21 - Don't Be Fooled by the Window Dressing

In the 1960s, my father-in-law was looking around Leek market when he came across a costermonger selling damsons – particularly fine damsons, at that. After negotiating a price, my father-in-law said he would take a box. The stall holder bent down behind the counter. 'No', said my father-in-law. Pointing to the box right at the front of the stall, he went on: 'I'll take that one'.
I have just watched as fine an example of window dressing as anybody could wish for: 'Inside the Vatican', a two-part series on the BBC. We are assured by the narrator – the hallowed-toned Paul McGann (who comes from a Roman Catholic family) – that we are privileged to see the Vatican from the inside, to see it as it has never been seen before.