Valbonne winter wonderland

Once every 30 years said the locals. Snow is a rarity so close to the coast but it seems that I left Cannes on Tuesday, where I had been hard at work securing new clients for Currencies Direct, just in time to be certain of getting home before the plethora of abandoned cars helped block the roads. The fact that two years ago I was marooned at Gatwick when Nice Airport was closed during the last local snow storm and took three days to secure another flight home seems merely to feed the frenzy over global warming. Somehow, more snow on the Mediterranean coast is more evidence of the myth of global warming. Strange how a wintery event can somehow be twisted the easily led brigade to support the unsupportable.

Lets be straight about this. At present the earth is going through a slight warming, due almost entirely to the activity of the sun which even this week has had the effect of producing the northern lights as far south as Yorkshire. I know that is much farther north than most civilized people wish to venture but that is a different discussion. A few percentage points less carbon created by man can in no way significantly affect the warming of earth as much as sun spots or other solar activity, and whilst it is a worthy cause, the amount of hot air produced by politicians in support of this unsustainable argument does little to help. Indeed the emissions of methane by animals over the world far exceeds the amount of carbon produced by man (with special emphasis on the hot air  spouted by the believers)  and excreted into the atmosphere.

Global warming in retreat?

I have a picture today of the effects of global warming in the Cote d’Azur. It was taken just before we set off on foot to Valbonne village in a party that included Pete Bennett from Blue Water and Paul Thornton Allan from The Big Picture and their respective wives, the cycling phenomenon Julie (just about to set off on a charity bike ride in Kenya) and the steely eyed Lisa. The plan was to walk into the village for a coffee at the Cafe Des Arcades.

I suppose I was to blame. Demob happy after several days hard slog at MIDEM, I called for a cognac to accompany my coffee. Not be outdone, and with the dawning realisation that with many roads shut, schools closed, buses not running, offices closed and the added bonus of sipping coffee in pleasant sunshine that little would be achieved on the work front, the chaps in the party joined me in imbibing large cognacs to keep out the cold. I use the plural advisedly because a communal taste for more than one coffee with cognac swept the male contingent and before I knew what was happening coffee turned into lunch. How the pre lunch bill could reach close to 90 euros is still a fact with which I am wrestling.

Lunch was taken, wine was drunk and several of our impromptu luncheon posse returned with us at the behest of that nice lady decorator to take an afternoon cap (as opposed to a night-cap) in the pav.

Subsequent events are a little hazy but I do remember having a conversation with my accountant about the late filing of my UK tax return and I am certain that I issued detailed instructions as to how to deal with a number issues raised. It’s just that at this moment I cannot exactly recall the nature of those instructions.

Today I shall be dealing with outstanding paperwork (indeed any paperwork with which I am involved is always dealt with in an outstanding manner) when I hope to be able to retrace my steps and unravel the instructions handed down to my accountant yesterday. Success may mitigate my tax liability so what more incentive could a man need?

Chris France