SHE was only an Australian sheep farmer's daughter but there was

something about her. Though she was pretty, petite, and would never have

said XXXX to a goose, I think it was the coat; yes, it was definitely

the coat.

She claimed it was kangaroo but I didn't believe her. They don't shoot

kangaroos for anything other than hamburgers, do they? So I was sure it

was sheep. It was cuddly-snug deep, white, tactile and impregnated with

something so enchanting that when it walked towards me, my nose twitched

and my heart jumped. In that order. I just wasn't sure if it was the

girl I fancied or her perfumed wrapping.

But I was hooked. What with Daddy having about 10,000 head and a

swimming pool, I deduced that his daughter's scent was more likely to be

something expensively Parisian than the aroma of NSW sheep dip; but

being young and awkward at the time, I never asked what it was before

she took the big silver bird back to Oz.

I was bereft. And I still don't know whether it was the absence of her

fragrance or of her loveliness that prompted such heartache. Perhaps I

would have suffered less if she had left me a bottle of Whatever It Was,

so I could sniff myself to sleep, as it were (the counting of sheep

being out).

And that, as I see it, is the essence of The Perfume Problem. When it

comes to sexual attraction, it seems to me that the olfactory senses are

stronger even than the optical ones; that you can fall in love not only

through your eyes or your heart but especially through your nose.

Animals do it all the time, but they don't cheat. What you smell is what

you get.

We can buy unfair advantage. If you're no oil painting and don't

basically smell like a rose, you can still, at a price, have the

opposite sex tearing off its collective shirt with desire; or at least

lapsing into temporary paralysis as you whiff past in the corridor.

And I suspect that perfume-making is no longer just a gentle, ancient

art; that in the backrooms of the perfume houses are rows of huddled,

messianic boffins dedicated to thrusting those who can afford it into an

orgy of smell-driven sexual lunacy. They've tried it on fly-paper,

attracting the sex-crazed little blighters to a sticky end. And they've

tried it in at least one male product which claims to so attract women

that you have to swat them off.

Why should the smell-makers do this? Because, above the boffins'

backroom, there are rows of human calculators who know there is untold

wealth in creating sex appeal in a buyable bottle. Not too buyable, of

course. Such an up-market industry couldn't possibly have the masses

inspired to greater amorous endeavours, could it? So . . . as with

cosmetic surgery, the more purchasing power you or your admirers have,

the more you can increase your sex appeal by buying, or being bought

for, at the top end of the market.

You can see why Britain's Superdrug stores are perceived, by their own

admission, to have ''created a stink'' in the perfume business by

selling ''a full range of fine fragrances at up to 30% off the prices

you normally pay in department stores and chemists''.

Sexual magic in a bottle must remain elusive and exclusive, argues the

industry. But what's the point, I would ask, when the opposite sex's

attraction is to the stuff rather than to its wearer?

To prove this theory, in the course of my researches I have been quite

prepared to fall in love with a perfume bottle, preferably Coca-Cola

shaped. To which end, I have been going around smelling. My wife says

this is nothing new, and she should know.

When it comes to nostrils, her elegant, equine nose knows no

comparison. Nothing escapes its deadly forensic accuracy. Should I

weaken and secretly indulge in a taste of paradise, she knows at once.

''You've had a Bounty Bar,'' she says triumphantly.

Coming home smelling of perfume at Christmas time is quite a different

matter, of course, and ''professional research'' has not been entirely

accepted as an explanation. ''Testing the market for your seasonal

gift'' has also been thrown out, especially as she knows my feelings

about perfume -- that, like the giving of soap, it seems to be saying

something less than fragrant about the recipient.

We're still working things out; but in the meantime, you won't be

surprised to hear that I've taken to the bottle.