Li-li-lion, lion’s in a jungle, jungle’s in a cage, tra-tra-trouble, trouble in the homelands, trouble in the homelands, bosses in a rage ….. A Party. Big Audio Dynamite. 1985.

I am very responsible and completely in control of my perfume habit. Except when I really want something.

I always was going to get the new and only available in the UAE Chanel Exclusif, Le Lion de Chanel, it was only the question of how. I started by emailing one of the department stores in Dubai that carried it. Coincidentally on that same day, Portia sent me a video of himself and a friend trying a sample of Le Lion in a store in Sydney. First part of my mind lost. He told me that he could organise getting a 200ml bottle sent to me at an eye watering, yet not too bad for such a large bottle, cost. The 75ml was not possible. I needed to think.

I have a husband with a bike addiction. (He has been known to call UPS and arrange a meet-up on the autobahn, just so he can get his bike a couple of hours earlier than it would actually be delivered to him.) So he did not flinch when I told him I was considering a blind purchase of a perfume for more than 400 Euros – do what you gotta do.

After much thought, I made the decision not to buy it, too much dosh to risk, especially on a blind buy. Portia offered to include me in his split and put me down for 10mls – that I would have to spray out of an atomizer with no magnetic Chanel cap, and have to wait for. But you know, you take what you get, huh?

The following day I had a voice message. He could organise 75ml and did I want it? Open Pay-Pal – transfer. This is the definition of responsible.

A day later it had been sent and I had a tracking number. I knew it would take about a week, so did not bother to check more than fifteen times a day. I started to get excited when I saw that it had landed in Vienna and cleared customs and was out for delivery, expected on the Friday, eight days after the order.

I had a live radio show on this Friday and time was getting so tight I had to go. No problem, I could wait until Monday anyway. Just as I was leaving I had a message on the tracking app – the package was at the post office, and at the same time unbeknownst to me, the postman had dropped into our shop with an official yellow “your package is waiting to be picked up” paper which he gave my husband.

Over the years, as in many countries, post offices have closed down here , and have been moved into corners of general stores etc, and in our case, into the local gas station. It is always a complete pain-in-the-ass having to go there. You wait in line forever as the employees are rather – well, as my father used to say, “pay peanuts and you get monkeys.”.

I waited in line for thirty minutes, sweating like a bloody junkie, and worried I was going to be late for my show. About fifteen minutes in Chris (husband) turned up with the aforementioned yellow paper, he was going to pick it up for me as a surprise, not knowing that I knew it was there already. (Insert laugh here, we ALL know where our packages are at any given time.). He left me the paper and legged it back to work.

It was finally my turn. I gave the employee the paper, and she turned around and stared vaguely at a couple of shelves, looked blankly at her computer screen, and told me the package was not there. I told her it had to be there as I had the tracking confirmation and the bloody yellow paper. But no. She said she had no idea where it was and there must have been some sort of mistake. I told her not to be ridiculous it had to be there. At this point she walked across the aisle and looked under the counter where the gas station part of the building sell their bread and sandwiches. I kid you not. I suggested to her that packages are not usually kept under bread counters. There was no one else there to help and the alcoholic, chain-smoking gas station assistants, just leaned against the counter looking like a couple of extras in Deliverance. I left in a cloud of 28 La Pausa and red lipstick, telling her I would be back tomorrow.

I was so piping mad as I got into the car that I could barely breathe. I had about a half hour drive to get to the studio, and would have a few minutes there before the start of the show. I had to do some seriously deep breathing, and needed to decide if I wanted to start the show with The Clash’s White Riot. As luck would have it my brother called a few minutes into the drive to wish me good luck for the evening. As I told him the drama I started to calm down a little, and to laugh. He kept talking to me for the whole drive and I was so thankful. It allowed me to get a little perspective (that might be a lie) and put myself into show mode.

I have a free hand at the radio station and told my listeners I was pissed. and why. I had several messages from perfumistas and yeah, you know, shit happens. The show must go on!

Saturday morning and I was back at the Post Office at nine. AS I walked across the garage forecourt I saw the assistant take one look at me and go hide in the back room. Hahahahahahahahahaha. Quite right too. She came out after a couple of minutes, I had already decided not to freak out. She did not bother to look though, that made me so mad. I mean at least pretend to check the shelves and the sorting area. When I asked where she thought it might be she shrugged her shoulders. Dude.

Monday morning came, I went to work, and Chris went to the Post Office. I know I would have stabbed her if I had gone, and who would make the cookies then? As he walked into the post office she reached under her counter and took out the package. And here is the unbelievable part: Told him that it has been there all the time but she had not seen it. And she felt so bad that she gave him a box of chocolates to give to me to say sorry. I say open your eyes girl, and I don’t eat chocolate.

I went down to the post office today (Thursday) and took Le Lion with me so that she could her try it. And I wanted to thank her for the chocolates. Unfortunately she was not there.

THE END

Thanks to all who supported me through this difficult time, you know who you are.

By Val the Cookie Queen

Notes: Bergamot, lemon, labdanum, amber, vanilla, patchouli, sandalwood, musk.

Le Lion de Chanel opens with an eruption of bergamot and aldehdydic leather. It is exquisite. The love child of Shalimar Parfum, father unknown.

We do know the perfumer is Oliver Polge.

The construction seems to be built around a centre of cool church incense, although not mentioned in the official note list. To my nose the incense remains throughout the entire composition allowing it to retain a continued coolness and elegance in the heart of what is an oriental amber.

Not a dark and sticky amber, and not the choke-you-to-death flat, unpleasant amber beloved by so many niche perfumers. This is graceful and elegant.

The base is rich and shimmers with light. There is a soft leather presence, a sandalwood richness; the animalic labdanum assures the sensuality, and a dry vanilla which, like the incense, envelops the wearer from the first moments, makes this an absolutely stunning piece of work.

Worldwide launch January 2021.

A limited release in the Middle East, May 2020.

CQ

Disclaimer. I got my bottle from the friend of a friend’s friend, whose Uncle’s dog died. I paid hard cash for it.

Ken Crisp 20 July 1931 – 10 June 2020.

There was never not an Uncle Ken and Auntie May.

As a child growing up in the wilds of Wyoming and the suburbia of California, Uncle Ken and Auntie May were voices on a tape. My mother (his sister) was desperately English, and I do believe was rather a fish out of water there, having transferred from the soon to be swinging London in 1960, to a land where a having a garden was a yard, and you had to watch out for rattlesnakes.

Each Christmas a box would arrive from England full of Rowntree`s Fruit Pastels, Cadbury’s Chocolate, Smarties, Germolene, and a tape recording from The English Family. Uncle Ken and Auntie May, Nanna, and my cousins. Mum would play them, and play and play them again. I have one old tape still, that Mum put onto a cassette at some point. Their voices still fascinate me, so very BBC, “Hello Valerie, this is your Uncle Ken speaking!”

We left the Unites States in 1967 on a Pan Am jet heading to Heathrow. Uncle Ken was waiting to pick us up. I remember climbing into what seemed to be a huge black car, but surely wasn’t, and the steering wheel being on the wrong side.

Uncle Ken and Auntie May have lived in the same house in Pinner for some sixty years. It has been and still is the one constant in my life. As kids we had the best Christmases there. Well known for hosting the greatest parties, already back in the sixties, Uncle Ken would fill their huge garden with strings of fairy lights, and glowing lights that were somehow hidden in amongst the bushes. They would leave all of us kids and cousins alone as we hid ourselves in amongst the magic. And as far as I know he never electrocuted himself!

He had a great sense of humour. I would on occasion go and stay with them, and his daughter and I would go up into town for a night out, returning on the last train back. Uncle Ken would be waiting outside of the tube station with a large cardboard sign in the front of the car saying “Crisp Taxi Service.”

I left England in 1985. Out visits became more sporadic, and we entered the “cards for birthdays and Christmas” era. Scattered with the occasional visit when I went home.

Over the last ten years though, I have been going home much more frequently. I stay with their daughter and I got to really sit and talk with Ken for quite some hours, and spend time looking at old photos. Curled up on their über-comfortable sofa and eating too much cheese on toast, in the home I have been visiting for more than fifty years. Snug and secure.

Uncle Ken and Mum. 1940. St. Ives, Cornwall.

Uncle Ken passed away on the 10th of June.

Just a fortnight before I had called him and we spent a good half hour on the phone chatting about everything. For this I will be eternally grateful.

I cannot go to the funeral, thanks to the ridiculous 14 day self-quarantine rule in the UK. I am not sad that I cannot be there, I am bloody annoyed.

Rest easy Uncle Ken. Although if Mum has got a hold of you that will be highly unlikely.

With love from your favourite niece.