Tomorrow I leave this city and Blogley in Lyon will be finished. Continue reading →

Me today on the Tour

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Le Tour hits Lyon today. Frédéric Moreau said to me that cycling is as close as sport gets to rock and roll. Cycling has never been clean. It’s too hard. 3000 km in three weeks up mountains. Five time winner Jacques Anquetil famously said that only a fool would imagine it was possible to ride from Bordeaux to Paris in a day on just water. ‘We have to ride through the cold, through heatwaves, in the rain and in the mountains. Leave me in peace; everybody takes dope.’ Continue reading →

During my two years here, three men have stood out from the crowd. The first one I saw at the amphitheatre one September evening in 2011. Strolling through the ancient pillars and mosaics carrying a radio under his arm wrapped up in a plastic bag listening and dancing to U2 – A Beautiful Day. Continue reading →

La Ferme is located fifty kilometres to the south of Montpellier and twenty to the east of the town of Sete. You’ll know it if you ever go there by the huge grin the white haired man with the half eaten ear gives you as you hand him your camping fee for the night. Continue reading →

It’s 37 degrees. The track around the park is like an avenue of hot coals. Burning the rubber on my running shoes as I hit the long straight that leads up to the Orangery. The short shrubs along the route providing zero shade as I increase the pace, sweat already dripping from my brow like I’m running under a shower. Continue reading →

The old Roman Amphitheatre on Fourvière hill is a monument to the performers who entertained the cream of Roman society two thousand years ago before being thrown back down the hill after an evenings work to scrape whatever meagre living they could. So what better way to celebrate these actors, singers and poets of Antiquity than by rehashing the idea two millennia later. Albeit with more modern offerings like rock, the avant garde and Madness. Continue reading →

It hasn’t been a good year for suncream manufacturers. Or for the bar and restaurant industry along the Rhone. Frantic owners sucking on pink gins gazing at the litter blowing around the acres of expensively leased terrace. Feeling like they have been looking at the same rain splattered watercolour forever. Tables and chairs stacked up and chained together. Barrels of beer going sour. Wine corking. A million crates of ice cream going flaky at the edges. Rifle at the ready as the bank manager rolls up in this Merc. Two strong drinks. Two bullets. Continue reading →

Two thoughts came to me while reading a collection of Bruce Chatwin stories in the bath on Saturday. Firstly, I don’t write letters anymore. And secondly, has technology made my life better. Continue reading →

There’s nothing at Larina except dead people and gravestones. Which makes this 7^th century village perched high on perilous cliffs overlooking the Bugey nuclear power station, its sinister looking reactor globes a mere sling shot away from what used to be a village hall, a very strange place indeed. Continue reading →