The man wearing the salad bowl is about to undertake a rather challenging dive. 30 minutes at a depth of about 1metre may not seem like a huge adventure, but you have to take into consideration that his home-made kit consists largely of a shower head, some garden hose and the previously mentioned salad bowl.
     I'm at the Paris Dive Show, watching a merry collection of rebreather enthusiasts strutting their self-build stuff in the pool. The crowd laps it up, and you have to admire the sheer balls of these blokes for not only being prepared to construct their own life-support equipment Blue Peter-style, but being willing to test it in such a public arena.
     At moments like these, you realise that the line between genius and madness is blurry. Which side you end up on can rely on such small matters as checking the waterproofness of the seal on your scrubber or, in the case of Ozzy Osbourne, a predilection for biting the heads off bats.
     This being Paris, the approach to diving is rather different to that at British dive shows. Can you imagine the BSAC letting a homemade rebreather anywhere near its try-dive pool? The working party would be meeting well into 2013. It would be insurance policies at dawn and HSE men with clipboards and heavy frowns.
     The French divers saunter around in relaxed style, pausing for a hit of strong Gallic coffee and a freshly-made baguette. The huge pool forms a spectacular centrepiece, with kids doing try-dives, famous free-divers holding their breath for seven-minute spells, monofin swimmers doing mermaid impersonations and companies demonstrating their latest kit.
     Where are the hordes of frenzied divers haggling over the price of a length of bungee and demanding a discount for cash?
     You have to hand it to them, the French divers have flair. Their love of inventiveness and passion for the adventurous in diving makes "50 years of British diving" look as stodgy as dumpling stew.
     What kind of sad creatures are we when the appointment of an operations manager at BSAC HQ makes it into the Top 50 landmark events in British diving? Incroyable!
     I'm here in Paris because the people from the rebreather enthusiasts' association invited me to give a presentation about women and rebreathers. In French. For some reason it seemed like a jolly good idea, and in a fit of supreme confidence in my own abilities, I accepted.
     Unfortunately, my O-level French is a distant memory. Standing before an expectant audience of French speakers with nothing but a few pitiful phrases and a lot of arm-waving to offer, the whole idea now appears vraiment merde.
     At moments like these, you realise that you have crossed the line between self-belief and utter stupidity. Thankfully, Dr Andre Grousset has translated my Powerpoint presentation into perfect French, so when I've finished puzzling the audience with my "Frockney" accent, I can at least gesture towards the screen behind me.
     Luckily, the divers here seem not only to understand my ramblings but also to share a sense of the ridiculous. Well, they laughed...
     Perhaps the reason it's so easy to focus on our differences is because French and British divers are actually overwhelmingly similar.
     The man in the salad-bowl rebreather is making a triumphant exit from the pool, after successfully completing the 30-minute challenge. "So, you made all this yourself?" I ask, suitably impressed at his chutzpah.
     "Mais non!" he replies with a huge grin, "my friend made it, and I volunteered to dive it for him." Zut alors! At moments like these, you realise that the line between bravery and complete folly is rather blurry. At least here in Paris, they're prepared to have fun running that risk.