But will the smell alone do the trick?Nicola Porten from the Chocolate Society suggests it might: Many people regard

But will the smell alone do the trick?Nicola Porten, from the Chocolate Society, suggests it might: "Many people regard chocolate as a treat because their first experience of chocolate was as a reward. We are so attuned to the smell of it that this alone can evoke that memory and the associated feelings."Whatever it evoked, No 4, a perfume by Octee, pounds 35 at Harvey Nichols, certainly got a positive response from the chocolate fiends. Some thought the muskiness very sexy, and all agreed it was convincingly chocolatey. As it warms up on the skin, it is like having a Kit-Kat up your jumper without the agony of trying not to eat it.Cosmetics to Go probably started the chocolate trend some years ago with its Saucery Bubble Bath (pounds 4.20).

Rich, sweet-smelling and looking exactly like molten chocolate, this has been so popular that the company developed a whole range of additional products: Choclait (pounds 4.20), a milk-chocolate bubble bath; L'Orange (pounds 4.20), the shower-time equivalent of a Terry's Chocolate Orange; a Rich & Creamy shampoo bar (pounds 2.60); Double Choc lip balm (pounds 4.20) and, most sensuous, Knights in White Chocolate massage bar (pounds 3.10).Caroline Sarll, founder and Chief Truffle of Chocoholics Unanimous, a chocolate appreciation society, regularly uses chocolate cosmetics. "New members are sent a bottle of Saucery," she says, "and I love the chocolate massage bar, though it's rather ironic really - massaging myself with chocolate to get rid of the bulky bits, which are there because I eat too much of it in the first place."Would she give up eating chocolate and rely on her nose to satisfy her addiction? "The smell is only the foreplay Like anything really, you can't beat actually doing it. You need the full sensual pleasure." OK, Caroline, this one's for you: more sex aid than cosmetic, Tom & Sally's Chocolate Body Paint (pounds 8.95) from Jerry's Home Store, comes complete with paintbrush and the suggestion that you "let your imagination run free". It also has the advantage of being both edible and an excuse for a work- out of sorts.Staff at Jerry's say mostly women buy it (that magnesium again), and they slip it on to the counter as if by accident Had they themselves ever tried it? Blushes all round "I bought some for a friend," volunteered one A likely story.Chocoholics Unanimous: 01843 852244 The Chocolate Society: 01423 322230. Jerry's Home Store, 163-167 Fulham Road, London SW3 (0171-225 2246). Harvey Nichols, 109-125 Knightsbridge, London SW1 (0171-235 5000) Cosmetics to Go: 01202 621 966 (mail order)..

Each summer they come, on their annual migration to Bognor Regis, and launch themselves from a perch 60 feet above the pier. The ritual of the Birdmen of Bognor is 23 years old, the brainchild of a scoutmaster from Selsey, a village a few miles down the coast. (His troop needed to raise money for new tents.) The competition now draws crowds of more than 100,000 - mostly to the benefit of local businesses, although charities get a share. Photographs by Dod Miller Strange birds: a man calling himself Dr Ulrich Strange and claiming to be a lecturer in mathematics at Oxford University, emerges (far left) from a giant cuckoo clock to leap into the water at Bognor.

Birdmen at the rival Eastbourne competition included Andy Bloor (left), a local builder, and Alistair Myles (below) disguised as a flying fish For some of the birdmen, perhaps for most of them, dressing up in the costume is the thing. Others, such as Robert Hiscott, a 65-year-old architect who has studied aerodynamics, really want to fly. He won the prize for the longest flight at Bognor last y ear, and had to be rescued for his pains (far left). His son, Paul Hiscott, modelled his six-winged Bumble Bike (above) on the humble bee. As a boy, John Kingston listened with fascination to his Polish stepfather's stories of wartime horror and cruelty.Then it dawned on him that these might not be the tales of a witness, but of a participant. Now he is campaigning to get his child hood hero prosecuted as a war criminal Stephen Ward reports. Portrait by Mike Abrahams When I was a boy, my father used to demonstrate how they would shoot people with a pistol.

He would mime holding a gun to the back of his head, the place at the top of the spine." For seven years, John Kingston has been obsessed by finding out what his stepfather did in the War. He has read every book he can find on the area of eastern Europe where his stepfather came from. He has spent weeks in libraries researching births, marriages and deaths. He has been to see houses and camps deserted before he was born. He has burrowed in old newspaper files for clues, and bombarded consulates and embassies with requests for information. He even sent a dossier to Scotland Yard, because he has become convinced that the man who as a child he regarded as a hero may have been a war criminal.John Kingston, 51, lives behind a very high and thick beech hedge in a council house on the outskirts of Holmfirth, on the edge of the Yorkshire moors.