Salut!

Jim Allan: a 'great and decent man'

As regular readers will know, Salut! is predominantly about France and matters Anglo-French. But other subjects are mentioned at the top of the page and this is a tribute I had to write ...

Twice in the last month or two, I have sat in my French bunker and written articles for the spoof front pages traditionally prepared at newspaper offices when colleagues leave to work elsewhere, join other redundant job-seekers or begin retirement.

Jim Allan's departure is more final and there will be no mock-up P1. Last week, he lost a long struggle against cancer and died aged 75.

Will McDo's baguette revolution help keep France slim?

From this:

Image: erin & camera

To this:

Image: fugzu

Jim Allan (RIP), riots and The Napoli wreckers

First things first. I am sad to have to say that my former Daily Telegraph colleague, boss and pal Jim Allan has died at the age of 75.

A proper appreciation will appear here within days, but my deepest sympathies are extended to his family.

I can imagine Jim news editing coverage of the riots with organisational skill, rigour and - yes - decency. "Professional, humane and damned good fun in the pub," was the comment of one friend, Gervase Webb, who knew him in his post-Telegraph stint at the Evening Standard, and it would be difficult to improve upon that summary.

A French lesson on riot control, an English way forward

Ealing, the morning after

My experience of French riots persuades me that kneejerk reactions are not always wrong.

My kneejerk reaction on witnessing, in 2006, boisterous but peaceful anti-government marches in Paris degenerate into violence was to praise the police snatch squads I had seen in operation.

They, too, looked like thugs, not the sort of people you'd choose to bump into in a dark alley. But how efficient they were, moving swiftly into action after spotting cuprits or being directed towards them by telltale stains of paint sprayed by other officers.

London riots: back from France, my warm welcome is a city ablaze

Image: Peter G Trimming, Croydon

It would be trite and untrue to suggest the worst thing that happens on the streets of France is that very French thing of not obeying one-way markings in car parks. There were, after all, serious riots all over the country in 2005.

But it was straight back to France that I wanted to go as I emerged from Ealing Broadway station, not long before they closed it, to be greeted by a daughter who had driven past gangs of hoodies on her way to pick us up.

Not all right, Jacques: Chirac in Saint Tropez, visibly aged

The picture in today's Var-Matin tells its own tale.

Jacques Chirac may indeed be happy to be back among friends in the Var, a familiar spring and summer haunt, but he is hardly looking a picture of health.

The empty shop: a constant echo of Air France disaster

Each time I find myself heading for the beach in Le Lavandou, I receive a sad reminder of the crash that killed all 228 passengers and crew on board an Air France Airbus A330 flying from Rio to Paris in 2009.

Tunnel vision: the misplaced story of a premier baiser

When last seen, Shildon Tunnel was not located on a Train à Grande Vitesse (TGV) line out of Paris.

Nor does it appear on that picturesque rail journey along the Riviera from Saint Raphaël to the Italian border.

But for anyone who knows south-west Durham, it is a striking feature of the branch line that passes through the historic rail town of Shildon (get the adjectives right and this is the birthplace of the railways).

It was captured by our own Bill Taylor who, in an attempt to force new life into my North-east nostalgia site Salut! North, worked it into the story of his first kiss.

Given that Salut! North receives few visits these days - how could that be otherwise when the best part of three years has elapsed since my own last posting there - the tale deserved the wider audience I can direct from big-time Salut!

It was not intended to receive that wider attention quite so directly. The posting was meant to appear at Salut! North and Salut! North alone. For a very good technical reason, it is impractical to kill off the version here, so I will reproduce Bill's piece at the other site.

And while appreciating his words and picture, feel free to laugh at my own snaps, taken through the train carriage window in May, the morning after one Dominique Strauss-Kahn was arrested on sexual assault charges in New York (I can hardly forget since I spent the rest of the day, on reaching my destination, Menton, writing about it).

Incidentally, today's Song of the Day choice at Salut! Live - Tom Paxton's Leaving London - could also be considered a borderline candidate for Salut! North since it is one those songs I would sadistically impose on folk club audiences in my northern youth.

Woodbines, Shildon Tunnel and that first kiss

Salut! North is not dead on purpose. Its life support system has not been switched off and it has not gone to that trashbox in the skies; it has just, for now, lost the battle for attention. Bill Taylor attempts to shame me into putting that right ...

I’ve never been one to flog a dead horse (actually, that’s not at all true) but trying to breathe life into a dead blog is a different matter.

And it’s probably appropriate that this attempted Kiss of Life involves a real-life kiss… no yearning after an unattainable girl in a bus shelter for me.

It’s also mostly set in Shildon, Colin’s hometown, rather than my own, Bishop Auckland, a good three miles away. Strange how great a distance that seems when you’re 14 years old.

Nose to nose with the shark of Saint Tropez

Image: Kaushik Narasimhan

Anyone who has spent much time in Saint Tropez will probably claim to have come across sharks.

What they would have in mind would be the people who charged them a fortune for a meal or a beer along the quayside, or for the skimpy togs in the boutiques behind the port. Riviera chic does not come cheap.

But Nicolas Faucon reckons he has seen the real thing. In fact, he has seen it so often that they've become genuine passing acquaintances.