If you live in Paris you’re viewed with much envy. Like Helen of Troy, the mere mention of Paris inspires many a person to throw caution to the wind and indulge their secret passions. People walk here as if they are in their own film.

Someone once told me having a Paris address was akin to having a supermodel as a girlfriend. People are jealous. Envious of your perfect situation. They tell you you’re lucky to have her, they wonder how you managed it and they dream of being in your place. But what they don’t know is she is a fractious, indulged, indolent and cruel shrew. She puts you down, she beats you at home. Your days are spent catering to her every illogical whim and your hair turns grey solving seemingly impossible and asinine problems she magically creates out of the very air with a flick of her perfectly delicate wrist.

On occasion you pull a trusted friend towards you and you whisper, gripping their arm tightly ‘She is a nightmare’. But even those who know you best cannot see past the boulevards, the Haussmannian apartments, the jaunty berets, the chic smoking Parisians, the buttery flakey perfection of the boulangeries. The faultless propaganda of a city that believes it’s own mythology. Gaping at you with incredulity “But..” they say “Surely she can’t be that bad, look how beautiful she is. It’s Paris!”.