Having lived in the UK for 12 years I have not been asked to remove my shoes in someone’s house…well in precisely that same amount of time. I don’t understand it, really cannot abide by it…so I’m thinking to launch these leather and felt charmers that are in all the state owned palaces in Czech Republic. Maybe some feather and hand embroidered versions in collaboration with Louboutin?! Watcha think…?

So all the Christmas windows are ablaze…I have trawled Mayfair, Sloane Ave, Knightsbridge, Bond Street, Regent Street…well you get the picture, looking for gems for you dear reader. Alas they have not borne fruit.

Hermes however, have had someone rather brilliant stitch up this window display. No credits to be found and the shop was closed, so do let me know if you have any info on this clever artist…or is it a window display genius…is there a difference??

I’ve made an astonishing etymological deduction….studying the rather more seriously good pictures that line the walls of the Garrick Club, that luvvie-dovey haven of literary London, the other night, I came across this gem.

The shear outrageousness of his greenery-yallery costume surely implies a certain……well, gaiety…… and when one reads his name on the frame, let alone the part he was playing.

It seems to me it’s pretty obvious that this is the origin of that much-discussed word.

I must thank Susie who sent me a terrific note on my charred violet blog…to let me know that…

‘Do you know that very obscure American writer, Weldon Kees, who was once called ‘the bitterest poet in America’?! I only know him because he apparently influenced John Berryman”s character Henry. (Kees had a failed hero called Robinson.) Anyhoo, in a poem somewhere Kees uses the word ‘vein-violet’ which I always admired. X’

No! I did not know…but will be reading henceforth, and that delightful ‘vein-violet’ reminded me I had one last word on the subject viz-a-vis Odorantes, that tiny flower shop in Paris that specializes in bouquets by scent rather than colour. Years ago, however, when I saved this Elle article, they were known for arrangements of faded withering wuthering gothic seduction….mmmmmmmm. And as I watch all the so called glitz and glamour of these too-early Christmas decorations go up around London, I rather long for a little more gloomth.

We LOVE Halloween. Trick and Treating with the girls, carved pumpkins, toffee apples and wonderful costumes. But this garden in Toronto really raises the bar! I’m going to have to start planning Halloween 2012 ASAP in order to pip this one to the post.

If this is all too much for you, then let Bing and the Andrew Sisters serenade you into a much friendlier soothing Halloween. Happy Haunting!