Perfume comes from the Latin per fumus (through smoke). The smoke of incense, burning woods and spices were the most ancient scents.

Some useless facts courtesy of directcosmetics.com

When Cleopatra headed down the river to meet Mark Anthony, her ships we perfumed so that he could smell her coming.

At the court of Louis XV, etiquette decreed that a different perfume be worn every single day.

Rumour has it that en route to the guillotine, Marie Antoinette trailed drops of her favourite Houbigant perfume along the way.

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Ever wondered what scorpions taste like? Or cobra stew? Look no further. You can now try such delicacies at Empire, a new London restaurant where snake, kangaroo, zebra, ants and other miscellany can be found on the menu. Address: 38 Lambs Conduit Street, nearest tube, Holborn, tel: 020 7404 6835.

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Marine archaeologists in India believe they have found a sunken 'lost city' which pre-dates all previous signs of civilisation by 5,000 years. The site lies at a depth of 36m, 40 miles off the coast of Gujarat, in an area known for dangerous currents and rip tides. Most of the investigative work has been carried out using sonar scanning equipment which reveals the buried structure. Divers have retrieved a number of artefacts which have been carbon dated to 7,500BC. If these dates are correct, the city will predate the earliest known urban civilisation by 2,000 years. The discovery has been greeted with scepticism by many experts as carbon-dating is not regarded as completely reliable.

Source: www.divernet.com