Salut!

A Mediterranean resort that will never be the same without Mamy Moules

It cropped up in the car as we discussed whose turn it was to clean the mussels.

At the hairdresser's, my wife had heard news of a bereavement. A well-known restaurateur had died and it was in the Var-Matin.

So it was, but thus far only as a death notice in words along these lines: the Libert family are sad to announce the death of Madame Denise Libert, at the age of 84, on Sept 13. The funeral was to be at the church of Saint-Trophime in Bormes-les-Mimosas on Saturday.

The name would have meant little to many of the people who, even in September, flock to these parts.

The skies smile on Provence

Every so often, the night sky over the Varois hills cries out to be captured on film. Nature's tricks can produce splendid results, enhancing this corner of Provence as they do the others.

St Tropez ... trop calme?

The positive thing to say about the view you see above of the harbourfront at Saint Tropez is that if all, or most, of the giant yachts are absent, it must be because they have been hired and are doing their day jobs.

But I have never seen the town so quiet on a Sunday afternoon in August. Indeed, I cannot recall seeing the place so quiet on any previous visit from early spring to late autumn.

Stansted 0 Toulon 1: but thank heavens Depardieu wasn't on board

Believe it or not, I can remember when Stansted was relatively pleasant to fly from.

I know that must mean a long, long time ago. But it did once seem the sort of airport at which embarkation procedures were smooth and free of stress.

Now, of course, it is a monster. But I was glad to have Stansted, and Ryanair's services from it, as I retreated from the ugliness that is Britain and flew back to the Var.

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.

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.

A weekend in Provence, night and day

Peter Mayle tired of it, or perhaps the coach parties to his doorstep tired him. The streams of tourists heading for La Madrague certainly tire Brigitte Bardot. But even Mayle came back, and BB never left.

Provence has a magic, night and day, that captures the imagination and also the spirit.

Carla Bruni-Sarkozy: 'how mon mari infuriates the Parisian elite'

Carla Bruni-Sarkozy and I may not be quite kindred spirits. But there is common ground.

Wherever she stays when in the Var, at the family pad at Cap Nègre or - as now - in the presidential retreat, the Fort de Brégançon, we're neighbours, sort of.

We are also, albeit after a fashion in her case, folkies. Someone will doubtless point me in the right direction of a potential Carla track to add to the renowned Song of the Day series at Salut! Live.

Bastille Night rage as the tyranny of Line Dancing sweeps France

With thanks to Dumdad for spotting the headline gaffe, now corrected ...

July 14. Le quatorze juillet to the French, Bastille Day to us. How did you spend yours?

Three hundred or so hoodlums, or alleged hoodlums as we should say, were arrested in Paris and its surrounds.

The Green presidential candidate Eva Joly called for an end to the tradition military parade, Carlo Bruni-Sarkozy entertained sailors' wives at the Fort de Brégançon. The English-language newspaper Connexion finally caught up with my story about the toddler who wandered off by himself 1.5km down the road on Saturday night.