Anyone who thinks Heathrow is a mess should fly to Paris. Pandemonium rules at both Orly and Charles de Gaulle airports. There are queues as far as the eye can see for luggage, taxis, buses and information. Ask someone if they can help you with directions and you’re met by ... Read More...
France
With Gaw still on holiday in France, today's diary comes from Toby Ash... and is about his holiday in France... The holiday kicked off with a splendid buffet dinner on the overnight ferry from Plymouth to Roscoff. Needless to say the boat had a French crew. There was a wonderful selection ... Read More...
This week Mr Slang writes in praise of Simenon's great detective: "a very French policeman, compounded of French characteristics and set among the most clichéd of French backgrounds"... I am reading Maigret. Tout Maigret, since it is (a) Maigret in his entirety, and (b) in French. I am not showing off, ... Read More...
A special treat for Francophiles and lovers of art and architecture... These wonderful images are taken from a new book Catherine Brennand’s France. Catherine was an award-winning water-colourist with a special love of architecture. Diagnosed with breast cancer in July 2002 she continued to paint full time through two courses of chemotherapy before ... Read More...
Dabblers rejoice! The great Jonathan Meades returns to our screens tonight, with a new series Jonathan Meades on France (BBC Four), in which he "scrutinises the 95 per cent of France that Brits drive through and don't notice en route to the 5 per cent that conforms to their expectation." In ... Read More...
Gaw recalls some strange lodgings he took whilst playing rugby in South-West France. Being a professional sportsman isn't all it's cracked up to be. It's actually very boring. Training isn't mentally stimulating and professional sportsmen tend not to be that interesting; they're usually straight up and down. I was playing rugby in ... Read More...
It may be a cliché but that doesn't mean it's not true - the French really are sexier than us. Or so believes Gaw in the wake of a holiday revelation. A Good Year is a 2006 film starring Russell Crowe as a banker who inherits a wine-making estate in Provence. ... Read More...
Since acquiring two little boys and their accompanying paraphernalia we've tended to use the shooting brake (ok, our VW) to travel to our holiday destination in the South of France. As a consequence - and also because of the sometimes frequent stops required by said little boys, one of whom ... Read More...
The third series of Spiral (in France: Engrenages, meaning not in fact ‘Spiral’ but ‘Gears’) is currently running on BBC Four and has received a modicum of hype as a replacement foreign crime series for the runaway Danish hit The Killing (reviewed by The Dabbler here). Now I’m not often ahead ... Read More...
Stephen Clarke is the author of A Year in the Merde and numerous other books which take an irreverent look at the French and at Anglo-Gallic relations. In an exclusive post for The Dabbler, he explains why Les Rosbifs have been irritating their continental neighbours for a millennium... 1000 Years of ... Read More...
