If so, I do not suppose he ever had it in mind to include badminton among the resort's attractions.
Taking each component of the title, I can say that the sea was never far away when teams from Le Lavandou, Cogolin, Le Luc en Provence and St Trop itself assembled in a bright school sports hall not far beyond the Places des Lices, home of the more sedate pursuit of boules.
It was also sunny enough. As for the rest, I will say only that the female players from Le Lavandou were by far the sexiest present. I cannot speak for the men.
This - badminton, not sex - is a sport I took up relatively late in life, having spent most of the previous 29 or 30 years thinking of it as a game for cissies or the beach. It then took me almost as long again, until yesterday, to get round to playing in my first tournament.
Whether because of any ability on my part, or because it was important to make up numbers, I was invited often enough when living in London. But I always declined, afraid that something would crop up at the last minute at work and cause me to let down my club.
The only thing standing between me and playing in this tournoi was the dodgy ankle. My physio worked small wonders to get me more or less fit to play in the short time from when I first presented myself to him as a sad middle-aged man with tendonisis.
He went through the usual routines involving ultrasound, massage and ice treatment and also banned rosé wine, milk and tomatoes - the last two were no special hardship - as items that would aggravate the condition.
By conscientiously following his regime, and swallowing an extraordinary cocktail of anti-inflammatories each day, I was probably 80 per cent ready for the competition. Le Lavandou's badminton club, however, was not.
Where I play my badminton is friendly enough, but more of a social gathering than anything else. To form two rows of three courts each, long nets are stretched across the hall from wall to wall.
The result is that each court is poorly defined, the outer lines appearing on the wrong side of the support posts. It does not make for an entirely serious game, good or promising as some of the players may be.
Before the tournoi, our president Denis talked animatedly about wanting to go out there and win, but I was aware of no determined practice sessions, putting potential partners alongside one another.
Denis could be forgiven, however, for being a little late at the early morning assembly point, since this was a result of showing a proper sense or priorities; it was election day and he'd gone off and voted first.
But the other clubs had clearly approached things differently, and their doubles players looked as if they teamed up together frequently. There were also age and fitness issues, but these mostly affected me, not my team mates.
In the end, considering that I played with a different partner in each of three matches, I was moderately pleased with how things went, despite losing six of the eight games and therefore all three matches in which I took part.
My first match ended in a straight 2-0 sets win for the St Tropez opposition while the second and third at least went to third, deciding sets against Cogolin and another pair from St Trop. Le Lavandou came bottom or second bottom, though our youngsters - thanks in no small measure to the encouragement they get from Denis - may well have won their section (I had to leave before the presentations).
Far more detail than anyone ever required, I am sure, and maybe Robert Marchenoir correctly reports Churchill as counselling against all such physical exertions. But I feel a new burst of enthusiasm. I shall devote my old age to tournament sports.
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