WHAT MOST PEOPLE remember about Magnus Mills - despite his being short-listed for the Booker and Whitbread Prizes - is that he used to be a bus driver. The poor man must sometimes wish he could appear in the press without being the 'bus driver turned scribbler'. In his latest novel, he turns necessity to advantage: it's wistful, bone-dry satirical fable about van drivers.

The Scheme for Full Employment is set in an unnamed country whlch seems to be an imaginary version of Britain, perhaps a little into the hture. A benevolent government of a Utopian communist bent has come up with just what Mills's title promises: a scheme for full employment. Everyone who