Short Cuts
But we managed to find a TV in France showing England’s bid for glory
I was first driven through France as a five-year-old. Our destination each year was Cannes on the French Riviera.
Oddly, the most memorable part of the holiday wasn’t catching glimpses of Hollywood stars or deposed kings on the steps of the Carlton Hotel where we stayed. But rather that, in the towns and villages on the journey, children and grown-ups would spot our GB plates and run out to give us an appreciative V for Victory sign.
We have moved along a bit since then. And while normally I’m untroubled by how the French receive tourists with ill-concealed dislike and have special contempt for Brits, this year our stay coincided with the World Cup.
Typically, for the semi-final of England versus Croatia, hardly any bars in Provence with large television screens bothered to stay open. This threatened a crisis, as one of our guests – a sports writer and newspaper columnist, whom we can call Matthew or Norman – either will do – could not contemplate missing out. Unusually for a football writer, Matthew or Norman is a highly sensitive soul and any emotional upset, he told us, could have medical consequences.
Exhaustive research therefore followed and, when we eventually found a venue in the backstreets of the small town of Robion, we thought we were home and dry. But then Matthew or Norman warned that, even though we had organised for him to watch the match, sneering responses from French drinkers in the bar about the quality of the England team might cause him to behave out of character and/or to become seriously ill.
Once seated, perilously close to the screen, Matthew or Norman lined himself up with several beers, two packets of cigarettes, and earphones connected to his mobile in order to discuss any finer aspects of the game with his best mate in London.
The prospect of a drama unfolding before their very eyes naturally excited my two grandsons, aged eight and nine, who could barely concentrate on stuffing their faces with chips and ice cream, while monitoring Matthew or Norman for any signs of worrying behaviour.
As it turned out, the French in our midst were perfectly well-behaved. Instead, Matthew or Norman had to be restrained from hitting several members of two families of English spectators whose howls and cries suggested home was Surrey or Hampshire. And who, in his opinion, knew f*** all about football.
On the second day of the holiday, my vet called to say Ellie, my elderly working cocker, had kidney failure and he needed to put her down. Non-dog-lovers needn’t read any further. Others will appreciate my pain.
Ellie was 15 and had seen me through a divorce, a daughter’s wedding, the birth of two grandchildren, moving to a new house and goodness knows how much domestic chaos. However, unlike almost everyone’s faithful Labrador, rather than show astonishing compassion during whichever comedy or tragedy was taking place, Ellie maintained an air of magnificent indifference. Likewise, no dog-hating visitor was ever bothered by her making an unwanted fuss.
In a family of highly opinionated exhibitionists, she was therefore much admired. And what she lacked in neediness or vote-catching, she made up for in her ability to spot a wrong ’un.
Strangers were on the end of a noisy warning. Visitors whom she knew might or might not receive a greeting. The one exception was a workman who called regularly – but for whom she reserved her most aggressive barking. It was impossible to stop her growling. Several years passed before I learned her judgement, long before it dawned on the rest of us, had been spot on.
The first two books I read lazing by the pool were Damaged Goods: The Inside Story of Sir Philip Green by Sunday Times business editor Oliver Shah. It’s a terrific piece of investigative journalism, both unexpectedly funny and jawdropping in its detail.
The second, equally mesmerising, was Unbelievable, an account by the NBC reporter Katy Tur of following Donald Trump through the 2016 US election.
What struck me was that, if Trump and Green were to mount an effective disguise and swap jobs, you’d be hard pushed to notice the difference.
When I visit my GP, I try to have our consultation over within the regulation ten minutes. I doubt others bother since, even when my appointment falls within the first hour of the surgery opening, it’s likely to mean a 15-minute delay.
Last week, I renewed a prescription for HRT. The doctor took my blood pressure and dutifully gave me a brief rundown of the benefits versus the drawbacks of the medication. By then my time was up. Disappointingly, this meant I had to miss out, as suggested by the head of the NHS, on a chat about replacing hormone replacement therapy with gardening, joining a book club or learning to dance the tango.