....exactly what they are used for up north [of Mexico] is not always clear.

"I know it’s used for decoration," said Moses Macal Maroukin, 69, a veteran palm chopper, who seemed somewhat mystified. He said he had no palm fronds in his home.

But then he revealed what the people here had long believed to be the real use of the exported palms. The juices in the stems and leaves are extracted, he explained in a conspiratorial whisper, and then turned into a special mixture that is used to stain greenbacks green.

"This is how you color your dollars," he said, waving a palm.

This week the judges at the TS Eliot poetry awards were unanimous in awarding Duffy the £10,000 prize. The decision, they said, marked "a rare moment of agreement between the critics and the booksellers as to what constitutes great poetry".

In Duffy's case, however, this consensus is hardly new. Not since Philip Larkin has a living British poet straddled the commercial and critical arenas with such finesse. This has prompted several critics to seek common ground between the two authors, some thematic preoccupations to link the dyspeptic Hull librarian with his more expansive, approachable descendant. For her part, Duffy jokes that there is only one similarity. "We are both lesbian poets," she says.