The joy of French hospital food

After checking me in, the receptionist, who was wearing an overcoat, said: ‘There is no heating in the hotel. The unit is broken. But it is not cold today so you should be fine.’ Room 357 was cold. Hoping to raise the temperature by a degree, I filled the sink with hot water, turned on all the lights, and switched on the massive telly.

It showed drug squad officers busting dealers in a poor northern French town. After combing through a suspect’s text messages, they bashed down his or her front door and arrested everybody and seized their drugs and cash. Most often it was hashish in small amounts and the drug dealers were in bed. It was poor whites busting other poor whites. The programme was three hours long. One bust after another. Not having watched a television for several months, I was rapt. Afterwards, vowing to take more care in future about the content of my text messages, I took a pill and turned in early.