both the idyllic riverbank setting and the lavish provisions are Platonic ideals of the English country picnic. Rat is a well-organised host; a brief visit to his home is all he needs before he reappears "staggering under a fat, wicker luncheon-basket": 'What's inside it?' asked the Mole, wriggling with curiosity. 'There's cold chicken inside it,' replied the Rat briefly; 'cold tongue, cold ham, cold beef, pickled gherkins, salad, french rolls, cress, sandwiches, potted meat, ginger beer, lemonade, soda water.' 'O stop, stop,' cried the Mole in ecstasies: 'This is too much!' 'Do you really think so?' enquired the Rat seriously. 'It's only what I always take on these little excursions;the other animals are always telling me that I'm a mean beast and cut it very fine!' [...] Leaving the mainstream, they now passed into what seemed at first like a little land-locked lake. Green turf sloped down to either edge, brown snaky tree roots gleamed below the surface of the quiet water, while ahead of them the silvery shoulder and foamy tumble of a weir, arm-in-arm with a restless dripping mill wheel, that held up in its turn a grey gabled mill house, filled the air with a soothing murmur of sound, dull and smothery, yet with little clear voices speaking up cheerfully out of it at intervals. It was so beautiful that the Mole could only hold up both forepaws and gasp, 'Oh my! Oh my! OH Myyyyyyyyy!' [...] The Rat brought the boat alongside the bank, made her fast, helped the still awkward Mole safely ashore, and swung out the luncheon-basket. The Mole begged as a favour to be allowed to unpack it all by himself; and the Rat was very pleased to indulge him, and to sprawl at full length on the grass and rest, while his excited friend shook out the table-cloth and spread it, took out all the mysterious packets one by one and arranged their contents in due order, still gasping, 'O my! O my!' at each fresh revelation. In Fernando Arrabal's one-act drama Picnic on the Battlefield (1959) the young and inexperienced soldier private Zepo is visited unexpectedly by his devoted parents. They arrive with a picnic basket, which they unpack 'spreading sausage, hard-boiled eggs, ham, sandwiches, salad, cakes, and red wine on a cloth'. Zapo reminds them that 'discipline and hand-grenades are what's wanted in war, not visits' but they ignore him