CLIVE WAINWRIGHT was a major figure in furniture studies whose loss will be felt throughout the world of furniture and design history. He was based for more than 30 years at the Victoria and Albert Museum, and was a generous scholar with a great breadth of outside interests. He loved the V&A with a deep and abiding passion for giving him the opportunity to work closely with its great library, to write and research, and to develop, as he did, into a formidable and polymathic authority on many different aspects of design and the decorative arts, above all as a specialist on 19th-century furniture and collections, but also with a great knowledge of many other subjects, as knowledgeable about Ettore Sottsass, the contemporary Italian designer, as he was about Romanesque book production. His magnum opus was The Romantic Interior: the British collector at home 1750-1850, published by Yale University Press in 1988. You can't miss it."He passed me my keys and a large box filled with documents, insurance policies and other related items."And good luck to you," he called after me.I never did find the car, of course, and I was hours late for my appointment, but in fairness I have to say that we have had a lot of pleasure from the steak knives.`Notes from a Big Country' is published by Doubleday at pounds 16.99. Get off there, follow the white arrows under the harbour tunnel, through the quarantine exclusion zone and past the water filtration plant. Cross runway 22-Left, climb the fence at the far side, go down the embankment, and you'll find your car parked in bay number 12,604 It's a red Flymo. Take the down escalator up to Passenger Assembly Point Q, get on the shuttle marked `Satellite Parking/Mississippi Valley' and take it to Parking Lot A427-West.

This one avows that any damage to the car now or at any time in the future is your responsibility. And this one is a $25 donation to Bernice Kowalski's leaving do."Before I could respond, he whipped away the contract and replaced it on the counter with a map of the airport."Now to get to the car," he continued, drawing on the map as if doing one of those maze puzzles that you find in children's colouring books, "you follow the red signs through Terminal A to Terminal D2, then you follow the yellow signs - including the green ones - through the parking garage to the Sector R escalators. This one is your agreement to take a truth serum in the event of a dispute This one waives your right to sue. And here, here and here.""What am I initialling?" I asked warily."Well, this one gives us the right to come to your home and seize one of your children or a nice piece of electronic equipment if you don't bring the car back on time. Eventually, when we had worked our way through 200 or so pages of complexly tiered options, the clerk passed the contract to me "Just sign here, here and here," he said "And initial here, here, here and here - and over here. "And do you want the Car Locator Option Arrangements?""What's that?""We tell you where the car is.""Take it," urged the man nearest me with feeling.

"I didn't take it once in Chicago, and spent two and a half days wandering around the airport looking for the damned thing. Turned out it was under a tarpaulin in a cornfield near Peoria."And so it went. But it comes with a set of steak knives."I looked to the other men in the queue. They nodded."OK, I'll take it," I said in exhausted resignation."Now do you want the Worry-Free Fuel Top-Up Option," the clerk went on, "or the Fill-It-Yourself Cheap Person's Option?""What's that?" I asked, dismayed to realise that this hell wasn't yet over."Well, with the Worry-Free Fuel Top-Up Option you can bring the car back on empty and we will refill the tank for a one-time charge of $32.95 Under the other plan, you fill the tank yourself before returning the car and we put the $32.95 elsewhere on the bill under `Miscellaneous Unexplained Charges'."I consulted with my advisers and took the Worry-Free plan.The clerk ticked the appropriate box. "Basically, it gives you $100m of coverage for theft, fire, accident, earthquake, nuclear war, swamp gas explosions, meteor impact, derailment leading to hair loss and intentional death - so long as they occur simultaneously and providing you give 24 hours' notice in writing and file an Incident Intention Report.""How much is it?""One hundred and seventy-two dollars a day. "It sounds to me like you need the Universal Full-Cover Double Top-Loaded Comprehensive Switchback Plan.""With Graduated Death Benefit," suggested the second man in the queue."What's all that?" I asked unhappily."It's all here in the leaflet," said the clerk.

"I don't know."He drew in breath in a way that suggested that perhaps I should consider walking. How much Personal Loss Rollover do you carry?""I don't know," I said.He stared at me "You don't know?" he said in a tone of level incredulity. Out of the corner of my eye I could see the other people in the queue exchanging amused glances."Mrs Bryson deals with these things," I explained a trifle inadequately."Well, what's your Baseline Double Footfault Level?"I gave a small, helpless, please-don't-hit-me look. You have Variable Double-Negative Split-Weighting down there.""I don't understand any of this," I cried, wretchedly."Look," said the hire car man a little impatiently, "suppose you crash into a person who has Second Party Disallowance Invalidity Cover but not First and Third Party Accident Indemnification If you've got Third Party Accident Indemnification. If you've got Third Party Waiver Damage Exclusion Cover you don't have to claim on your own policy under the Single Digit Reverse Liability Waiver.