Why I need to become a French citizen

After weeks of living in the 18th century, going everywhere on foot and encountering few other souls, I drove to Marseille for a hospital appointment and got stuck in a crazy traffic jam. As a reintroduction to the human race, it was a brutal shock. Hooting, shouting, sirens, blue lights, motorcyclists doing wheelies, cars mounting pavements and grass verges, cars forcing a path through the stationary traffic using their bumpers as buffers: utter chaos. In an hour and a half the three-lane queue moved forward 80 yards.

The chaos reminded me of a taxi ride I once took from Palermo airport. On the half-hour drive into the city we had two minor collisions and clipped a pedestrian. It was a middle-aged chap, fortunately agile. He rolled off the bumper, landed on his feet and continued on his way without a backward glance. In Palermo I visited the catacombs of a Capuchin monastery in which centuries-old cadavers had been perfectly preserved by the dry air, dressed in their Sunday best and arranged in scenes of contented domesticity.