Let’s hear it for the true geniuses: the people who name paints | Emma Beddington

It's easy to mock - and I fully intend to - but it takes real imagination to come up with something like Elephant's Breath or Overcome Nymph's Thigh

Recently, I went on an adventure to an alien and intimidating place, a real no-go area: Belgravia's interiors shops. My best friend is trying to buy a flat and to energise her for this grim journey of owner ghostings, asbestos, incompetent agents and outrageous prices, she needed a bit of escapist fun looking at chi-chi paints.

Unfortunately, she brought me: a person with all the visual sensibility of a house brick (Terre D'Egypte? Porphyry Red?). I sat vacant and unhelpful as she discussed nuances of verdigris and celadon, interjecting when something obvious struck me. That one is yellow!" I would say, with toddler-like delight; or, I like that." Mostly I looked at colour charts.