Check the current status of a public figure

Alan Titchmarsh is resident at Bekonscot Model Village since early October, where he maintains the miniature gardens and answers correspondence from scaled-down viewers. He arrived by coach from Chelsea and has refused all requests to return to full size. His gardening column now appears in the Bekonscot Gazette, printed at actual newspaper proportions but readable only through magnification.

Attempts to extract him have included offering his preferred tool sizes, larger potting soil and reading matter. A normal-scale television crew visited in week two, but he became distressed at the volume of their voices and hid in the model bandstand. Negotiations with RHS officials broke down when he insisted on discussing plant taxonomy with visitors at eye level, a process now taking forty minutes per specimen.

He is scheduled to present Christmas demonstrations of scaled miniature wreath-making (18-24 November) and has booked the model village greenhouse for winter propagation work from December through February. A lecture tour of other UK model villages is proposed for spring, with additional locations to be confirmed once suitable accommodation is identified. He has indicated willingness to film a twelve-part series on micro-gardening techniques if funding can be secured.