In which Muriel introduces Suzanne to a group of brilliant women: the Précieuses, headed by Madeleine de Scudéry. Novelists, scholars and wits, they invented the salons, the art of conversation and a progressive idea of love.

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Suzanne gathers a fashionable cast - including Sherlock Holmes, Coco Chanel and Vivienne Westwood – to take Muriel through the warp and weft of Harris tweed's dramatic history. The only fabric still to have its own Act of Parliament, it was a battleground for Gaelic weavers, philanthropic aristocrats and punk fashionistas.

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Muriel introduces Suzanne to the French equivalent of Alice in Wonderland, a memorably unsettling portrayal of childhood with enduring appeal, that shines a light on past and present ideas about French childrearing.

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Suzanne remedies Muriel’s ignorance of cult BBC2 programme Ski Sunday and in the process unpacks the British obsession with and transformation of skiing from conveyance into fun downhill-racing activity. Raclette and Arthur Conan Doyle also feature!

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Over a glass of the legendary green aperitif, Muriel presents Suzanne with the history and myths of absinthe – its rise from local Alpine speciality to the metropolitan tipple of artists and boulevardiers, followed by its dramatic downfall, against a background of social anxiety about degeneracy and violence.

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On this special day for swains and sweethearts Suzanne leads Muriel down surprising heritage pathways: tracking the relic of St Valentine’s head, wondering why French-style love poetry flourished after Agincourt, and revealing who adorned Victorian Valentine’s cards with dead birds.

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Where Muriel introduces Suzanne to a colossal French star who was the ambassador of American rock in France and became both a national monument and the incarnation of French masculinity.

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Suzanne untangles an astonishing plot to do away with Napoleon III in 1858 Paris. Unfolding in the coffee houses of London and the industrial workshops of Birmingham, it is a riveting tale of Italian nationalists backed by British radicals, all dreaming of the Revolution!

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In which Muriel unpacks for Suzanne the various hidden meanings taken on in France by the black polo neck. From Hollywood to the Left Bank, the humble polo neck acts as rallying sign for the counterculture as well as the Establishment, and no Existentialist would be seen without it!

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Alegedly invented by accident in Slough, the army of wheelie bins now lining our streets is the latest iteration of British society’s attempts to manage waste. Suzanne ploughs heroically through centuries of ashpits, dustbins and cesspools, recounting many convulsions of public-spiritedness as she tries to get Muriel to think pragmatically about rubbish.

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