Spare a Tear or Two for Sophie

This Sunday April 15, 2007, as pearls of sorrow slide damply down the chill walls of a sad morgue somewhere near Nantes, where Sophie’s lovely smile is frozen timeless in death, 4000 people walk slowly sobbing through the streets of the Breton capital.

Ethel and Officer Merde

Back in the early seventies, my French wife Jos and I spent our honeymoon working in a street market not far from St Tropez. In those days our prized possession was a battered and dirty old grey Austin minivan called Ethel (named after a battered and dirty old grey aunt of mine).