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SUMMER AND winter, early every Wednesday and Friday evening we're interrupted in whatever we're doing by a mighty noise from somewhere down in the village, a monstrous wave of gibberish, and there's no excuse for missing M. Maigre, the travelling

I ASSOCIATE it in my mind with President Mitterand, but maybe it goes back beyond him to the days of Giscard d'Estaing: it's the principle known as désenclavement, the opening up of remote country. It was expressed in human terms as the not

CAST: Mireille. Pretty name. Middle aged, talkative, not without imagination. Favours split skirts, but unlikely to trouble MENSA assessors. Given to righteous indignation. Known as the One o'clock News.

Aristide. Sage and

A is for the Association des commerçants, the village shopkeepers' association. Every New Year's Eve they lay on a dinner/dance for anyone prepared to fork out about €30 ($30, £20). It's possibly the sma

LA CIGALE ayant chanté
Tout l'Esté
Se trouva fort dépourveuë
Quand la Bize fut venuë

- so wrote La Fontaine in the first of his Fables. These Fables appeared in 1668, so the French is a bit

A RECENT French TV news item centred on the steps government ministers are taking to master, or at least improve their English. The movement seems to be led by Nicolas Sarkozy, erstwhile minister of finance and now president of the majority centre

HATS OFF - chapeau! as they say here - to Cynthia St Clair, doyenne of Campbell's Diary buffs and veteran competition winner, who correctly identified the missing link between the Midi city of Albi and the 19th Century cabaret artiste Ari