An old friend

Patrick Cosgrave

ome weeks ago I received a postcard from Paris, from my old friend Chris. I was greeted most effusively, Chris thanked me for my invitation, and looked forward to showing up. All in all, a most pleasant greeting.

It gave rise to a few questions, nonethe- less. Who was Chris? Indeed, who was he/she? There was another question: what invitation? It could scarcely have been to dinner or lunch since, scatter-brained though I often am, I rarely forget those. On the other hand, it has been many moons since my wife and I have given anything that might be called a party. However, we could no doubt cope with a single incursor on the spur of the moment. The vital question was one of identity.

It happened that we had just dined with some friends who had come through Paris where they had met my old friend Chris Hitchens, distinguished contributor to the Spectator. Chris had sent his good wishes. Was it that Chris? After a little speculation I dismissed the idea, for I would certainly not have forgotten the issuing of an invita- tion to Hitchens. We came to the tentative conclusion that Chris was somebody I had met abroad, whom I had liked, and to whom I had issued a casual invitation to call when in London. Alternatively, he might have been writing to a different Cosgrave. And there the matter rested.

I won't say that we remained on ten- terhooks in the days that followed, but we did indulge in the occasional speculation, and rather looked forward to meeting the mysterious friend.

Alas, our hopes were to be dashed.

Chris moved on to Monte Carlo where he (sex was definitely established in the next communication) put up at the Hotel de Paris. 'My dear Patrick,' he wrote from that august address, 'regret impossible to see you. But business is business. I'll call you later.' The signature, however, pro- vided a new clue, for it read 'Christian'.

This provoked a new fever of specula- tion in the Cosgrave household. We both have a number of Danish and French friends, and the Christian name, common in the first country, is not unknown in the second. Still, much racking of brains and perusal of ancient address books produced nothing in the way of enlightenment.

At this point I began to feel like Graham Greene in his delightful essay 'The Other Mr Greene', in which he describes the activities, so far as they are known to him, of another Graham Greene, whose foot- steps have dogged his for a generation, and who frequently represents himself as being the novelist. My situation was not exactly the same, but there were, obviously, simi-

larities. Perhaps there was another Patrick Cosgrave who was bosom pals with Christ- ian.

My wife was asleep when the next communication arrived, this time from the Plaza Athenee in the Avenue Montaigne, Paris again. It read, 'My dear Patrick. an unforgettable fragrance with an asto- nishing character, an extraordinary en- counter . . . Positively "sauvage" in fact. You will be won over immediately. Christ- ian D.'

Now, I should explain that all the mes- sages were written in a clear and rounded hand, in black ink, their only odd feature being the practice of the scribe putting a little squiggle over the letter 'u'. This slightly strange orthographical feature was one of the many things that had puzzled me and I studied it again while awaiting the awakening of the wife. Here I have to confess shame. I am a great reader of detective stories, and she is not. But she simply looked at the latest missive, licked the tip of a finger and ran it across the writing. Watson, there was no smear. We had here the devilishly convinc- ing product (or three of them) of a satanic modern writing machine, all acting for the greater glory of Christian Dior's Eau Sauv' age. This elaborate promotional manoeuvre does, however, offer material for a few reflections. It was, obviously, light-years away from the usual direct mailing techni- que or, for that matter, from the incessant shoving of unwanted rubbish through letter-boxes which irritates us all daily. I defy anybody with normal eyesight, and using eyesight alone, to tell that the three communications were written by machine. They were different in kind, consequentlyfrom the supposedly personalised word- processed appeals and offers we get reg- ularly from such as the AA and Readers Digest where the difference between the pretend-personal and the evidently gener- alised bits can be spotted instantly. Again' the envelopes were not franked, but pror erly stamped. Besides being expensive' therefore, the whole business must have been highly labour-intensive. One stands appalled at the misbegotten ingenuity. For the question that remains is: why me? I have not the slightest interest in cosmetics and perfumes, and if I have ever bought a perfume for a woman it was because some special bargain was on offer at an airport. If sophisticated marketing depends (as it is supposed to do) on effective targeting, then my friend Chris badly missed the bull with me. True, rilY wife suggests that the Dior people, having discovered from Who's Who that I have been thrice married, concluded that I was a womaniser, and therefore a potential Per- fume purchaser, so I may yet sue. But honestly don't think it happened like that at all.

Leaving aside the crude world of the letter-box fillers, the art of promotion 01, recent years has simply become an ever

more complicated one, a world in which

the perfection of the idea is an end in itself. (In the same way, it is evident how much better made TV advertisements often are than the, programmes which they interrupt.) So we have here a vision of big business bosses mesmerised by the complex schemes of clever young men and women enamoured of the intricacies of their own ideas. Promotion is thus becoming div- orced from consumer effect and related to the aims of the bosses only in so far as the latter have to pay the cheques.

If I am right, the bosses are even bigger mugs than any consumer who is taken in by a promotion. Meanwhile, I won't be giving Eau Sauvage as a present to anybody unless, of course, my old friend Chris sends me some free samples.