This is The Da Vinci Code of coats:

*Everybody* has one. Seriously, every time I wear it I see at least one other girl with one. It's about two years old from Oasis but the trend doesn't seem to be waning. I had to change tube carriages at last year's LBF because there was another publisher wearing one. And this winter it's started all over again - this week I've seen three others.

It's quite a good way to meet new people, though, and a good ice breaker. I might launch a website called www.yourewearingthesamecoatasme.com and get cards printed and hand them to people when I see them in the coat. I might take photos of me and the people I meet and put them on my website. We could form a worldwide community of coatfriends™. Such potential.

I wonder how many Oasis sold and whether they're still living off the profits? Whether it caused a huge spike in sales which mess up their year-on-year sales? In trading meetings buyers always had to explain why their sales had missed targets ("it's colder than it was this time last year", "it's the Diana effect" (no one went shopping for weeks after Diana died), "this time last year it was the World Cup" etc). Are they sitting in their meetings this year explaining why sales are down 1500% on the year because of "the blue coat effect"? I need to know.