It was a salutary learning experience when I ordered a single scoop of ice cream at a relatively new Cowley Road café and shop. The price: £1.95 - nearly two quid for something that it seemed only yesterday had cost a mere sixpence in real, pre-decimalisation money.

But Yorkshire caution had to take a back seat. The morning was hot; I was in sunny, summery mood and short of removing my tie, this seemed a delightful way to celebrate.

"Do you want a tub or a cornet?" queried the young female assistant.

Risking the threat of melted ice cream dripping down the aforementioned tie and well-ironed shirt, I asked for a cornet and handed over a two-pound coin.

"That will be another 35p, please. Cornets are 40p extra," she announced sweetly.

Now there's a new one.

Mum was buying him a treat for being a brave boy. For a lad of five, the choice of a novelty roll-on antiperspirant seemed unusual as well as modest, but here was a youngster clearly conscious of his image. Will it last into his teens?

All that marred the picture were recently applied stitches to the middle of his forehead, these covered by a transparent adhesive strip. It was where monsters had another eye, he explained.

"He ran into a sharp piece of metal sticking out from a gate post. He was lucky not to lose an eye," explained mother, still suffering from relief combined with anger that so often manifest in a threat of corporal punishment.

"It bled a lot, all down my Spiderman shirt," said the lad, taking up the narrative and justifying the bravery citation while confirming his dedication to sartorial elegance.

Mum's face clouded as she recalled the event. They had been heading along the upper reaches of Iffley Road, he running ahead, when he dodged into a gateway, pretending to hide. The next she knew was a painful cry and her boy reappearing, blood pouring from the wound.

"Good job you were there," I said.

"Yes, but I admit I was panicking. But if we had relied on other people - and there were some around - I dread to think what might have happened."

Apparently car drivers passed, rubber-necking rather than offering help, while others on foot did a pretty good impersonation of the Levite in the parable of the Good Samaritan, crossing by on the other side.

Thanks to her own efforts, she got him to hospital and the lad was patched up. She also made a point of returning to the scene of the incident to alert the householders to the danger of the protruding metal. The reaction was that the boy shouldn't have been there in the first place.

Good God! He's only five!

The large and colourful display in the shop window fell only marginally short of heralding it as the greatest invention since the wheel - or in the opinion of an increasing percentage of the human race - the all singing-and-dancing mobile phone.

From simple siding to classic cubing,' was the slogan that caught the attention of those passing Hawkin's Bazaar in the Westgate Centre.

What was this earth-shattering innovation? What new gadget had been invented to tax the human brain? What was simple siding', let along classic cubing'?

It turned out to be the Rubik's Cube, that brain-baffling toy which first made its appearance in the late 1970s and was subsequently responsible for more schoolteachers tearing their hair as they tried to stop pupils fiddling with the infernal things below desktop level, while attempting to instil the mysteries of algebra or the correct location of adverbs.

They were seen everywhere being feverishly manipulated by dexterous fingers. Yes, there was a similarity to the all singing-and-dancing mobile phone addiction.

Will it make the greatest comeback since Lazarus, or tennis's Andy Murray in his battle with the Frenchman on Monday evening? Only time will tell.