Donald Sinden at Sotheby's Chelsea

Despite the showers and odd deluge, Sotheby's Billingshurst had a successful time at Chelsea Flower Show, with many old and potential new clients dropping by. Donald Sinden was amongst them. "Do you know The Four Ages of Man?" he asked in his imitable old man posh. 'Not sure' was the reply, expecting some kind of Shakesperian riposte. "Lager, Aga, Saga and Ga-ga," was the answer, "and I am now in the Ga-ga age." Ho ho though - it turns out via Google - not entirely original.

Note: William Shakespeare, in the As you Like It speech by melancholy mysogenist Jaques commencing 'All the world's a stage, And all the men and women merely players' gives the seven ages of man as Infancy, Childhood, Lover, Soldier, Justice, Old Age, Senility and death. Oedipus correctly answered the riddle of the Theban Sphinx, 'What starts the day on four legs, then goes on two legs and ends the day on three legs?' - the answer of course, the three ages of man, who starts out crawling, then walks, then has a stick in old age. The ancient greeks also had the four ages of man, gold, silver, bronze and iron - the age which we are still in now.