[Repossessed planes'] owners - often banks - are keen for people to be using them, if only to avoid paying for storage, insurance and maintenance themselves, Mr Whyte says.

"You could possibly get one for free or, if not, you could lease one for an hourly rate," he suggests.

Removing all traces of the previous owners and customising the planes with your own brand will cost around £100,000 a time.

London based Aviation Economics, the firm behind the £5.5m figure, suggests those unable to find free planes will find it surprisingly easy to lease them from big firms Gecas and GATX.

It suggests you may want to rent four or five aircraft. "Most airlines will lease aircraft and will usually need two or three months deposit. That would account for about two-and-a-bit million dollars," says managing director Tim Coombs.

The discovery of the jade, which the family thought to keep secret at first, later brought archeologists, though one of them have predicted in the 1930s that this might be the capital of the ancient Shu kingdom, they still might have been startled by another accidental discovery by workers at a brick factory in 1986.

Two sacrificial pits were filled with gold masks, bronze wares,jade tablets, elephant tusks and sacred trees - and they opened a world of mystery. The discovery pushed back the date of the bronzeage in China and yet the objects made are unlike any made in any other period of Chinese civilization with the creation of human-like figures and faces particularly unique.

They left experts asking what the purpose of the objects was, where the culture came from, why there was no mention of it in historical texts and how such an ancient culture, at the origin of Chinese civilization, could be so advanced.

Theories abound, but whatever the answer, the unique part-human, part-animal masks have become the symbol of Sanxingdui and of the mysterious culture. So recently the local government invited some foreign journalists to participate in the opening of the Sanxingdui International Mask Festival at the start of the May Day holiday.

The villagers said Prophet Fred persuaded them to turn to Christianity by foreseeing a number of natural events.

He predicted that a lake at the foot of Mt Yasur would be swept into the sea. Five months later, in early 2000, the lake burst its banks and drained into the sea. Now all that remains is a black volcanic plain covered in grass where horsemen ride and cattle graze.

On Feb 15 each year villagers celebrate John Frum Day by marching in GI fatigues, complete with badges of rank and khaki forage caps.

The men paint red crosses on their backs - a legacy of the US army medics who impressed them six decades ago with free treatment.

Drawing the shape of a US flag in the volcanic sand with his finger, Chief Isaac said: "John predicted the Americans will help us. He will make the whites bring us cars, wharves, airports, everything. John will bring a better life."

On typical Sundays, Mr. Littman is accompanied by his friend Sipai Klein, who also gives out hugs. But because of Mother's Day, Mr. Klein could not be there yesterday. Mr. Littman said he was "not in touch" with his own parents, who live in Brooklyn. The subject causes a brief, sad lull before he charges on.

"How about a free hug?" he hollered at a man, woman and small boy dressed all in black. "How about not?" the boy shot back.

"I'm trying to cut down," said a banker from Kenya.

"Nothing's free," said another man, as he brushed past with his golden retriever.

[...]

"What's your name?" Mr. Littman asked.

"Langdon."

"My name's Jayson. Now we're not strangers."

They hugged.

"It felt O.K.," Mr. Bosarge said as he walked off. "It was kind of the half-body-contact hug versus the full frontal."

It was what Mr. Littman has termed the "duck hug," when a person ducks in and out. There is also the "three-tap hug" - a cautious, back-patting type. No matter what comes at him, Mr. Littman always seems to respond with the same calm, noninvasive embrace.

The segments, dubbed 'ultraconserved elements', lie in the large parts of the genome that do not code for any protein. Their presence adds to growing evidence that the importance of these areas, often dismissed as junk DNA, could be much more fundamental than anyone suspected.

David Haussler of the University of California, Santa Cruz, and his team scanned the genome sequences of man, mouse and rat. They found more than 480 ultraconserved regions that are completely identical across the three species. That is a surprising similarity: gene sequences in mouse and man for example are on average only 85% similar. "It absolutely knocked me off my chair," says Haussler.

The regions largely match up with chicken, dog and fish sequences too, but are absent from sea squirt and fruitflies. The fact that the sections have changed so little in the 400 million years of evolution since fish and humans shared a common ancestor implies that they are essential to the descendants of these organisms. But researchers are scratching their heads over what the sequences actually do.