Hot air over Valbonne

I have so missed her. Lisa Thornton Allan, not featured in my photograph today, is the blonde steely eyed goddess and trophy wife of Slash and Burn Paul Thornton Allan. She is a very intelligent, articulate university educated woman but just occasionally the blonde gene takes precedence and these are often moments to remember. They flew in from London yesterday to take the credit charge of their leaving party today (despite the fact they left about a month ago), the responsibility for which until now has been left to  that nice lady decorator whilst they have been sunning (sic) themselves in Muswell Hill for the last four weeks. Superb planning, plan a party, use someone else’s house and delegate the organisation to the owners.

They have taken to long walks on Hampstead Heath to try to forget the weather in the UK and were out on the Heath when suddenly the Red Arrows aerobatics flying team scorched overhead on their way to a fly past at Buckingham Palace for the Queens Jubilee celebrations. Excited at this sudden explosion of spectacle and with no children accompanying her, she  exclaimed to the dogs “Look, Missy and Bertie, the Red Arrows” It is not reported if they were suitably impressed.

Her husband, and Currencies Direct client Paul, is a brilliant artist and has a design company called The Big Picture. OK, I have been nice enough to him now. Regular readers will be aware of my antipathy for all modern art and my certainty that all lovers of it are being fooled all of the time a la mode of the kings new clothes. Last night over a nightcap in the web after dinner in Valbonne Square, where he took this picture, he revealed that his Art degree, which he achieved with Honours, was based on a piece depicting “mans impact on the environment”. The work comprised a house brick tied to a piece of string and suspended in the middle of the room. Scratching your head yet? He went on to explain that as anyone entering the room would have to walk around his work, presumably to stop one banging one’s head, his theme was clearly laid out (or tied up?). Thus his Honours Degree award. I think if I had seen it I would have been banging my head on the ground.

The balloon goes up for the Thornton Allan`s leaving party

A story has reached me of a comment made about my first book “Summer In The Cote d’Azur”, also available for Kindle, from “Plastic Mac” Douglas McGeorge, renowned plastic surgeon who recently purchased a copy. He said and I quote “it was as funny as “Wilt” by Tom Sharp”. Impressed, I mentioned this last night to that nice lady decorator but deflation was immediate when she pointed out that he was sufficiently comically challenged not to have realised that the British Association of Plastic Surgeons may have been shortened to BAPS.

As I write I am awaiting delivery of a huge porker in readiness for a pig roast, a gastronomic lowlight of a Provencal summer, which is intended to feed the 50 or so invitees to said leaving party, which commences at lunchtime today and will be attended by the great and good and many who have featured in this column in the past. I am expecting to collect a wealth of material to keep me going this week, so I must trot(ter) off now to help set fire to it or whatever they do. I have some petrol in the garage, that should give it a nice flavour. I do like a bit of crackling.

Chris France