Real choices: Before the week is out...

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CLEVER TOM Ford of Gucci (whose summer collection has surely been the most photographed this season) has decided to let those of us who cannot afford to wear his clothes in on the designer action. His vivid floral prints have proved so successful he has launched a range of 51 new accessories to match. There are the obvious ones - note/address books, mobile phone case and cigarette holder, which make nice gifts. Personally, I'd like to park my backside on a gigantic fuchsia and turquoise floor cushion even if it does clash with my flock walls. Alternatively, you can opt for the even cooler psychedelic dog or cat collar. Make yours the grooviest pet in town... Prices from approximately pounds 40; available from mid April. ZB

Gucci, 18 Sloane Street, London SW1. Tel: 0171 235 6707.

CAFFEINE HIGHS, racing blood sugar levels and guilt, guilt, guilt - it seems we've just got over the excesses of Christmas and now there is the Easter chocolate frenzy to contend with. You can't avoid the eggs, but you might be able to spare your loved ones the usual cloud of guilt about the amount of chocolate they have consumed by buying them an Egg Lamp each instead. More reminiscent of birds' eggs than anything of the chocolate variety, the lamp comes in frosted glass and is available in white or cobalt blue. Target carefully though - despite the obvious hatchling connotations, this is probably not the right present for younger offspring, who are likely to smash it on the floor after discovering that its size is inversely proportional to its chocolate content. IK

Egg Lamp by Ditchfield & Kay, pounds 32.50, including p&p. To order, call: 0181 752 1499.

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DESPITE FEIGNING my own death to avoid the pret-a-porter shows, I have to admit they are really very exciting. If members of the public were allowed in, they would be much more fun too. Until then however, for anyone who feels they're missing out, designs from Vivienne Westwood, recently appointed designer of the year Hussein Chalayan, Antonio Berardi, Clements Ribeiro and 14 others will be on display at the Design Museum in London for the next two months. Outfits personally selected by the designers from their spring/summer '99 collections will be shown on mannequins alongside videos of the actual shows as seen at London Fashion Week. A much more fun way of window-shopping. AB

Design Museum, Shad Thames, London SE1; tel: 0171 378 6055. Admission: pounds 5.50, pounds 4 concessions, pounds 12 family ticket. Opening hours: 11.30am-6pm daily; last admission 5.30pm. Exhibition ends 31 May.

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JOHN LENNON and Yoko Ono's bed-in in the Amsterdam Hilton, which happened 30 years ago this week, was one of the most celebrated anti-Vietnam war protests. Less well known is what Lennon ordered on room service: brown toast. This is just one of the gems to emerge from a fascinating study of Yoko as artist on Radio 3 this afternoon. Lennon's widow has always been a problematic figure for those who blame her for the Beatles' break-up. But this programme is a useful corrective: taking a serious look at her life and work, it reminds you that, in the New York of the early Sixties, before her relationship with Lennon "made it difficult for me to create anything", she was in the vanguard of the conceptual art movement. "Kill all the men you have slept with," went one of her kookier creations. "Put the bones in a box and send it out into the sea with flowers." Tracey Emin wasn't even born then. JA

`Yoko Ono - a Life in Flux' is on Radio 3 at 5.45pm today.

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GENERATIONS OF kids have amused themselves by sending each other cryptic messages on calculators showing something like 0.7734 which you turned upside down to read (you have to try it for real). Committed e- mailers have long created their own language, signing off with a witty Smiley face intended to convey their mood or appearance. Now they have a name - "emoticons". These icons range from the cute :---) Pinocchio Smiley and $:-( bad hair smiley to X-( brain dead smiley and the downright surreal turban Smiley (above). To the uninitiated, they might look like an expletive or typing error. To seasoned e-mailers they're a convenient shorthand. IK