If you’re looking for a picture-perfect village in south-west France, step this way. Monpazier is sometimes said to be the most architecturally perfect bastide village in the Dordogne – and…
It’s French week at Lidl and the supermarket’s traditional working class customers are being elbowed out of the way by their more affluent neighbours. With cheeses for 99p, walnut saucisson…
I know what a prince in a fairy tale feels like – thanks to a stay in a château with a moat, in a bedroom in a turret. The beautiful…
In a display of great daring, France’s Monoprix has managed to combine utilitarian chic with the highest prices in the market. This gamble has proved surprisingly popular – with the…
Mussel growers in Charente-Maritime fear for their future after the numbers of adult mussels off the region’s coast plunged by 90% this year. The problem is blamed squarely on pollution…
Autumn officially arrived this week and the thermometer has nose-dived of an evening as if to reinforce the point. At times like this, there can be few things more satisfying…
Just 1 in 10 of you will reach the end of this blog post. And 80% of people will read no more than a third of the page. Those are…
I’m thinking of taking out an injunction against Pascal Obispo, preventing him from coming within 100 metres of me. Don’t be fooled by his boyish charm: everywhere I go, the…
Nobody warned me that a day’s gardening would be such hard work. Spending yesterday in the garden preparing it for winter has left me with a dull ache in the…
Our friends say they always come to us when they are in need of a fix. They reckon we have the best drugs in Brighton. Only after they have had…
Friends for a reason, friends for a season, friends for life – you never know what you’re going to get when you meet someone new. Little could I have predicted…
If ever they remake the film Monte Carlo or Bust, they should transpose it to Angoulême. By the looks of the town, this weekend’s car rally is just about the…
A yes vote in Scotland today will change the United Kingdom forever. The decision, ultimately, is one for the Scots – but the ramifications of their actions will be felt…
There’s a reason why new world wines have caught on with your average Briton – you don’t need to know very much about wine to understand what you’re buying. French…
The sign of a good cook is knowing which corners it’s OK to cut in a recipe. Cheap booze can be a false economy – it is OK in some…
Putting your car in for repair can feel like handing over your debit card and PIN number to a stranger and hoping for the best. That’s especially true if, like…
I would be willing to bet that the number of female chefs in professional kitchens is in inverse proportion to the number in domestic kitchens. And when it comes to…
Sport is no good for you. I have lost count of the number of times I’ve read about a skier breaking a leg, a runner having a heart attack or…
Planning a holiday is like writing a shopping list. You know instinctively which places you’ll return to – they are like the bread aisle in the supermarket. It’s the special…
Is it too much to hope that Galeries Lafayette might open a store in my hometown? Outside of France, it has branches in Beijing, Berlin, Casablanca, Dubai, Jakarta and New…
