And so as I landed with a pounding head and an achey back I thought very little of it, merely blaming it on the flying conditions (how they get away with treating you the way they do is something else besides thigh-high flat boots I never quite understood).

And so the next day it was all fever and pleas to die and next to no play. I tried to conjure up images of indoors fun to have in Paris but other than rancid butter very little came to mind and I went back to wishing to die. And so hours passed during which I made useless attempts at working on all those genius articles I'd never gotten around to writing; however several failed attempts to hold a pen put an end to that too.

How to artfully waste a Parisian weekend in bed... (Okay so maybe my own experience was a touch less artistic than that.)

After a few hours of sleeping and whining (lmuch whining) I tried to kid myself I was heaps better and somehow made it out on the Parisian streets and into a taxi off to the manky garage that was supposed to deliver the young designer show of my dreams. I got there and thought for a second I'd lost my eyesight to fever, everything was pitch black; I then realised it was just a bunch of kids in black waiting in a dark alley in front of a dark garage. I shall pass on the particulars but let's just say that after a few hours of being barked at I left defeated and feeling much, much closer to death.

Retrospectively I thnk I shouldn't have bothered till I had to get on a plane the following day but I fell victim to the hype and so in the early hours I left my dear unmade bed and went off for a bite of two of what I'd heard was to be the highlight of that Parisian night... I've always thought as the club sandwich (the food) as a little fussy, very impractical and overall useless and upon arriving at Club Sandwich (the club) I very much got the same feeling of vague indigestion. More barking ensued and arguing in French (anger makes me much better at speaking foreign) at the door... I guess that is when the last bit of life left in my carcass of a body went. I shall not bore you with details of what followed but apart from the sight of an infamous British editor-at-large (minus the spectacles) clearly having a grand time... there was very little there to feast on! Exactly like its namesake food. That was the end of Paris and of my hopes of an exotic weekend.

 Now that the couture has started my immune system is a lot happier and I am naturally back in the office. Haute Couture season is the perfect embodiement of Paris when it sizzles, and sparkles and wows. I think of my own more modest times and merely shrug; who needs the embroideries and laces and feathers, the office is getting new phones with caller displaytoday !

*Paris done right: my day of jetting and running around witth Mr D and Mr G.*

Photo credits: Tracey Emin