Hugh Grant spotted in London pub

Your next to last chance to get a signed copy of my book before Christmas for your loved one is upon you. Today between 11 and 12 I shall be signing copies at the English Book Centre in Valbonne. There is always the chance that I shall bump into someone who has not already done the right thing, but do you really want to experience the Chris France hard sell on the streets of Valbonne? Wailing, moaning, whimpering, tears, gnashing of teeth, I will try anything to make a sale. Better to turn up today and take the medicine and buy a copy. There really is no shame in it. Well there is in the book obviously but that is a different matter.

Last Night to drinks at Bastide St Matthieu, the fabulous boutique hotel near Grasse owned by the beautiful exotic and dusky Soraya and the rather white and dare I say it, less attractive fellow author and host Bill Colegrave. I joined a discussion about a new book detailing the life of Dickens.

It seems that the book being discussed, a newly released and deeply researched book delved deeply into his life and the influences that conspired to allow Dickens to create some of his work. A comment was made that he was effectively a diarist of his time, observing life and characters with whom he had come into contact and using this experience to weave stories for the benefit of his readers. I ventured the opinion that this was much like myself and this column and someone who shall remain nameless agreed rather too quickly in public with this observation without for one second taking on board the full horror of what they had said, and the literary ammunition they had unwittingly supplied me. So now it is official, my writing has been mentioned in the same sentence to and has been compared with Dickens, but for some reason when I asked what Dickens surname was, I received some sharp glances and formed the opinion that I may have said something stupid. Later in the evening when I was regaling that nice lady decorator with my new-found literary fame as a diarist, she expressed the opinion that my output as a writer could perhaps be better described as the outpourings of a diarrhoeaist. This is a bit of a pain in the bum for me.

Sprog 1 has arrived back from Guildford and immediately I have seen a significant depletion in alcohol stocks in my various fridges. How is it that children today have an innate ability to carry out open wallet surgery? Where do they learn it? Why were my parents always too poor for me to perfect the technique? Another way of putting it is to use an expression I heard yesterday, “bung removal”. A bung is something that is put into a hole to stop leakage, so removal of it tends to be fairly catastrophic, and likely to worsen with Christmas is still over a week away.

Sprog 2 has not even arrived home yet, she is due in this evening, but she also has a very thirsty way about her, indeed it was in a pub in London last night that she happened across Hugh Grant and sent me the picture above of herself and several of her  friends helping Mr Grant reconnect with the younger generation.

Hugh Grant outside a Kensington pub with Charlie France on his left

Another sponsor is on board for the theatre production starting in Valbonne on Valentines day next February, in addition to that of Currencies Direct. Peter Bennett of Bluewater Yachting was talked in to it late in the evening. I shall ensure he does not forget.

Chris France