Le Pen's role as kingmaker had become all the talk; which of the two remaining candidates would his supporters back - Jospin or Chirac? The NF performance was analysed in terms of what it said about disaffection and alienation in modern France. Emigrating to France must have seemed a fairly natural thing to Brahim. To a government that is saving for tax cuts, this was too good to refuse. The haste to privatise was understandable in the early years when "denationalisation" was unpopular and would certainly have faltered had it not been for the extraordinary energy and determination of Margaret Thatcher. Celan (a great influence on Kiefer, incidentally, who has painted many pictures alluding to Celan and his poetry) wrote about it in his Todesfuge (Death Fugue):"death is a master from Gemany his eye is blue he strikes you with leaden bullets his aim is truea man lives in the house your golden hair Margaretehe sets his hounds upon us he grants us a grave in the air"your golden hair Margareteyour ashen hair Shulamitedeath is a master from Germanyhe calls out more darkly as smoke you will rise into the air"Every mythology contains within it an actual or potential demonology. The first, Hot Property, a 10-year-old gelding, will do his dressage test tomorrow morning - almost certainly with some reluctance. The grey horse finds this phase a bore; as soon as he catches sight of the dressage arena Dixon can almost hear him sigh.

It makes her spirits flag a little, too, because she knows that she will have to work extra hard as a result. The sight of a cross-country fence has completely the opposite effect, however, and Hot Property will be raring to have a go at Hugh Thomas's 30 demanding obstacles on Saturday.Too Smart is equally thrilled by the cross-country, but then he finds pretty well everything exciting - including the dressage that he will be performing on Friday afternoon. "The great thing about him is that he always tries to please," Dixon said. "Even when he's trotting on air with excitement, I know he wants to do the right thing. It makes a change from Get Smart, who more or less tells me to get stuffed when he's feeling like that."In fact, Dixon's biggest problem may come just before the cross-country on Saturday when her husband, Andrew, tries to tighten Too Smart's girths This is the one moment that the horse loathes. "It's a desperate struggle to try to do up his girths without any of us getting eaten," Dixon said.She is longing to ride Too Smart over the cross-country course. "He's very bold, but he's also a sharp little fellow who gets his feet out of the way quickly," she said.

Having cruised round the big course at Burghley last year, Too Smart should be ready for this challenge and he could well be among the leaders as they go into the final show jumping phase on Sunday.The quick-footed bay horse is normally careful in the show jumping, but he has been known to have the odd fence down. To prepare Too Smart for this phase, Dixon stopped off in Yorkshire on her way to Badminton yesterday so that she could have a lesson with the show-jumping rider and trainer, Graham Fletcher.Though she has a splendidly consistent record at Badminton, having ridden Get Smart to clear cross-country rounds in all his six runs there, Dixon has yet to finish higher than fifth in the annual classic. That was with Get Smart in 1988, the year that she was selected for the Olympics and first rode for a senior British team.Dixon is not tempting fate by suggesting that she might do better this time. When asked who was the likely recipient of the Mitsubishi Trophy, she had no need to pause for thought "Todd," she said, promptly and succinctly.