Mary Poppins was the ancient forefather of the practical bag. From her flowery zip-up she could produce anything, lamp stands, kitchen sinks, bottles of vino, probably people. Though if you’ve seen this version of Mary Poppins, perhaps you’d be more frightened of what she might bring out of her bag than before. True, the big bag can be dangerous. I always find that with a small bag I have the neceessities, I have a more wholesome, feng-shui approach to life’s essentials. Purse? – sure, keys? – why of course, phone? – yup, spare socks? – no, no, not really needed. When the big bag comes out however, the shoulder clutter comes too. The spare socks are in, along with a full size wall calendar: why not? Instead of a mobile I’d rather take the yellow pages and some coins for a pay-phone, and then comes the ‘second lining’, the most detrimental component of bag clutter. A swamp of cinema tickets, rail tickets, receipts, free breath mints, hair pins, lip balms, informational leaflets, flyers, copper coins. The list never ends. I have to keep my bags on the small side to ensure that my life remains in focus, but with a summer array of lovely bags for the buying, bigger is always better.