I’m at university. I’ve been here since 9 AM today. It’s 11 AM now, and I have to stay here until 5 PM. Oh, life is so cruel. But seriously, you’ve never been in my Introduction to Marketing lectures, have you?

No, you have not.

Count yourselves lucky.

My lecturer, who shall remain nameless, is a twit. No, she’s not a pregnant goldfish, but she is utterly self-impressed, and insists on blathering on with pointless random information about herself:

• Exhibit A: babbling about the trendy salon where she gets her hair done;
• Exhibit B: Whingeing about the overpriced local supermarket she shops at;
• Exhibit C: Perhaps most memorably, moaning about purchasing French perfume duty-free and being dismayed to find it at a much lower price in a discount department store close to the university.

I had to fight the impulse to shout, “You should have bought the Chanel! That’ll never be cheap!”

And it won’t. Did you know that Chanel does not discount its merchandise? Any stock that is unsold at the end of a season is burned, ostensibly to protect the prestige of its brand name.