First posted 16 October 2011 

I am not a fan of French fashion. In fact I am inherently suspicious of the French. They are a tricky lot at the best of times but any nation that permits an eccentric to erect a meccano like structure with little more purpose than to serve as an overstated communications tower (as M. Eiffel opined, “It ‘ad not been dern beferr oond zo I thert I sherd doo eet”) but which had the potential to dominate the landscape for a thousand years hence, deserves to have its reasoning distrusted.

 As someone once said, and I refuse point blank to accept any responsibility for this, if the French had expended as much energy defending their own borders as they have designing pointless obelisks, many a nasty conflict might have been avoided. How many Frenchmen does it take to defend France; who knows, it has never been tried before!

 Another pointless but typical French engineering feat is the Statue of Liberty, presented as a gift by the French to the Americans. The lady stands in defiant pose gazing imperiously upon any new arrivals, 150 feet above New York Harbour, seemingly oblivious to the obvious irony that neither country has ever been guilty of practising true liberty in their entire histories.

 Returning to French fashions, a subject about which I am greatly passionate on only the rarest of occasions, I declare I simply do not like them. I recently attended a parade of French Haute Couture where the most interesting design was a wire structure that resembled the aforementioned communications tower, hung precariously from the ever so slight shoulders of an ambulated broom stick whose stark countenance exhibited all the animation of an aquarium bound grey nurse shark. Attached to the edges of this strange assembly were, what appeared to me to be, pieces of sliced lambs liver sautéed in a light pepper sauce. Hannibal Lector would have approved.

 When was the appropriate time to eat the liver was a conundrum that kept me awake for the next hour or so. Should one eat part of it before the evening is out or devour the best bits upon arrival at a private venue/eatery. Only one thing was certain; it was not going to be stored in my wardrobe. Not alongside my Armani suits it wasn’t!