Repeatedly, I took him at his word - and found he was right.

Of course, for anything to invite mockery it has to have aspiration, to have ambition.  What is the point in deflating a balloon that doesn’t rise?

Which means that sport, and in particular Olympic sport, with its lofty values and tradition, forms a natural target.

Why, only the other week I sat amongst some irreverent observers of the Association of National Olympic Committees General Assembly in Doha who were standing ready to sound an imaginary klaxon at the first mention of "Olympic values".  Shocking, I know. They know who they are…

Drilling down, to use a much - and rightly - mocked phrase, there are classic Olympic mockery opportunities, including Opening Ceremonies, solemn Legacy promises, and … logos.

Ah yes. In the beginning was the logo.

Seven days ago, as I blithered about backstage in the Paris Grand Rex cinema theatre ahead of the launch of the new Paris 2024 logo, I made some basic enquiries and learned that it wasn’t a logo, but an emblem.

The truth was, however, it wasn’t an emblem but a target.

And lo, when the coup de theatre had occurred, and the incorporate successor to the classic Paris 2024 bid logo - which had beautifully included a representation of the Tour Eiffel and the numbers 2 and 4 - was revealed, the rattle of small arms social media fire began.

The emblem - combining representations of a gold medal, the Olympic flame and the face of a woman who was identified as being Marianne,  synonymous with the soul of Republican France since the Revolution - there was, guess what, much mockery.

There were comparisons made with the logo of the Tinder dating app, which has an orangey-red flame against a white background.

"I'm sorry but I see that," one Twitter user said along with a laughing face emoji.

Another person drew the same comparison, saying: "The logo of #JO @Paris2024 unveiled, not to be confused with @Tinder, although it is a beautiful nod to the French culture!"

Others decided that the woman depicted bore no resemblance to the popular representations of Marianne leading fellow Revolutionaries through streets of the capital.

Paris 2024 had said in a statements about the new emblem: "It is made up of three symbols, both simple and powerful.

"The gold medal, symbol of sport. The flame, icon of the Olympic and Paralympic movement. Marianne, image of France.

"These symbols reveal a face that embodies our ambition to put people at the heart of the Games."

The organisers followed up by citing a survey that showed public approval ratings as being above 80 per cent.

Right? Wrong? It’s all subjective, isn’t it?

You could decide to mock the face as being more sexy than revolutionary. Coquettish. But that’s an essential element of Paris too - isn’t it?

You can talk all day about things like logos, or emblems, or paintings, or poems, and of course information can aid understanding and appreciation. But in the end it either grabs you or it doesn’t.

I tried, genuinely, although genuinely not for that long, to understand how marvellous was the London 2012 organising logo, how multi-functional the clunking shapes and colours were.

"It won’t be everybody’s taste immediately but it’s a brand that we genuinely believe can be a hard working brand which builds on pretty much everything we said in Singapore about reaching out and engaging young people," said the then London 2012 chairman Sebastian Coe at the 2007 launch.

Good try Seb. But no go.

In the same way, I immediately liked the Paris 2024 organising logo - sorry, emblem.

One feared for the result, given the sublime effectiveness of the bid logo. When I heard the Eiffel Tower would not figure in the new emblem, I thought - that’s risky.

But the twists worked. The emblem embodies enduring Olympic concerns while also managing a foxy appeal. Those lips are at the heart of the fire, reflecting the Paris 2024 wish to put people at the heart of the Games.

It’s a quirky, human element - akin to the incorporated boomerang that doubled as the dashing legs of the figure in the Sydney 2000 Olympics logo.

And the idea of sharing the logo between Paralympics and Olympics was simple, graphic genius.

In my opinion.

In the maelstrom of noise, wine and animated bodies in the main body of the theatre after the grand reveal I found someone well placed to offer a more valuable opinion - France’s Olympic pole vault gold and silver medallist and world record holder Renaud Lavillenie.

Given the trompe l’oeil nature of the emblem, how long had it taken him to "get" it, I wondered.

"The fact is it didn’t take too much time for me to see what was going on with the logo," he replied.  "I mean, first thing you see is the head of the woman, and then you see the flame."

Erm. A psychologist writes. As I pointed out to him, the first thing I had seen was the flame…it was like the old conundrum picture - do you see two opposed faces, or the candlestick shape between?

"Yes," Lavillenie acknowledged with a grin. "It depends if you are looking the black or the white."

But there was no ambivalence about his reaction.

"It’s really nice," he said. "The great thing right now is we have a very nice logo, and I think everybody is proud to be able to show this logo.

"We have five years from now to the Olympics, and of course we have a lot of work to do, but this is a very good step to show to the world that now we are really focused on the organisation of the Paris 2024 Games , and this logo shows new steps to go forward. It sends a lot of messages."

On the notion of the shared logo, he added: "I think it’s ‘why did nobody think of it before’?! The fact is right now that Paris sends a good message that right now we can break some barriers and break some rules, and this is one of the rules we break by having the same logo for both Paralympic and  Olympic, by having the face of a woman,  which is not very usual in sport."