CLARET, SANDWICHES AND SIN

Although nosegays and the strange blooms of science fiction usually don't mix, Miss Duke has come up with a genteel, genuinely funny parody. Picture a refined group of preserved ladies in their eighties discussing their next international political assassination over sips of claret. The garden club is a quiet oasis in a world where Africa has gone pre-fab; the new look is the ""optiman"" (radiation victims who have been changed into Cybergs) and men are still waging furious politics. But our gals are busy preserving the peace until a final ironic twist demonstrates that feminine wiles are not always wise. A tea-ser.