THE Margin cannot resist relating the tale from a Southampton airing cupboard, reported this week in the Guardian. It started.

It was the low moaning coming from the airing cupboard which gave the game away. That, and the smell of gently frying flesh."

It all happened when two police officers called on the home of a man suspected of failing to pay court fines. The suspect, caught unawares and sleeping in his birthday suit, hid in the airing cupboard. The only problem was that he had perched himself on the rather hot water tank for a full 10 minutes. The result? Third degree burns on the buttocks.

A sympathetic magistrate decided that enough punishment had been inflicted and granted bail.