Salut!

Made in France but switched at birth: the sad story of Manon et Mathilde

I'd love to illustrate this posting with a photograph of someone in the story of the two girls who, after being born in a French clinic, went home with the wrong parents. If you knew what France 2 television wanted for one newspaper's rights to view footage of an interview and grab a solitary shot, for a single reproduction, you'd know why Salut! coffers seemed insufficiently endowed for any such transaction. This is how my piece appears, sans images, in The National* ....

Raining on Le Lavandou's centenary parade

Mustn't write about Leveson all the time ...

The arrival of the corso, Le Lavandou's annual carnival, should be a sign of the return of good weather after whatever the past few months have thrown at the town. After another wet winter, the work on flood defences stretching back from the sea shore tells its own story.

Snow laughing matter: Pope Francis lost in French translation

Watching the endless French television coverage of snow Oop North - I suppose the northern France equivalent is pays des ch'tis - it occurred to us that our grand return to France had originally been planned for March 11.

Needless to say, I would not have been so quick to complain about attention to the weather reaching overkill had I been among the hundreds trapped and going nowhere for many long hours on a glacial autoroute blocked by snow and jack-knifed lorries.

Chris Huhne, Vicky Pryce and Twitter's bleak scaffold

For anyone who gazes longingly at the Saudi Arabian criminal justice system and regrets that people are no longer put to death in public in Britain (or at all), Twitter was the place to be this afternoon.

The minute-by-minute reporting from inside Southwark Crown Court in London was an example of instant social media at its most riveting while also highlighting its quite brutal streak.

Leveson: freedom and regulation, sabotage and resignation

Let's start with two questions to myself.

Do I think Lord Justice Leveson's report after his "Inquiry into the Culture, Practices and Ethics of the Press" offered a perfect and proportionate solution to a problem that clearly existed?

No.

And would I, as a journalist whose 46-year career has been spent mostly in newspapers, lose a moment's sleep if, for all my reservations, the Leveson recommendations were implemented in full?

No.

Leveson, disturbing arrests and the steady march to news by press release

Both knees, it is fair to say, have been jerking away at news that a second former senior police officer has been arrested on suspicion of leaking information to the media.

In conversation, tweets and online comments, I have raised concerns that these developments have a sinister look to them. It is as if authority in post-Leveson Britain is intent on achieving the cherished dream of imposing a system of news flow dictated by what it chooses to publish.

Rémi Ochlik, Emilie Blachère and the eloquence of grief

Death seems to have kept me horribly busy this week. At least in one case, the passing was something that had been reported but did not occur, as I describe in an article about the great fiddler Dave Swarbrick at Salut! Live. Sadly, the same does not apply to Dave Shannon, another richly talented musician I remember with affection and admiration from long ago.

And today, I have written about a French photographer whose violent death in Syria was, to Anglophone readers and viewers, almost an aside to the fate of Marie Colvin, who died with him. Rémi Ochlik's girlfriend, Emilie Blachère, has written a poem in honour of her man and their love. It is one of the most moving pieces of spoken English I have ever listened to. This is my report which has just gone online at The National, Abu Dhabi ...

Sunshine and smiles, jazz and mimosas as the Var resumes normal service

There is always a sense of gradual re-awakening when the time of year arrives to be back in France.

Six days of dull skies, frequent rain and a glacial house caused me to wonder more than once whether that time had not, in truth, arrived at all. Had I broken nature's embargo?

Heavenly steps in France

Just a few steps made with wooden planks. If that's what you're thinking, you are right. But they mean rather a lot more to me.

I can think of a brother, a brother-in-law and several friends, from an English judge to a certain Toronto scribe, who might also realise why this simple piece of workmanship - the steps are new - should matter.