He once confessed he was so apprehensive before a job that he would sit in his car praying that his subject would be away. He was scared to open the envelope containing his prints from the lab. Even now, he feels trepidation. Did he ever want to do anything else with his life? "Oh, yes. I played Peter Pan when I was seven." Other than more work, what is he planning for his 81st year? "Lunch." Lord Snowdon's mastery of the agonised silence applies well beyond his photo shoots. A combination of his deafness and an ingenious armoury of devices for deflecting personal questions make conversation with him a sort of verbal ping-pong. As soon as the ball falls to the floor, there's silence followed by some delightful but inconsequential story from his past, a piece of mimicry, a non-sequitur or the offer of a glass of wine. "Do you remember Wilfred Pickles?" he inquires vaguely, apropos of nothing. Apart from the verbal feints, there is an endless stock of ingenious things he has made and loves to show off. Some are blatant diversionary tactics but all of them intriguing. Snowdon has the mind and aptitude of an inventor and the nature of a practical joker. In the course of an hour, I am introduced to a dragonfly made out of safety pins, a little model of the aviary he made for the late Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother at the Royal Lodge, Windsor (it got him the London Zoo