With true last-minute aplomb, it seems that everyone in Paris had just realised that the legendary art nouveau boulevard Haussmann department stores were decorated for Christmas. However, we found ourselves amongst the pack at Printemps and Galeries Lafayette the other day for an entirely other (but far more dubious) pretext.

I’m glad we went though (but I’d already seen the decorations pre-Christmas in surprisingly far less of a crowd), as these 9ème arrondissement grands magasins are a sight worth seeing. Graced by stained glass and cupolas, they date back to the era of the rebuilding and modernisation of Paris by civic planner Georges-Eugène Haussmann in the mid- to late-nineteenth century.

I’m surprised Guillaume and I didn’t get stopped by visa control on entering the ostentatious upper levels of Galeries Lafayette though. We were obviously illegal aliens, entering foreign territory, but I had to hiss whisper to Guillaume “we can’t scoff too much, we’re in their designer world now…”

But this is like complaining of a chill in Antarctica, what was I honestly expecting?

Just as I was getting a bit antsy in the crush of people, Guillaume pulled me from the chaos on into a subterranean arcade to show me a shop he had discovered a few days earlier. It turned out to be the retail space of an “As seen on TV” shop, masquerading as a chic Paris boutique. It was awful. Guillaume wandered through shop, entranced by the bad taste and marvels of mail-order inventions, whilst I stood outside on the verge of a hissy fit.

In revenge, I took a catalogue to add to our collection of toilet reading magazines. It lasted only a few days at our place before Guillaume banished it to the recycling bin on the charge of bad grammar and ridiculous claims about a set of kitchen carving knives ‘used in aeronautics and surgery.’

Oh come off it! (or as the French would say, n’importe quoi – my new favourite expression, especially when pronounced as if the four syllables were distinctly emphasised individual words).