‘In my life as a consumer,’ he [Houellebecq] said, ‘I have known three perfect products: Paraboot walking boots, the Canon Libris laptop printer combination, and the Camel Legend parka . . . My favourite products, after a few years, have disappeared from the shelves, their manufacture has stopped purely and simply – and in the case of my poor Camel Legend parka, no doubt the most beautiful parka ever made, it will have lived for only one season.’ He slowly began to cry, big tears streaming down his face, and served himself another glass of wine. ‘It’s brutal, you know, it’s terribly brutal. While the most insignificant animal species takes thousands, sometimes millions of years to disappear, manufactured products are wiped off the surface of the globe in a few days.’ (The Map and the Territory by Michel Houellebecq)