PAGE nine? You're saying page nine? Page-goddamn-nine!

He told me three! He said we'd get page-goddamn-three!" Scarlet-jawed in rage, an elderly, white-haired cinesort screams blue murder into a cellphone so small it's almost invisible. My funds grimly diminished, I'm reduced to sucking the cheapest plonk in the plainer bars behind La Croisette, eavesdropping for entertainment, panning the airwaves for gossipy gold dust.

Cannes is crawling with fat-cat producer types. They're everywhere, floating along in little bubbles of pomp, zeppelins of self-importance, latter than ice-cream-and-drugs period Elvis and well into their 70s. Attached to their iffy hips are the trophy wives: sleek, gazelle-like creatures, usually blonde, always in their 20s. They say there's a contrast-gainer in every relationship but this is ridiculous.

With my few days in Cannes coming to a poor-mouth end, it's depressing to realise these people are the real movers and shakers, the dream-breakers and the star-makers.

In a blue mood, I take a final saunter down to the Palais for one last celebrity-fix. Some swish premiere or other is in progress but it's a good half-hour before I get my hit. The ultimate object of my feverish older-woman fantasy - Catherine Deneuve, a still-stunning sixtysomething - slinks out of a long black car and assays an incredibly stylish ascent of the red-carpeted steps.

This is old-school Cannes glam and we proles down in the sweaty throng lap it up. As soon as Deneuve disappears from view, the world seems to darken a little, as if there's a dimmer-switch on the sun and someone's just turned it down a notch.