Its villages are thatched and twee, but the downs to north and south are crowned with the hillforts and burial mounds of the Bronze Age and earlier; very different times, very different people.Suddenly our pilot, Mike Green, 54, a former Army flier who served in Cyprus and Ulster, announces: "Circle at 11 o'clock!" We veer southwards over the village of Alton Priors.The circle, or rather pattern of interlinking circles, is spectacular: 100 yards across, in a field at the foot of Woodborough Hill But it has a worn, frayed-at-the-edge look Numerous paths weave towards it through the corn It has been there for weeks. Such is the demand for flights that Fast Helicopters Ltd, based at Thruxton, near Andover, has launched Britain's first crop circle safari service, which is why we find ourselves thwocking along the edge of Salisbury Plain at 120 knots early on Friday morning.A broad valley opens out ahead: the Vale of Pewsey. Every B&B in towns such as Marlborough and Pewsey is booked out with "cereologists", as the more pretentious crop-watchers like to call themselves, while "croppies", the crustier, more dog-on-a-string fraternity, have circular conversations in favourite pubs such as The Barge, by the Kennet and Avon canal at Honey Street.Crop circles are best seen from the air (which does nothing to diminish their popularity with UFO enthusiasts). Their popularity took a knock a few years ago when hoaxers "Doug and Dave" from Southampton boasted how they had fooled the world with a ball of string and a plank of wood, but circles have made a comeback as they have become ever bigger, more complex and beautiful.This has been a bumper year, and circle-watching has become big business.

Likewise, on a corn circle safari in the wilds of Wiltshire, everyone must work as a team if the trophy of an undiscovered circle is to be won Ben Lees-Smith is not concentrating "Look mummy - cars! " he cries as we fly over the A303. But Ben is four, an age at which real cars, looking like toys from 1000ft, are more interesting than funny patterns in the wheat which may or may not be coded messages from extra-terrestrials. Adults, however, cannot get enough of strange phenomena, especially in that triangle of southern England formed by Stonehenge, Salisbury Plain and Avebury, where there are more ley-lines, standing stones and ancient burial mounds than you can shake a dowsing rod at. For the past two decades crop circles, those strange, flattened patterns in the corn which appear as if by magic overnight, have joined the list of the weird and the unexplained in the area. Old Africa hands know that, on safari, you've got to be alert if you want to spot that elusive rhino.

The conclusion we came to was that women who consumed the least alcohol were more likely to be post- menopausal," said Dr David Torgerson, research fellow at the University of York.. The doctors tracked pre-menopausal women for two years and found that those who never had a drink were four times as likely to have become post- menopausal as women who had at least one drink every day. The research, which comes in the wake of other studies showing that drinking alcohol is linked with a reduced risk of heart disease, was based on 2,000 women aged 45 to 49 from the Aberdeen area who were interviewed by doctors three years ago.Twelve per cent of the women who said they drank at least once a day were post-menopausal, compared to 27 per cent of those who never drank.When the doctors looked at the women two years later, they found another six per cent of drinkers had become post- menopausal, but another 25 per cent of teetotal women or women who drank only at Christmas were post- menopausal."What we found was quite a big difference and issues like social class and smoking did not alter the association. Drinking alcohol on a regular basis delays the menopause, according to research by doctors in Scotland, writes Roger Dobson. "When we have a chance to cover walls we can't afford to paint with bright and energetic posters we will not turn down this kind of option," Mr Lancaster said.. I think that makes it much safer because it is not just product placement."The pounds 5,000 will help buy computer equipment. "The common denominator among all these schools is that they need money," Mr Gridley said.Pindar School in Scarborough admits the lure of extra funds helped persuade it to sign up with Imagination.However Peter Lancaster, head of business studies, believes the school will gain as much value by using the posters - to be confined to the business studies area - as a teaching resource."Our students will take them apart as part of their studies, examining why they have advertised in that way and whether it works. The Department for Education and Employment says heads and governors are free to decide on advertising and sponsorship, provided they comply with broad National Consumer Council guidelines.Imagination insists there has been no hard sell; schools have four months to change their minds before poster sites are installed in January.