"Why aren't you back in England for the wedding?", my newsagent Marie-Noëlle asked as I picked up my Var-Matin (and a British newspaper that shall remain nameless) this morning.
For a moment, I wondered which wedding she had in mind. I have a friend's to attend, also in London, but that is not until the end of May.
Very well, I knew perfectly well. And no, on present intentions, I shall not be watching any of the three French TV channels I know to be covering the event wall-to-wall, and I will keep ears untuned to France Info. Unless professional demands dictate otherwise.
"I'll be looking instead for some grass to watch growing or paint drying," I assured Marie-Noëlle without being quite sure whether such expressions of unconcern work in French. She understood, shared my lack of interest and admitted that magazines on Kate and William had hardly been selling comme les petits pains.
But it is fair to say the build-up to Friday is all over the media, here as elsewhere. Sarko's Carla is rumoured to be expecting his child, there's the Monaco version of a royal wedding to come in July, but more eyes - media eyes at any rate - are focused on what is about to happen on the other side of the Channel.
One report quoted the Duke of Edinburgh as telling the London correspondent of Le Monde something along the lines of: "You got rid of your royal family but are endlessly fascinated by others."
I made my concession to royal fever by starting the week with lunch chez des amis at the Régina, a sumptious block of flats at the top of the Boulevard Cimiez in Nice. That is one of the views from the third floor you see above.
Queen Victoria loved l'Excelsior Régina Palace and spent parts of successive winters there during the last few years of her life. There's a statue of her outside, and not far away a Bvd du Prince des Galles.
While inside, I heard a delicious morceau of royal gossip but it had nothing to do with Kate or William and will not, in any case, be repeated - just now - at Salut!. We may be republican, but we know how to be discreet.
What will you be doing to catch - or avoid - the TV come Friday morning?
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