During the early days of our practice, we experienced our share of bizarre wannabe clients.

Especially memorable was the elderly French lady, claiming to be a colleague of the late Madame Eve Curie, who asked us to publicize her food-synthesizing talents which included, among other forms of culinary alchemy, converting carrots into orange marmalade and beets into chicken liver. She was an excellent cook, but failed chemistry 101.

Another, this time a French man, but equally certifiable, desired to retain us to publicize his voyage between Miami and Bimini, Bahamas, on a raft propelled by a shark!

We politely declined, but he found another more naive — or perhaps more imaginative — publicist.

On the appointed day, with a sizeable gathering of reporters and photographers in attendance, the Frenchman attempted to harness a nurse shark to his raft, but the unappreciative fish turned in its harness, nipped the would be skipper in the leg then took off, raft in tow, for destinations unknown.