THE IMAGE of the single person living alone in a garret, lonely and depressed, eating fish fingers by candlelight, is a myth that can now be exploded.

THE MARS BAR is dead, long live the Mars Bar. In a daring move to breathe new life into one of the world's strongest brand names, Mars is changing the 60-year-old recipe for its melange of nougat, caramel and chocolate, writes Topaz Amoore. The exhortation that 'A Mars a day helps you work, rest and play' is being dropped.

THE NATION'S poor diet could be improved by encouraging infants to eat a healthy variety of food soon after weaning, scientists said yesterday, on the opening day of the British Association for the Advancement of Science's annual meeting in Southampton.

WITH the stock market in a state of high anxiety, dealers are prepared to believe almost anything they hear about anybody. The result is that even the shrewdest strategic move can be wildly misinterpreted. Take Lloyds Chemists, the once popular Midlands-based high street chemist and health food group. Its recent purchase of 89 Cavendish & Castle card and newsagent shops from the receiver for pounds 2m was read in the market as a sign that Lloyds was diversifying. In fact, all Lloyds was doing was picking up sites at a bargain basement price for conversion to drugstores and health food shops, its successful core businesses. Of the 89 shops, 43 will join the Holland & Barrett chain and 15 will become Lloyds Supersave drugstores. The rest will be sold or put to alternative use. The cost of conversion is estimated at pounds 2m to pounds 3m.

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BRITISH farmers are failing to cash in on the booming pounds 100m organic food market, according to a report published yesterday.