IT'S already March. The supposedly mad March hares are a familiar sight as they chase each other across the fields. Here in Post Wobegon a few years ago there were antics of an even more bizarre kind. A fleet of cars arrived full of wax-faced passengers s

IT'S already March. The supposedly mad March hares are a familiar sight as they chase each other across the fields. Here in Post Wobegon a few years ago there were antics of an even more bizarre kind. A fleet of cars arrived full of wax-faced passengers sitting upright and immobile. No they were not a visiting Chinese delegation - these were, in fact, male dummies being used by a film crew due to create a picture for the sleeve for a record album, called Transmissions. Further exploration up the cart track and over the bank revealed that a row of telegraph poles had been erected across the fields towards the point where the sun would set at this time of year. Each pole was topped with a platform and post coming up through the middle to enable willing participants to climb up a ladder and sit on the top. On the finished picture five of the poles in the photograph's immediate foreground were topped by real people while the male dummies were realistically positioned on top of the others stretching away into the distance. Why was Post Wobegon the chosen spot for this occurrence? It seems that the countryside on the immediate approaches to Orwell Hill from this side is unique. Here was a hollow between the hillsides giving a clear uninterrupted view of the sunset at this time of year with no man-made intrusions. The theme of the songs performed by the group - namely Gentlemen Without Weapons - were centred around the effects of acid rain, destruction of the ozone layer, rain forest disappearance and other relevant issues. It has to be said that it is an amazing co-incidence that the identity of this unique and thus chosen spot in the Cambridgeshire countryside will be detrimentally altered if the Cemex developments proposals as viewed to date become a reality. At the time it was interesting to learn more about people who specialise in searching out suitable spots for film locations. At this point I have to confess that I am a little puzzled. We hear so much about anything that is "art deco". It is either very fashionable, very expensive, or hard to come by. I live in one of four art deco houses. They, too, are unique by virtue of their location out in the open countryside. I wonder if planning regulations were as strict in 1935 as they are now. It was when houses of this design first appeared at the Ideal Home Exhibition that the builder of this row of otherwise conventional homes decided that he would like to build some here. They can be seen for miles. Aircraft pilots find them a useful identification point and that seems to be their lot. This is just not on. By now one of us "art deco" house-owners should have been approached by a film company wanting to take our home over to be the setting of a blockbuster. My place is the one with the original staircase and doors, but approaches will only be considered from film producers who arrive with fat cheque books in hand. By the way the telegraph poles did not leave the village. They have been put to good use on someone else's land. In other words they have been recycled.