Last Saturday evening we enjoyed a pleasant pre-dinner hour watching a cute dark haired, tattooed young bar person making cocktails. They appeared to be shy; glancing and rapidly snatching their deep blue eyes away from our vampiric gazes.

While seated at the bar, a waitperson wafted past asking if someone was wearing Égoïste. I threw myself on my sword, proclaiming, ‘tis I’.

They asked, ‘do you know what it means?’ ‘No’, I responded. ‘Selfish’ they said with a French accent. I looked into those dark harried les misérable eyes, unsure whether to take offence or not. My tendency to catastrophise had me questioning if I was being labelled a self centred person by association with a perfume.

‘It’s Chanel’, I mumbled. Then becoming defensive, I shared, it was the only fragrance I had managed to find that my skin did not cause to disappear or turn into something foul smelling.

Égoïste Platinum is the only eau de toilette I have worn since 1993. Considering it an extravagance, I seldom put it on and only to go out. A bottle lasts around ten years. As we were on a celebratory vacation marking thirty years together, I had atomised precisely three squirts from collarbone to collarbone.

Eh bien, vive la révolution!