Exactly 19 years ago today I spent my Saturday in a fairly typical way for a recently-dumped, overdrawn 25 year old woman. I went for some retail therapy and bought myself a new outfit, which was cheap, but which I couldn't afford all the same.

I felt a bit shitty about it when I got home, as the high quickly wore off, and I decided to save money and stay in that night.

Then my friend rang me and begged me to go out with her - she was after the bartender who worked in a bar in Nice (France) where I lived at the time.

I told her I couldn't. I was saving money. It was cold. (Even on the French Riviera it feels cold on a December evening!).

But she found the perfect argument to win me round "you can wear your new outfit, otherwise what was the point of buying it?!".

Torn between a night in by myself, watching crappy French TV and cooking for one, or a night out in a bar, with my friend, in my new clothes, I think you can guess which won!

We got to the bar relatively early and were...