The Martinsell chair and sofa by furniture designer Rachel Hutchinson are made of white ripple sycamore clad in Dalsouple red rubber, and El Ultimo Grito's simple "mind the gap" coffee table features a sheet rubber top with a loop in the centre for magazine storage. Having won a Blueprint 100% Design award last year, it goes into production (by Punt Mobles) this month.Such efforts seem almost perfunctory compared to Jozefien Gronheid's trailblazing efforts with latex technology. But, although she claims that "on the whole, people see my work first, then they notice it's made of rubber", she admits she can't shake off rubber's associations with the absurd. When she first handed out her rubber business card at a trade exhibition, people started bending and stroking them "They were playing with them like babies.

It was bizarre," she says.I have admit to having a similarly childish fascination for one of my Gronheid prototype vases. It sits on my desk; a strangely alien thing in pale pearlised latex, six inches high, surprisingly stable - even when full of water and flowers - and irresistably squidgy. Not only does it demand to be touched, but I'm beginning to think it's found itself a home.Dalsouple's 100% Rubber exhibition is at 100% Design, Earls Court Two, Warwick Road, London SW5 on Sunday 26th September, 08709 040050 Jozefien Gronheid: Mission, 0171 792 4633 Isabel Dodd: Ray Harris, 0171 221 8052 Rachel Hutchinson, 01672 562936 El Ultimo Grito, 0171 732 6614 Short- house Design, 0141 552 6903 Dalsouple, 01984 667233. THAI SQUARE is the biggest and best Thai restaurant in central London At least that's what it claims on its leaflets. And, though I've no quibble with the "biggest" part - it seats 500 people which, when you think about it, is pretty terrifying and off-putting - I do have my doubts about the "best" part. I've eaten loads of Thai food superior to the stuff they serve at Thai Square. But I suppose if you were to argue that central London begins and ends within a 200m radius of Trafalgar Square, you'd have to concede their point, because by that token Thai Square is the only Thai restaurant in central London.

Which must also make it indisputably the most soul-less, mediocre and tourist-infested Thai restaurant in central London. Not that they're ever going to tell you that on their leaflets. Which is a shame because I was really looking forward to my evening there. I love Thai food - it's like having an Indian and a Chinese all in one go - but I hardly ever get to eat it because most of the decent restaurants seem to be on the other side of town from me in west London and, relative to other "ethnic" food, it's a bit too expensive. And though Thai Square's pounds 8.95 three-course set lunch (plus free glass of wine) might well represent a considerable bargain, it's pounds 25-a-head upwards evening menu most certainly doesn't.The restaurant's biggest drawback is its location (in the former Norwegian Embassy) just off Trafalgar Square. While this makes it highly convenient for pigeon-fanciers and new lottery winners (Camelot's offices are right next door), it also inevitably means that the place is infested with tourists, out-of-towners and other flotsam and jetsam.The result is a totally atmosphere-free zone. Unless, perhaps, you count the ersatz atmosphere provided by the lavish Thai decor (gold pillars, stone idols, mini-fountains, elaborately carved wooden thingumajigs, etc) and the occasional outbreaks of traditional Thai music and traditional Thai dancing.

But all this serves to do is make you feel as if you're sitting, jetlagged and bewildered, in the lobby of the Bangkok Hilton. And even when the place is busy and noisy - as it was on the Tuesday night I visited - there's a depressing lack of buzz.All this might yet be forgiveable if they knew how to make a proper Singapore Sling (they don't); if the service was first-rate (it's well-intentioned but haphazard and often slow); or if the food was remotely memorable (which it ain't). As a benchmark, we ordered a classic - Thai green curry with chicken - and, though it stood up reasonably well against all the zillion and one other green curries we'd eaten over the years, it didn't exactly sing with culinary genius. It also happened to be the best of all the dishes we ate - which doesn't say much for the rest.For some reason, I find ordering from Thai menus deeply traumatic and I always wish that the waiter would decide for me. Maybe, if we'd let him, he would have chosen something less boring than the promising-sounding Payakpoopee - aka "Weeping Tiger". Though it was perfectly OK - strips of good, well marinated if slightly overdone steak, served on a metal platter - it didn't compete with the sizzling Szechuan steak I get at my local Chinese or the Sha King beef at my local Vietnamese. And at pounds 10.95, it should have done.Anyway, the one dish we did let the waiter choose turned out to be the feeblest of the bunch.