When I am not lusting after Rodney Yee or my actual boyfriend, I can often be found sitting in the world's most comfortable £10 armchair, headphones snaking into my ears, salivating unostentatiously over the clichéd vocal resonance of Louis, the 'native French speaker' who presents iTunes' best podcast for the intermediate French learner.
Whether he is explaining the order of multiple adjectives around the noun (which he charmingly pronounces 'noon') or slowly breaking down the sentences of a recent French radio broadcast to aid our chances at comprehension, Louis' patience and understanding are rare and wonderful to behold on an aural level.
It was, therefore, slightly disappointing when I logged on to the podcast's companion website this morning and unexpectedly happened across a photo of Louis himself. Light years from the Sacha Distel-alike I had imagined, my favourite Frenchman was wearing a sensible suit-jacket-and-light-polo-neck combo last seen in the pages of a C&A catalogue or sported by a smooth-talking villain on Murder, She Wrote. His face was also a let down - no drooping cigar or winning laughter lines, but rather thin lips and an ill-advised haircut.
Much as I hate to confront my own shallowness, it is undeniable that, since I saw the photograph, my enthusiasm for the daily French podcast has plummeted like a Shire horse down a mine shaft. And with the lunchtime episode of Neighbours already three minutes in, it's impossible to think of an optimistic conclusion. Apologies.
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