Words: Callibogus, n.

THE BEATLES' manager Brian Epstein - "an intuitive, theatrical guy", said John Lennon - recalled the famous, unsuccessful audition at Decca one New Year's Day. They paid 27/- for the hotel for the night. "They were poor and I wasn't rich" but none the less they all celebrated with rum and Scotch and Coke, "which was becoming a Beatle drink even then".

Precise as Epstein's voice was, he does not make it clear whether this was some deadly threefold cocktail or two separate drinks. Whatever, some of us continue to prefer callibogus. Unknown over here, it is a word for a combination which makes something palatable from those otherwise grim ingredients, rum and American beer. Had they done so, they might not have bothered with pot and LSD.