In the empty room stood the tangled metal wreck of what was once a four-poster bed.

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There are inlaid camel-head benches and painted peacock-and-lion chairs from Rajasthan, a table made from a traditional Indian four-poster bed decorated with embroidered cloth of gold, Hindu devotional paintings, showcases housing exquisite jewellery and carved peasant objects.

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Settling into my four-poster bed, I'm lulled by the sound of the wind spiralling up off the sea, joined by the faint creak of a rocking chair and, just perhaps, the slightest click of a key turning in a lock.

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All have been individually decorated, so it is impossible to generalize, but ours came with cream walls, bleached wooden floors covered by sisal matting, wicker screens, a four-poster king-size bed, wingback armchairs, a large writing desk, dramatic framed black-and-white photography and decoration that ranged from traditional African sculptures to a tower of Louis Vuitton steamer trunks.

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She spends her days in a bar and has decorated her new apartment as if she were in college again, complete with beanbag chair, a Jane Fonda poster and fold-up bed.

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Sitting in his silver dome under the freeway, a poster of Martin Luther King above his desk and pictures of Queen Elizabeth and the Queen Mother above his bed, Mr Hayes expostulates on the evils of America's welfare system.

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