Kate Middleton's a pretty girl who sounds nice.

Global new money has houses everywhere, and serious helicopters, it doesn't aspire to the Miss Marple life of St. Mary Mead.

Selling scent is a key job for celebrities. At any one time, there'll be hundreds of them at it, going on the world's talk shows, doing photo-shoots, providing employment for thousands. Celebrities are instant brands.

There was a time when formal clothes were one of life's great pleasures, as well as a way of describing instantly a man's status wealth. Toffs wore the most, the proles the least. Fast forward to 2008 and clothes are still an unrivalled pleasure but some men - and this includes many of our betters - have confused status with fake informality.

If beauty isn't genius it usually signals at least a high level of animal cunning.

All I'm saying is that Louis Vuitton and L'Oreal didn't invent branding at some point in the mid-Eighties. Big, reassuring names have been around a long time.

I can remember when anything further downtown New York than Canal Street was risky and the whole area still looked like a 70s cop movie location; when the original loft-owners were more dash-than-cash, artistic types.