only a stagger away from the tube station, we bumped into a charming Intel chap who gave us the full SP on Mother Shipton. Readers will remember that Ms Shipton was a seeress who predicted three hundred or so years ago that the world would come to an end in 1999. She lived in a cave in the charming Yorkshire town of Knaresborough, and to this day, visitors flock to her cave to admire the petrified limestone artefacts adorning its exterior. The valley is full of garlic plants and when your staffer visited it last, 30 years ago, there were water voles in the river. Your man from Intel told us that he was brought up in Knaresborough and when he was a kid, a local farmer showed him how the petrified artefact scam worked. In the field above the cave, which feeds the water, the authorities had a sink into which they placed vast quantities of calcium carbonate. Does Intel have to destroy all our illusions, we wonder? ®