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.