Fujimoto was born in 1950. He lives in Osaka and works in Kobe. He represented Japan at the Venice Biennale in 2001 and was selected in the international exhibition of the same event in 2007. In Japan he attracted much attention for his ”Audio Picnic at the Museum” exhibition, which he planned and organized himself for one day each year for ten years from 1997 till 2006.

I gave up on the States because they introduced it. I fled England because surprise, surprise they brought it in too and settled here in the City of Lights (Extra Lights, Menthol, Filterless, Roll-your-own...) because I was certain that of all places in the world, here that delicious tabacco-induced fug would never be banished and smokers could continue to indulge in their filthy/fabulous habit with total impunity. How wrong I was!

Ah the 21st Century ! It's just all go, go, go. Faxes flying, e-mails pinging and mobile phones ring, ring, ringing as we all run as fast as we can trying to keep up. Well, not quite all of us...

From the poetry of Shakespeare to the prose of Dickens; from the wordplay of Racine to the subtle nuances of Balzac to say nothing of the writings of a million other authors, poets and dramatists in a legion of different languages, there is, if you are willing to look for it, the perfect phrase for every occasion.

Without doubt, but for the fact that the late, great Yves Saint Laurent had been cremated, he would unquestionably have been turning in his grave at the fashion faux-pas that I witnessed today by an English family strolling in the Place Colette.