Having now all but scraped the delicate Oriental pattern off the china plate before her, she set down her spoon, adding, "I noticed that you have a reasonably fine pianoforte in one of your drawing rooms.

While they technically fall into the Oriental pattern of ice cream and fruit, the memorable sweets are offered with style.

It runs eternally in certain grooves of local and historical type: the medieval knight, the eighteenth-century duellist, and the modern cowboy, recur with the same stiff simplicity as the conventional human figures in an Oriental pattern.

"Inevitably, it will attract a great deal of Asian business travelers, based on its location and a design inspired by Oriental patterns and materials," said Norbert Beatty, a spokesman for the hotel.

I thought Dan had got the state- room pretty full of rubbish at last, but a while ago his dragoman arrived with a bran new, ghastly tomb-stone of the Oriental pattern, with his name handsomely carved and gilded on it, in Turkish characters.

And some people see intricate Oriental patterns.

In the corner of the room was a small, polished wood cupboard with riotously coloured Oriental patterns on it - writhing dragons, finely dressed women, parasols, trees, mountains, birds.

Dennis Beezley, a bond trader in Manhattan who owns a house in Fleischmanns, bought a room-size wool rug with an Oriental pattern for $130.

It looked recently renovated, appliances black, counters and cabinets white, the wallpaper an Oriental pattern of pastel flowers against delicate blue.

Darker blue designs, nearly black, traced it in a vaguely Oriental pattern.