France
Hell — and heaven – on the French Riviera
We drove down from the hills to visit friends of friends with a house by the sea and on the…
Portrait of the week: Theresa May’s double defeat on Brexit
Home Political hobbyists speculated on the future of Brexit if the government fell, if a new Conservative leader was chosen,…
We lost our elderly, dementing French charge
I entered the cave house carrying groceries and panting from the climb to find an old hippie woman displaying rugs…
France’s second world war shame
The monument to this French village’s war dead is a plain white stone block with the head of a grizzled…
Is Emmanuel Macron having a meltdown?
Emmanuel Macron was elated when France won the World Cup in July. The photograph of him leaping out of his…
The perils of smoking three-year-old Glaswegian skunk
Three years ago we were given a bag of skunk, Catriona and I, provenance Glasgow. It was one gigantic dried…
40-plus reasons to love and hate France
I apologised, was gladly granted an indulgence, and on Sunday I packed a small bag and reached into a drawer…
‘I should just shut up’: Dominic West on #MeToo and the perils of talking politics
Lounging confidently on the sofa of a Soho hotel suite, Dominic West has been beaming at me, but now his…
450 bottles of red? What more could I want from a neighbour
I have a friend here in this French village to which we moved just over a week ago. He is…
The invisible woman of French cinema: Faces Places reviewed
Faces Places is a documentary directed by Agnès Varda in collaboration with JR, the famous Parisian photographer and muralist (although,…
A foretaste of Frexit
Moving day. The contents of a hillside shack to be moved four miles to a cave house perched high on…
Back from the brink
The long table was set out under four beautifully pollarded plane trees festooned with coloured lanterns and red balloons. Twenty…
The record bull run must end soon. So is it time for a return to gold?
All good things must come to an end, including summer holidays and bull markets. The bull run in US shares…
A captivating addition to the filmography of the first world war: The Guardians reviewed
There are moments in The Guardians when you can imagine you’re in the wrong art form. Time stills, the frame…
Why the kindness of strangers trumps a pagan festival
The entire Alpine village, contemptuously dismissed recently in an online tourist guide as a nondescript centre of old peasants and…
Make Rosé Pink Again!
When we first moved to the Languedoc, the less poncey part of the south of France nearly 20 years ago,…
How to survive a French heatwave
Me in a black polo-neck jumper looking sour; Oscar wearing a floppy hat; her youngest daughter nude and stooping to…
Was our Airbnb host a closet toreador?
We were standing in the tiny hall: me, Catriona, Annette and her toy Yorkshire terrier, Ahmed. It was our first…
Bernard-Henri Lévy: ‘Brexit will not happen’
I meet Bernard-Henri Lévy in a colossally luxurious hotel on a tree-lined avenue just behind the Elysée Palace. The French…
The greatest French museum you’ve never heard of
Imagine a French museum that’s second only to the Louvre when it comes to paintings, with an eye-watering collection of…
The critics may have liked The Death of Stalin but the French certainly don’t
Should I or shouldn’t I go and see The Death of Stalin, showing at the French village cinema last Sunday…
Knife skills for eight-year-olds
Pig’s trotters. Lamb’s feet stuffed with their brains. Flayed wild rabbits, all sinew, muscle and eyeballs. Nude chickens with flopping…
Brexit for eight-year-olds
A week ago I plucked my eight-year-old grandson Oscar from the bosom of his rumbustious young family and took him…
Macron’s Thatcher moment has arrived
The honeymoon is over for Emmanuel Macron. His first 11 months in office have been something of a breeze —…
When it comes to food and wine, there’s no place like Rhône
As often, a good glass stimulated good talk. We were drinking some promising young Rhônes and the discussion ranged wide,…
