Salut!

Single file lament

It was la journée du Patrimoine and the French were claiming their republican rights in a gauche sort of way.

Some doubtless were scrambling over the flower beds at the Fort de Brégançon, the presidential holiday retreat on the Var coast between Toulon and St Tropez. Others, I imagine, were gawping at the grandeur of the Elysée.

I crossed the majestic Roman Pont du Gard , a UNESCO World Heritage Site near Nimes. The bullfight the night before was not covered by the day of free access to national treasures, but more of that another day.

How smoothly it all went elsewhere around France I cannot say. For many of the hundreds of French, American, German, Chinese, Italian and British visitors (yes, and I am sure others I didn't identify) helping themselves to their slice of the heritage at the same location as me, it was not so much the Pont du Gard as the bridge of sighs.

Flying high: those costly extras of low cost travel

Louise Manfield is a frequent flyer on Salut!, having added her pearls of wit and wisdom to my postings ever since the site was launched nearly a year ago. We had first "met" - electronically -when Louise contributed comments to my blog at Another Place and she may still, for all I know, loiter in that corner of the internet, which I prefer to avoid. She is also a frequent flyer in the ordinary sense, and devotes her Salut! Forum slot to some trenchant thoughts on the small-print turbulence of low cost aviation

I fly a lot, and the price of the ticket comes out of my pocket, so I have become a one-woman travel agency, aided by my sleek Mac, hunting out bargains using low-cost airlines.

Through choice I would travel business class around Europe and First Class to far away places, but unfortunately I don't have that choice!

Low cost should not be confused with Last Minute. If on the spur of the moment you think a weekend away in some romantic location would be a lovely idea, then forget cheap tickets, they don't exist. If, however, you are organised and book your tickets a month or so in advance, low cost flying does come into its own.

I fly frequently between Geneva and Brussels - book a month ahead and you can grab a ticket for €10 one way - and that same ticket on the same plane booked a couple of days before departure will cost anything up to €300! And don't even entertain the thought of flying on a Friday or a Sunday night!

These prices are, of course, just the basic seat price - a return ticket from Geneva to Brussels may cost around €30 but one then has to add on various taxes amounting to €70 or so. This is fine - we know that we have to pay these hidden extras. My gripe is the "Hidden, Hidden" extras and this is where the airline companies make serious money.

Peacekeeping quality of an island of dreams

Can you imagine a sweeter rapprochement? From mid-Ulster to the Balkans, Damascus to Tel Aviv, one part of Africa to the next, it is a lesson for every warring faction, or previously warring faction,
to heed.

Salut! sets a simple competition. Colin Berry knows the answer but nobly stands aside to allow none other than his sworn blogging adversary Bill Taylor to sweep to an impressive victory.

Congratulations to both of you.

Bill's prize, which will be on its way to him in Canada very soon, is a copy of Graham Robb's fascinating new book, The Discovery of France , a review of which in the Observer gave me the idea of running the contest in the first place. More about the book in a moment.

Thank you to everyone for the right and wrong answers, and for the wit - more of which I hope will now be applied to the Piers Morgan competition.

Bill correctly replied that the island photographed by me was that of Ste-Marguerite, which lies a 15-minue ferry ride from Cannes and is worth a visit despite the quarrels with catering, once you get there, that Colin Berry and I could easily describe. What is more, Bill needed none of the subsequent photographic clues; he had it in one.

The competition was due to end at midnight but, as has been noted in the comments field, there is nothing left to decide.

So you think you know the south of France?

The final clue

That's enough of blowing my own trumpet, for now at any rate.

Tell me where I was when I took these photographs. The first correct answer to appear in the comments field will qualify for some sort of modest prize. In the absence of a correct answer between now and, say, midnight (French time) on Friday September 14, I may be persuaded to reward the wittiest/cleverest/whatever-est wrong answer.

For another look at the same location, check out Salut! Sunderland where I have posted a second picture. Why there? Because I wanted to illustrate a posting about being happy to be nowhere near Wembley, the scene of England's international football game.

I will add a new clue each day while the competition lasts. Read on for the next one.....

All quiet on the Med front

It's a hard enough life

There's another pictorial clue on So you think you know the south of France and a Piers Morgan competition mentioned at Salut! Sunderland that will find its way here tomorrow - and require my faithful readers to show their prowess as natural wits.

But otherwise, you will have to make do with reading about the gifted and delightful Miss Kate Rusby at Salut! Live, or catching up with my recent rants and reflections here.

Frogbashing observed

Les bergers landais: shepherds on stilts (from the book)

A book review in yesterday's Observer reminded me of a day my back was turned in Paris and this story crept on to page one of the Daily Telegraph, for which I then worked:

Language, history, cooking and support for rival football teams still divide Europe. But when everything else fails, one glue binds the continent together: hatred of the French.

Typically, the French refuse to accept what arrogant, overbearing monsters they are.

The article proceeded in similar knockabout fashion.

It was not, as it happens, the way the reporter had phrased it. The poor man rang in to register a heartfelt protest after being given grief by his very French wife, who had reacted, well, Frenchly - and especially to the slur contained in that damning and wholly unattributed second paragraph.

There was a bit of follow-up polemic. Le Figaro's London correspondent denounced the wicked Telegraph, although inconveniently for him, his angry riposte appeared on the same day as a second DT piece, commissioned from me, in praise of the French. I even found myself addressing students at the Sciences Po about it.

It seemed clear to me then that there was no justification for virulently anti-French views to be stated as fact in what was meant to be a news story. But no one should really have been surprised to come across frogbashing in the Telegraph and some balance was achieved with the publication of my opposing view on a comment page (where such things belong) next day.

But is the Observer not a slightly odder place to find as nakedly Francophobic a rant as Andrew Hussey's review of the Discovery of France, a new book* by Graham Robb, a seasoned biographer of French literary giants?

Prize blogging

In line with my disapproval of the way British libel laws operate, I have always been rather horrified to find a journalist suing a publication or, worse, a fellow journalist.

One colleague offered a refinement of my position: "Agreed a journo should never sue. Unless he's absolutely sure of winning."

I thought of that while reflecting on whether to put up a little badge in my right hand sidebar to mark an out-of-the-blue award from The Rising Blogger for my posting of yesterday about the bizarre case of the pub, the church and French justice.

Wasn't it only five minutes ago I was wittering on about how I felt slightly uncomfortable about bloggers making awards to bloggers and then encouraging them to nominate other bloggers for similar recognition? It had the whiff of those old chain letters, I suggested.

No bar to stupidité

Just when you expected to see that reason had prevailed in the bold, no-nonsense, red tapeless France of Nicolas Sarkozy's vision, a news report smacks you in the face with a reminder of how robust the barriers to commonsense can be.

From Aix-en-Provence comes a truly crackpot judgment that shows, though I am sure the translation doesn't work, that la justice française est une âne.

A court has found it possible, presumably while keeping a straight face, to decree that the Bar des Cascades in La Motte, a lovely village on the edge of the Gorges du Verdon, must close its doors because the distance between those doors and the entrance to the parish church is two metres shorter than required by the letter of the law.

In the words of my articles here, and in the Independent, Erick and Marion Beruti's café, which performs several useful functions in the daily life of the village, is two steps too close to God in the squinty eyes of the law.

The fine of 50 euros is neither here nor there. The order to close the bar calls to mind the bulkiest of sledgehammers being used to crack a nut.

Now we know why the appeal court in Aix took many weeks to decide a case that ought to have been thrown out in seconds. Some way had to be found to justify such an idiotically inflexible judgment that belongs to the writings of Pagnol.

Antipathy is catching

The best baguette in Le Lavandou comes from the Intermarché supermarket and costs just 50 centimes, plus a few frayed nerves as you encounter idiots driving the wrong way round the one way part of the car park.

It's so good that it doesn't even taste any different if riddled with what the Concise Oxford Dictionary calls small social hymenopterous insects celebrated for their industry.

Well, that's not entirely true, since it would instantly taste an awful lot worse if you actually knew what had happened in the bread basket while your back was turned (which ought to be enough to persuade Intermarché 's lawyers that I am not suggesting the baguette was sold to me complete with the bonus filling).

But forced inside for once by the lateness of our meal, and seated in a room without powerful lighting, we didn't notice a thing until some of the creatures were spotted marching purposefully over the table cloth. They were black ants. When I idly peered into the white of the baguette, I came face to face with a few of the red variety.