It only took one episode of the Adams Family and a touch of black humour to provide inspiration for a cottage

It only took one episode of the Adams Family and a touch of black humour to provide inspiration for a cottage industry. Clever traders at Grosvenor House, whose early days coincide with Olympia, used to brag about carrying off under-priced items from Olympia to Park Lane to sell for more They still make the occasional killing. But nowadays, Olympia is approaching end-market status, too: highly polished and highly priced – but at least you know what you’re getting.Both fairs’ public relations efforts emphasise that they also offer inexpensive antiques: at Grosvenor House this year, that could mean an 1840 brass fender from a doll’s house (pounds 125); at Olympia a collection of eccentric tea cosies, popular between the wars, at pounds 35-pounds 300 each.Olympia Fine Art and Antiques Fair, Earls Court Exhibition Centre, Warwick Road, London SW5, 6-16 June, entry, including catalogue pounds 15 (0171-370 8188). Grosvenor House Art and Antiques Fair, Park Lane, London W1, 13-22 June, entry (including handbook) pounds 12 single, pounds 20 double (0171-499 6363).. If there are fifty ways to leave your lover, florist Susan Rinberg has come up with method number fifty one. I once watched a clock dealer at Olympia tremble with shock after the vetting committee had swept past, condemning as “un-fairworthy” his “William Scott longcase of 1790- 1810″, which, they alleged, had a 1720-1740 case of the wrong colour with a movement added later.For the past three years Olympia’s 150 vetters have been briefed to keep a specially wary eye open for country and Regency furniture over-restored with added paint and given a tenfold price hoick.

This year has brought a new threat: brand-new metalwork – table lamps, lanterns, wall-brackets – picked up in the Paris flea markets and passed off as 18th or 19th century period pieces.Olympia (now thrice yearly) has traditionally been looked upon as a “trading” or “intermediate” market while glittering Grosvenor House in Park Lane is an “end-market”, the ne plus ultra for rich private buyers with a million pounds or so to spend. For another, survivors of downsizing work such long hours that they have no time to swot up on Chinese porcelain or Regency ormolu-mounted furniture. Result: a new breed of youngish, rich, know-nothings eager to acquire the trappings of wealth – the antique dealer’s dream.
Today’s antique fairs were invented, not exactly for the rich and ignorant – though they are plentiful enough – but for busy punters happy to pay double for strictly vetted pieces that they can be confident are “right”. Such is the antiques take-away culture at Olympia and Grosvenor House.Those vetting committees are not just chums in the trade giving the nod They are about as forgiving as Judge Jeffreys. For one thing, a small fraction of “redundo” pay tends to get blued on consolation buys such as jewellery or a painting. One imagines that an information exchange for the Princess would be conducted en passant in firm handwriting on blue Basildon Bond, then popped in the basket and posted when collecting young Henry from school. Nostalgia is still what it used to be.For a brochure and stockist list call Pashley, 01789 292263..

Strange though it seems, the craze for downsizing among top earners is good news for London’s two big summer art and antiques fairs – Olympia, which opens next Thursday, and Grosvenor House, which opens a week later. So great is the devotion it engenders, that there is even a Moulton bicycle owners’ club on the Internet, discussing details such as wheel pressure and loading weights. This is rather Dr Moulton’s thing, as the bike’s selling point is the marvellous front- and back-wheel suspension that allows such a small-wheeled bike to travel on almost any terrain and, although it looks, to the ignoranti like a close cousin to the frustratingly framed “shipping bike”, the Moulton holds the land speed record of 52mph for an upright bicycle. One wonders how long they will last there before turning up in odd parts of the country.The company also makes tandems, unicycles and adult tricycles for the leisure market but the bicycle which has attracted most attention in recent years, is the Moulton (from pounds 549), designed by Dr Alex Moulton, who sorted out the suspension on the Mini and the new MGF car. The Brooks B66 leather saddle with coil springs “for natural comfort” of the Paramount, becomes a hard-hitting “no compromise” saddle for energetic young surfing dudes.David Ross reckons that Pashley makes about 12,000 bicycles a year in its Stratford-upon-Avon factory, though many of these are what are termed as “work bikes”. The Royal Mail and “about a dozen” police forces use Pashleys to go about their business on solid models that almost invite the rider to whistle a cheerful tune. Companies with large plants use the work bikes for getting from A to B in a quick and, as Mr Ross puts it, “environmentally friendly” way, though, in the case of Pashley’s customers in the oil and car fields, we’re talking gestures.

On the day I visited, the finishing touches were being made to tastefully painted violet and cream bikes with large plastic front paniers ordered by Portsmouth University as a fleet to enable students to carry their books around campus. Presumably one is meant to ride this bike down to the beach, rather than put it on one’s surfboard. Nothing too controversial there: it looks a simple, sturdy creature, in sensible black, with no pretensions. Almost the same bike, the “Tube Rider”, however, comes in whacky electric blue, with a yellow saddle and invites one to “explore the innermost limits of fun”: the advertising leaflet shows it next to a “tube” wave. The factory is prepared to some extent, on the floor, there are Princesses and Prosperos at the ready, stacked together in serried ranks like the parking lot at a Chinese factory. On the whole, however, it works to order, hand-building each bicycle on-site from raw tubing.One of the latest lines epitomises the Janus face of the company: occupying a “niche” market in nostalgia, while contending with the modern all-round appeal of mountain bikes.

Based on the bicycles used by paratroopers in the Second World War to get them from their landing place to the front line, the Pashley Paramount was launched to coincide with the VE Day commemorations last year as – “an easy-riding town bike that combines style, comfort and practicality”. Mr Ross arrived late to our meeting, heaving himself out from a pile of Post-It messages from cycle dealers who have just woken up to British Summer Time. As Enid Blyton’s adventures seemed to always take place in the long, hazy days of summer, the telephone lines at the factory in Stratford-upon-Avon go red hot as soon as the first ray of sunshine hits the country. He was overwhelmed at how women kept on telling him: “I love your Princess.” One can picture them on their Princesses, from Hammersmith to Hawick: long denim skirt (safely guarded against oil by the built-in full chain-case), cheerful, chunky patterned cardigan and a child strapped into a child seat on the back.Pashley is also the only British manufacturer still to make a classic child’s ball-bearing tricycle upon which Noddy would look very fine.