Rules for a deconfinement dinner party
The most visible local landmark is a solitary two-headed Jurassic mountain called Le Bessillon, six miles long and 800 metres…
My first post-lockdown party
France is divided into a red zone and a green zone. We’re green. Green for go. From this morning we…
In praise of French doctors
They made a better job of sorting out my waterworks
How the French view their weekly clap for carers
Once a week we break French emergency law and have a friend round for drinks on the terrace. The terrace…
Vodka, kaolin and morphine: my welcome drinks at The Spectator offices
In 2001, aged 44, I was hired to write a weekly column for this august paper, and for the first…
Would my success in growing cannabis plants translate to nasturtiums?
In a cave once used as a stable and now abandoned, I found a wooden crate containing a dozen tiny…
I was relishing the lockdown a week ago, but now I need urgent hospital treatment
In France the rule for going for a walk stipulates an hour in duration or a kilometre in distance. We…
Had the entire village population been wiped out since last week?
With my signed and dated laissez-passer in my pocket, I trotted down to the village to see if I could…
I am socially isolating in a cave in France
This Provençal village clusters around the base of a cliff 300 feet high and a kilometre wide surmounted by two…
My love affair with Hannah Arendt
The three of us — me, Catriona and her daughter Skye — were having a wash and brush-up before going…
The joy of Xanax
The greater the enervation, it is said, the greater the appreciation of a work of art. There was no place…
Shrieks, shots and broken china: a visit to my rural French GP
On a hard chair next to the waiting-room door, I sat for an hour defusing thoughts of my own demise,…
The film that shaped my vision of the world
Joyce Marriott of Pyrton, Oxford, has written a letter to the Times on the subject of how a person’s imagination…
How to sample your own urine
Seven round the table for dinner. Wild mushroom risotto. I was told to sit next to Michael. Good. Michael makes…
How I found salvation in a church in Torquay
Last Tuesday a Mistral wind blowing across the Bay of Angels jerked the plane all over the shop as it…
Is gluttony no longer a sin?
I’ve no interest in food. None. But for the three other journalists on our press trip, eating was a consuming…
The horror of Heathrow
There are no stairs or escalators to take you up to Terminal 4 from the underground Heathrow Express platform. Beyond…
Whisky and striptease: stories from an old people’s home
For the last four years of her long life, this upstairs room and this magnificent sea view belonged to Mrs…
War has broken out between me and my siblings
Last night I watched a boxed set. Parade’s End is a small box set as box sets go, and quite…
The death of my desert-island fantasy
I was on the back seat of a golf buggy being driven down to the marina from my beachside villa…
A young Rwandan scholar left a profound impression on me
In the Rwandan Genocide Memorial gift shop I bought a handy Kinyarwanda–Kiswahili–English phrase book. The tipping point in the decision…
Smoking opium with Mr Nazim – and a gecko
‘I used to go to India for a few months every year. A couple of times we even drove there.…
Hell is an expat dinner party
I just don’t understand it. Emigrating from Britain to France is a big step. Shifting from one culture to another…
When Brexiter meets Catalexiter
After the hostel breakfast, I stood on the tropical grass lawn smoking the first fag of the day and mulled…
The lessons I learned cycling across Rwanda
The backmarker of the peloton was Eric, a tall, stick-thin Rwandan. Under his cycling helmet he wore a baseball cap…
