The "mugger" figure was beautifully made in white leather. He then decided he should spray it with graffiti. "An incredible amount of work went into it, and I had this terrible moment when I had to sort of bugger it up. It was a ghastly moment. I should have got myself very drunk with a spray can and let fly at it.

The figure described as British Humour is, of course, lavatorial. Very much so, as it happens. Scarfe is unapologetic. "Obviously there are other sides to comedy, but I had to choose one side. And it's amazing how much lavatorial, scatological humour underlies it. So this is a laughing lavatory." It is counter-balanced by the vomiting television of the piece known as British Culture. So much for The South Bank Show.

Apart from the image of the Janus-like racist, most venom is reserved for the figure known as The System. A poor, emaciated Everyman figure staggers beneath the quadruple weight of the law (demon judge from hell, with bill to match), church (fat, stupid, morally uncertain cleric), politics (the talking backside, with red and blue rosettes for eyes) and business (a "fat cat" eating a large sandwich of small people).

At the time we meet, the Lion and Unicorn piece is unfinished. It is meant to represent British tradition, and Scarfe wants to include in it such non-heraldic traditions as "leaves on the line". He had to drop his idea of a mad-cow beefeater, on grounds of expense, he says. I wonder.

Jenny Page breezes in to check up on the heads of the Queen and Blair, which have just been fitted. She observes: "What we needed was something nasty in the woodshed - a more mordant look at national characteristics." It's certainly necessary. To judge by the images nominated by the public and displayed here, our perception of ourselves is still firmly stuck in the warm-beer-and-cricket rut. True, Julie Burchill is there as well as Trevor MacDonald, but this is not a radical proposition these days. Scarfe's riposte, in contrast, wakes us up.

Scarfe: "We are supposed to be very good at laughing at ourselves. That's my defence."

Page: "You smile while the knife goes in. That's your style, Gerald."

Fact: the vicious-looking studs on his leather thug are in fact stainless-steel icing nozzles, supplied by his wife Jane Asher's cake shop. Nothing else, it seems, was menacing enough. Only Scarfe could spot such sinister potential in patisserie.