When I was about fifteen,I had a wonderful idea.

I had secretly bought myself a lipstick which looked almost black, but which (when spread, equally secretly, on lips) was a deep seductive red(!).

In a creative moment I thought,why not BLUE lipstick?

It did not occur to me that blue lips might suggest heart failure and therefore not be seen as attractive. I saw myself becoming a multi-millionaire,with my range of lipsticks in every shade of blue being sold in major stores like Boots and Woolworths. I went around thinking of poetic names: sadly, I have forgotten most of them,but examples might be Midnight, Heaven, Meadow Bue, Kingfisher and of course Forget-me-not.

I remember I made lists of names,and designed packaging. The cap of each lipstick was to be iridescent (I had peacock-feathers in mind) and the blue tones ranged from palest heart-murmur to deepest I've-just-been-punched-in-the-mouth-by-a-Gorilla.

I shouldn't joke. Not for the last time, I felt that I had discovered something entirely new and was on the brink of a great adventure. Unfortunately, I still have similar moments of creative genius,all equally unfulfilled!