Salut!

Missing France as France missed petrol

Now that the strikes and maybe the whole pensions movement are showing the first signs of subsiding, it seems time to start missing France again.

In truth, I miss it even when the place is in chaos, flights grounded, petrol stations dry, protesters blocking just where you want to go.

But it is naturally a lot more missable when people aren't playing havoc with daily life. One of the protesters was saying on the television that the world thinks the French are always demonstrating and, well, she is quite right.

I still have a sneaking regard for the strikers. There is something in the French spirit of "up with this I will not put" that is to be admired.

But there is also a good case to be made for the proposition that this is - was? - a battle Sarko just had to win if France was to have any hope of clawing a way out of its share of the mess we all find ourselves in.

I am not sure how soon I can get back. So in the meantime, I have carefully avoided any photographic reference to disruption and allowed myself the indulgence or remembering less troubled times and moments.

There are three photos from St Tropez: the Place des Lices, the harbour and an Indian restaurant that has been there for years and has suddenly become much, much better than I remember from earlier visits

There's one of the Cap Nègre headland where Carla Bruni's family have their Mediterranean pad (much favoured, at the expense of the Fort de Brégançon, by the presidential couple).

You then see a view out to Levant, an island shared by nudists and the military. And last but one, a quick look over the Varois hills before I offer one aspect of France in London ...

Cue Kew: pleasure for the eyes, pain for the pocket

It should not involve too much defiance of doctor's orders to present a few photographs from a first visit to Kew Gardens in many years.

Not many Salut! regulars, I imagine, will need an elaborate introduction to the pleasures of this wonderful retreat, hugging the banks of the Thames, that provides such a feast for the eyes and the lungs despite reminders every 13 seconds that the Heathrow-bound flight path is above.

October can be a good month in England and there was plenty of sunshine to enhance the natural colours.

It seems almost churlish to complain about the prices. The Royal Botanic Gardens needs to raise a lot of money to supplement the grant aid from the Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, and no one should expect the splendours it offers to come for nothing.

But £13.50 a head as an entry charge, even reduced by £2 if you're prepared to admit out loud how old you are, feels steep.

So does £4 each for the shuttle that trundles around the grounds, not to mention £1.20 for a packet of (excellent, Fairfields) crisps and nearly £4 for a sandwich. But remember what you pay for a glass of wine at the theatre (no one is forced to order a half-bottle at Kew's rate of £9.50), and indeed the price of your seat, and it at least becomes understandable.

What worries me more than a little, however, is that Kew will presumably, like nearly everyone and everything else, be facing lean times in the immediate and mid-term future.

If tough decisions are made and prices go still higher, what is the likeliest effect this will have on attendance figures and revenue as people worry about their jobs and financial security? No need for answers on a postcard.

Just in case you want your Christmas shopping to be easy ...

One late addition to my list: Victoria Hislop's The Return has an intriguing if implausible contemporary story wrapped around a gripping account of what the Spanish Civil War was like for ordinary people. See more here.

When this posting first appeared, I threatened to bring it to the top every so often in the hope of concentrating minds and getting at least some Salut! readers to buy their Amazon-marketed products here.

In the months that followed, I have done no such thing. But while hoping to restore normal service soon, I will settle for now for giving the item a fresh top-of-the-pile outing to cover me until my hand has recovered from a recent op.

Prejudice, pride and the Muslims forced to live a lie

Limited use of my right hand, post-op, means I cannot properly work, so here - with the kind consent of my editors at The National, Abu Dhabi (see the revamped website) - is one I made earlier ...

Bright, personable and go-ahead, Mourad ben Saoud tries to make his way in French society. But he was born in Algeria and the path to a job, and even a home of his own, is blocked by prejudice. Reinventing himself as Dino Fabrizzi, he finds doors open, beckoning him to a successful career in car sales on the Riviera. He dresses sharply, moves into a dream flat and is not aware that something is missing from his double life until his father, seriously ill, begs him to observe Ramadan in his honour. The sickbed plea inspires another dramatic change in Dino as he makes a return to his true identity.

Hopelessly far-fetched? Not in the essential detail.

Yes Prime Minister, things are not as they should be

In fact, it is going to be slow around the Salut! empire for a little while.

Tomorrow, I surrender to the surgeons of Charing Cross Hospital, which is nowhere near Charing Cross but in Hammersmith, for a minor op.

Minor, but on my right hand.

So you want to launch a newspaper? Here's your team

With apologies to anyone I may have overlooked, and to bemused, non-journalistic readers to whom none of the names will mean a thing, I present the provisional staff list for our proposed new broadsheet newspaper, The Daily Salut! ...

For everyone involved in creating The National in Abu Dhabi, the sense of excitement was all the sharper because we were taking part, surely, in the last big newspaper launch the world would see.

But imagine you, too, had the means and inclination to publish a new title.