Tennis handicapping system dispute

In my mind, yesterdays tennis at the Vignale was a triumph. Whoever you ask who took part may well agree, although I concede that the reasons for proclaiming a triumph may vary considerably from one participant to another. The heat wave alert has finished but 28 degrees is hot enough for anyone in which to play tennis, so with a raging thirst we adjourned to the Auberge St Donat for a couple of refreshing ales and then lunch to discuss the result.

It seems that some of my opponents, in fact all my opponents do not share the view that there clearly should be some kind of handicapping system when there is such an age difference between the teams . Based on my calculations of that age difference handicap, myself and the venerable Mr Anthony Bay just bested  the two young whippersnappers, John Mundell and Greg Harris from Cote d’Azur Villa Rentals. It is quite a complicated handicap system, a bit like the Duckworth-Lewis system in limited overs a cricket, but the result is undeniable, we won and that’s an end to it.

I read with interest in the Connexion English-speaking newspaper that the French are about to impose cuts and austerity measures in the current economic climate. This got me to thinking about where they might cut. Perhaps reduce the amount the police are entitled to drink each day? Maybe reduce the amount of garlic served in meals in council canteens? They could save a fortune by cutting out meaningless and copious amounts of paperwork as I can testify after an hour long visit to the bank yesterday..

Recently I decided to test out the sat nav on my car, to see if there was a quicker way of getting from Valbonne to Nice airport, and was thrilled to see a back road marked that appeared to take about a mile off the trip. However, when I attempted to take that route, I was confronted with this, my picture today, below. Just a tad overgrown for the Merc don’t you think?

Road to Nice, not nice

Cathie the Culture, one of our token antipodean readers had a similar experience which she related recently in a comment on this page and it seems that sat nav and Provence are not happy bed fellows as I hear numerous horror stories about their failings.

Last night dinner with Melissa and Nigel Graves, without their almost omnipresent gardener Iuean, Melissa on this occasion eschewing the sellotape across her mouth usually in place to keep her from saying something stupid to me for inclusion in this column.

Tonight, we are invited to downtown Plascassier where Tony “I invented the internet” Coombs lives a frugal life having decided against acquiring the riches he deserves for his invention. He and his lovely wife Pat will probably have saved hard in order to treat us to a simple barbecue dinner, but for all their (well his) frugal tastes, I am certain we will be well fed as long as we eat before we go. Luckily, neither read this column regularly, so in the words of the immortal Basil Fawlty, I think I got away with it.

You may consider that as it is now the weekend, that I will be taking time off from the promotion of Currencies Direct, but nothing could be further from the truth. It may appear to an outside that I am doing nothing, but beneath this sleepy exterior is a maelstrom of planning and plotting, not just how best to educate people into using our wonderful currency exchange facilities, but how they could benefit from investing in Medina Palms on the silky white sands of Watamu Beach in Kenya. A good analogy is contained in the words of Neil Young “Rust never sleeps”

Chris France