Pound stretcher in Monte Carlo?

“Where’s the Pound-Stretcher shop in Monaco?”, so asked my dear friend and house guest from Yorkshire. I had taken him and his son to Top Marques, the super car show in Monte Carlo, and I was just pointing out the Hotel de Paris and the Monte Carlo Casino, just after we had walked past the Yves St Laurent, Bvulgari and Dior stores, but it seems the opulence was too much for both of them.

By train to the Top Marques show in Monaco for two reasons, the fact that Top Marques have managed to persuade the Monagasque authorities to close off part of the Monte Carlo Formula 1 Grand Prix circuit around the town, and the small matter of the Monaco Masters tennis tournament taking place in the Principality today.  Parking will the be rarer than electricity in Yorkshire.

After the show, which has so many fantastic super cars  on display that one almost becomes punch drunk with the visual feast, to the point that has the effect of making cars like the Bugatti Veyron, possibly the ultimate car I had ever seen prior to the show, look ordinary.  I suggest lunch as they are overcome with the wondrous nature of the super cars on show, one of which I feature as my photo today. My young Yorkshire born friend was particularly impressed with the Knight, a bullet proof 4 x 4 which makes the Hummer look like a dinky toy.  I think he could see a way of getting to school on Yorkshire without  the need to have to dig the vehicle out of the tundra or snow, depending on the season.

Will it really keep the whippets out?

We find a restaurant near the station in Nice on the way back, and am a little startled by their request for fish and chips. I gently point out that they can still have their favourite dish, but that the fish is unlikely to be encrusted with vein sapping batter, and the possibility of a side order of mushy peas may be an order too far.  I do not think the French have ever entertained the thought of lunch being served in the Nice Matin, but when I mention this, all I get is a blank look. I do not think that anything, including newspapers, is well read in Yorkshire, except for those from that northern out post that are stupid enough to sit out in the sunshine without factor 40+, who do then become well red.

From there we stop in Juan Les Pins to collect that nice lady decorator and her Yorkshire friend who have been systematically reducing the summer stock of rose laid in by Le Petit Plage and join them for a late afternoon glass to celebrate the return of the sunshine.

As if insufficient alcohol had been consumed, that nice lady decorator wanted to go to La Kavanou, the new wine bar in Valbonne, but, as I have predicted, it has become a victim of its own success and was too full, so we adjourned to a previously enjoyed haunt Les Caves du Vin, which is a victim of its pricing policy, but also had its smoky french atmosphere ruined by a very poorly judged make-over a couple of years back. The atmosphere has begun to return but two bottles of wine for close to sixty euros illustrates why La Kavanou is so much more successful.

I hear from my old German friend Konstantin Von Kleist, from AFA International who has just turned 65 and is able at last to dip into his pension pot. He tells me that his pension is not enough to live on, but too much to consider dying,  so we agree that it is his turn to treat me for lunch next week on the beach at Juan Les Pins, to talk serious Currencies Direct business.

Chris France