Yesterday was spent cleaning and tidying my flat, in order to make it habitable for my new flatmate. The fact that there’s a girl moving in – rather than a boy – somehow spurs me on to make an effort to get things completely spick and fantastically span. In the process of this domestic upgrade, I installed in my bathroom a soap dispenser. I’ve never had a soap dispenser before. It’s shiny and metal, and when I invert it, liquid soap emerges in a steady stream, onto my upturned hand. The particular liquid soap that I’m using right now is from Marseille, and it’s called “YLang YLang”.

I’d never heard of YLang YLang until fairly recently, when a television advert for Herbal Essences Shampoo featured a woman in the shower covered in rich suds, cavorting with pleasure, and moaning the words “YLang YLang.” This vocabulary-expanding moment was similar to those 1980s epiphanies of JoJoba and Aloe Vera, which I’ve consistently failed to encounter in any non-cosmetic form. Anyway, since my YLang YLang moment, whenever I experience even the most moderate amounts of enjoyment – from food, to music, to buses being on time – I find myself saying the words “Oh, YLang, YLang.” So it seemed only right and proper to splash out on some Y-Lang Y-Lang. I discovered that Ylang-ylang is the flower of the cananga tree. The flower is yellow or pink and yields an essential oil, which is an aphrodisiac and is, apparently sebum normalizing. So it turns me on, AND normalizes my sebum? Oh, YLang, YLang! Further research yielded the information that in Indonesia, YLang-YLang flowers are spread on the bed of newlywed couples. To be honest, all this saucy information about YLang YLang has made me rethink its place in my soap dispenser. If my new flatmate’s mum and dad arrive this afternoon and find YLang YLang in my bathroom, they’ll automatically assume that I’m going to normalise their daughter’s sebum before attempting to seduce her, and subsequently marry her. My career prospects aren’t particularly good, so the last thing her parents will be saying to me is “Oh, Rhodri, YLang YLang.”

So, I think, on the way home, I might pick up some Imperial Leather.