Diary – 6 September 2003

You will expect me to bore you about my holiday in France, where, like Joan Collins, we found things hideously expensive compared with a year ago. When the credit-card bill arrives, I shall console myself that the euro is now heading south, and that when we return next year everything will be 10 per cent cheaper – especially if M. Chirac sets about trying to bust the stability pact in the way he now threatens. We reached France at the height of la canicule, and noted the daily reports on the television news and in Le Figaro about how thousands of elderly people had died of the heat. When they had to start storing the bodies in refrigerated meat trucks on industrial estates, even Johnny Frenchman’s sangfroid went west. However, attempts to blame the government for the callousness of thousands of French families who simply dumped their oldies for the holiday season failed. Indeed, I especially enjoyed a letter to Le Figaro, in which a correspondent observed that most who had died would have popped off anyway in the next few months. He also noted that, as they couldn’t die twice, the government was no doubt preparing to be congratulated for the lower mortality figures likely in the winter ahead.

Following a total humiliation on a charity edition of The Weakest Link, I reinforced my inflexible rule never, except in emergencies, to watch television game shows. In France, though, I found myself gripped by their version of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire, which in those parts goes under the nom de guerre of Qui veut gagner des millions? I have watched the English version only two or three times, and have given up after about 20 minutes because of the stupidity of the contestants (and I speak as one) and the peculiar charmlessness of the enormously popular and successful host, Mr Chris Tarrant.