IT WAS quiet in Sainsbury's Kidlington. Checkout staff had time to talk to customers.

The woman in front was voluble, cheerful and large - like her trolley-full of food.

There were enough potatoes to stave off a famine; a mountain of carrots; half a dozen cabbages; and a heavy bag of mince. Add to this several bags of cooking apples and four large cartons of milk, all needed for pud'.

"It's for the shoot lunch," she volunteered. "When the guns and the beaters get back they are ravenous and they do enjoy nursery food. None of that fancy foreign cooking for them."

"How many will be there?" asked the checkout girl.

"There's at least 40," said the woman.

Eventually the cost was totalled and the bill paid. She was in the midst of saying goodbye when she remembered.

"Damn!" she exclaimed. "I've forgotten the vegetarians' option. There's at least four and they won't look at shepherd's pie."

Do vegetarians compete to blast as many birds from the sky as possible?

IS IT really 39 years since Enoch Powell made his infamous rivers of blood' speech?

The resignation at the weekend of would-be MP Nigel Hastilow for allegedly sympathising with the spirit of that speech recalled the time I met the frighteningly cerebral Mr Powell. He had recently been sacked from the Shadow Cabinet for his inappropriate remarks'.

The event was a barbecue at Long Crendon, near Thame. Mr Powell was a chum of John Hay, MP for Henley.

"Come and talk to Enoch," encouraged the affable Mr Hay. "He hasn't two heads, as some would have you believe."

The opportunity to talk to Nocker' was too good to miss.

"Hello, Mr Powell, I..."

"I suppose you want to discuss that speech," he cut in, his Black Country accent assuming a menacing tone.

"Not really," I said, lying through my back teeth.

"That's fortunate - because I don't," he said.

And nothing more did he say. We sat facing each other in silence until a young woman, wearing the briefest of hotpants, announced the unfortunate barbecued beast was about to be carved.

I knew how it felt.

LAST year I abandoned Yorkshire prudence and invested a few quid in a film. It is due for release in the New Year but was shown a few days ago to investors in Bafta's cinema in Piccadilly.

Among the guests was a British film star from the late 1950s and '60s, now portly and heavily lined. She still gets parts in films and television.

We had a brief conversation: I said she had delighted me with some of her performances and she said she still enjoyed work.

"And I am 74," she added.

"Well none of us are getting younger," I replied cheerily.

Somehow I think it was the wrong answer, as she icily terminated our conversation and walked off.

First Enoch, now the actress; I could develop a complex.