Michel is one of those Frenchmen one encounters now and again whose shining saintliness is beyond rational understanding. This great bear of a man, with heavy silver rings on his fingers and thumbs, is always cheerful, always kind, always puts others before himself. Whenever he speaks with me, it is always under the pathetic delusion
Showered and shaved and wearing a stiff new Paul Smith candy-stripe shirt, I took an Uber to the party. I love London and it was grand to be back and to be driven through the sunny streets by Yusef, one of the many new arrivals adding vibrancy, energy and diversity to our great city. Diversity
Hours before boarding the cross-Channel car ferry, I received a text message from the company warning of severe fuel shortages on the other side of the Channel. Nevertheless, it went on to say, for safety reasons the transporting in vehicles of fuel-filled jerry cans was strictly forbidden. Bugger that. I went out and bought two
We cleared the kitchen table for a game of pick-up sticks. Remember them? Thirty long, thin bamboo sticks, their differing values painted on them in red, blue or yellow stripes? You bunch them in your fist and let them collapse in a heap on the table and then the players extract one at a time
A fresh start in a new gym in a foreign country. The serious young gym attendant didn’t speak a word of English, so we did the best we could using my limited French. He weighed me then asked me to hold a device that measured my body mass index via my palms — how it
On Sunday we were invited for lunch at Chez Bruno, an unbelievably posh restaurant in the south of France. At Chez Bruno all the dishes, even the ice-cream desserts, are flavoured with truffles. Resting on the gate pillars as we drove in were two gigantic stone truffles, and next to the entrance was a long
The tourist information office of the small French country town looked closed. Peering between the posters on the window glass, I couldn’t see a light on inside or furniture or people. I tried the door anyway and it gave way. The office was open. In the corner of a large expanse of tiled floor was
I drank Bombay gin and Fever-Tree tonic on the half-empty easyJet flight to Gatwick. I was even offered ice cubes. I was dressed like a peon, so as soon as I arrived in London I went into the nearest Gap superstore and bought jeans, a shirt and a jumper in the sale and threw away
What consolation in life can Arthur and I find after that defeat at the hands of Manchester United in the quarter-final replay of the FA Cup, and the manner of it? West Ham and their always hiding fortunes are, and always have been, real life for me; real life, only sport. My father first took
On Monday morning I was in a blind panic. The deadline for posted manuscript entries to the Daily Mail First Novel competition is 1730 GMT on Saturday 16 April. But I was in France again. A letter sent from France to Blighty takes between three days and a week. Therefore I had to get my
The younger grandson, Klynton, four, has got in the habit recently of thrusting his hands in my trouser pockets and tearing up and throwing away whatever he finds there. He goes about it with energy and application, snarling and growling like a lion, and it’s bloody annoying. Because he is impervious to physical pain, a
While I was in Provence, my hostess and I went out one day for a walk in the hills. We walked for three hours and didn’t encounter another soul, and apart from a couple of blue-tits, nor did we see any wildlife. At one point we came to an old stone monastery chapel perched on
I shared a taxi from Cheltenham station to the house party in an outlying village with a stripper. Finding a taxi in Cheltenham during the Festival is as difficult as picking a winner in the Bumper, and we were amazed and pleased to have got one so easily. One wouldn’t have guessed that the dark,
I walk into the King Bill at eight o’clock and the usual young Friday-night crowd is in and the spirit is already moving. Whether this is due to the fatness of the moon or the availability and quality of the drugs on sale this evening, I couldn’t say. Whatever the cause, everyone is lit up
Nice airport was more or less deserted. Two-and-a-half hours early for the easyJet flight to Gatwick, I had a leisurely cup of tea and a bun at a café kiosk before going through security, sharing a counter with a couple of young gay Frenchmen who were bickering respectfully over the timing of some future arrangement.
Before we left for Sunday lunch at the Les Deux Garçons restaurant, Aix-en-Provence, I checked the reviews on Tripadvisor. I’m mildly addicted to Tripadvisor restaurant reviews — I enjoy their Pepys-like unselfconsciousness — and never before have I seen opinion so equally divided between praise and censure. According to the dissenters, Les Deux Garçons is
I was diagnosed with prostate cancer with metastases in April 2013. It was a bit of a shock, but when the shock subsided I found I was happier than I had been for as long as I could remember. Every man in his best state is altogether vanity, says the Bible. With the dictator vanity
In the Foreign Legion’s Museum of Memory at Aubagne, near Marseilles, I examined the kit, weapons and uniforms from the Legion’s formation in 1831 up to the present day. Uniforms from the Crimea, the Mandingo war, the Mexican expedition,the second Madagascar expedition, the first world war, the Algerian war, the first Gulf war: there they
The hotel reception was lit by three gloomy low-wattage light bulbs. It should have been six but the management was economising. The hotel’s nod to the city carnival was a single balloon strung from one of the empty bulb holders. I let my backpack drop from my shoulders and checked in. WiFi, said the receptionist,
Denis was my guide to and from the new out-of-town Lidl superstore at Salernes in Provence. I drove. The road was a smooth ribbon of asphalt newly laid through an ancient forest of dwarf oaks. The in-car conversation with Denis was, as usual, easy and undogmatic and wide-ranging, which is the only sort of conversation
