C'est une petite touche de Maigret et le film noir

I can honestly say that I've never been much of a car nut. So long as my dear old delinquent Kangoo continues to go from A to B without pathological expense, that'll do me.

Given the general state of the world, the economy, and my humble bank balance, I can only pray that the aforementioned ageing heap manages to keep it together for quite a while longer.

But a mate of mine the other day posed the question: What would be your dream car? And, leaving aside the obvious retort of anything with cheap spares and no bloody awful modern electrics, I have to admit that I'd really like one of these lovely old Citroëns.

To us anglais, the car is inextricably linked with L'Inspecteur Maigret, as one of them had a starring role in a famous Beeb version of Simenon's 'tec stories.

They actually made the Citroën Traction Avant from 1934 to 1957, and it certainly is a classic. For a start, as is usual with Citroën, it's technically intriguing. As the name suggests, it's front-wheel drive, which was deeply exotic in 1934, and still by no means standard in 1957.

Along the way, the car gained associations with just about anything dangerous - gangsteurs françaises, Le Résistance and the Gestapo: the full two-reels-worth of film noir.

Girlfriend Claire and I came across this immaculate example, appropriately parked in front of one of Canet's wonderful art deco seafront houses, and positively reeking of atmosphere. Bien romantique!

It's all a question of four-part harmony, you know

I have to admit that I've started singing again. And why not? It's a harmless activity that costs nothing, and isn't as bad as it sounds.

I'd been feeling the urge for quite a while, so I quietly slipped back into the august ranks of mes amis de Deux Pics En Choeur. They're a stalwart and cheery bunch who make up for, with warm-hearted good humour, any occasional frayed-ness at the edge-ness that may creep in technically.

Actually I can't now recall any good reason why I stopped going to choir in the first place, because after only a few weeks back in the fold, all is as it ever was.

As always, each rehearsal before a gig is an unmitigated disaster, and as always, the gig mysteriously comes out alright on the night. Our sopranos still possess their unique ability to drift down by a semi-tone and a bit, thus eviscerating the harmony. I never have worked out quite how they do this, but this sacred skill continues to be handed down, yea even unto the seventh generation.

Our regular suspects hail from all over the haute vallée. Most are still wanted by the gendarmes for cruelty to decibels. We're mostly French with a sprinking of English, German, Dutch, Danish, and my old mate Stan, cellist extraordinaire, representing the Nicedays Murca.

The choir has a nicely varied repertoire of our local traditional occitan music, chanson française and negro spirituals. I'm glad to report that an unfortunate infiltration of Andrew Lloyd Webber has been surgically removed from the programme during my absence.

Instead, we're learning some gorgeous Renaissance riffs by one Orlando di Lasso. These harmonies really are sublime. It's truly amazing just what you can do by means of the deft manipulation of a floating C sharp. Nearly 500 years old and so cool it's not true.

I suppose that all sounds a bit anorak. But basically, if these sounds don't make the hairs on the back of your neck stand on end, you may well possess all the musical sensitivity of an autistic house brick.

adieu to molesworth kartoonisst ronald searle, 91

it is indeed a sad moment as the last hous marks the parsing of one of its finest sorces of inspriation eg the joly d. kartoonisst ronald seale who brort to life the imortal nigel molesworth.

Tenacious adherents to the dear old chron will recall that nothing delights me better than to quote molesworth at the slightest provocation.

It turns out to be more appropriate than I previously realised, as Searle had lived in France since 1961, working regularly for Le Figaro Littéraire and Le Monde. Searle launched the curse of st custard's on an unsuspecting world, together with author Geoffrey Willans, in 1954.

Earlier he created the even more notorious girls of St Trinian's. He drew the second published cartoon whilst a PoW in Singapore during the Second World War. Less well-known are his drawings of emaciated fellow prisoners, a poignant record of the cruelty inflicted by the Japanese on their captives.

Given such an ordeal, Searle richly deserved the massive success that soon followed after the war. But the celebrity treadmill became too much of a burden, and he threw it all up to start again in France, where he spent most of the rest of his life.

Me, I've loved molesworth since I first encountered him, appropriately enough, in an English boarding skool at the age of ten. His wisdom immediately became an indispensable guide to everyday life, and to this day, remains so.

* my learned correspondent eg basil fotherington-tomas (hullo clouds, hullo sky etc) refers me to the guardian's appreciashun

Man, we've just got to have the Stuff . . .

Glancing over the online Grauniad, I am immediately reminded of one of my enduring reasons for quitting the ever-viridescent shores of Ongleterry - endemic and rampant addiction to Stuff.

The aforementioned Grundina reports that some shops opened as early as 6am on Boxing Day to satisfy the cravings of thousand of unfortunates, deep in the grip of Stuff withdrawal. Cold turkey indeed. And the right day for it too.

Now this is not usually an F-blog but this time I'm going to indulge: Who are these sad F*@k%rs????????????

Back in dear old Keef's outlaw heyday, Stuff meant 'Erroin. It was hip, it was cool. OK, it usually killed you sooner or later, so millions of rock'n'roll fans are eternally grateful that our beloved Stoner eventually kicked the Stuff, and lived to tell the tale.

Today Stuff is just . . . Stuff. Cartons, packets, encapsulated unopenable plastic units, boxes, pallets, lorries, warehouses and inevitably homes; all packed to bursting with yet more consumer Stuff.

No-one can escape Stuff. We have car boot sales, e-Bay, bring and buy, charity shops, incinerators, skip hire, landfill, and possible termination of the planet. But we keep on heading inexorably towards Terminal Inundation by Stuff.

We cannot cease from buying Stuff. Even if we try to quit, it just arrives. It is given to us or thrust upon us. I have a new conspiracy theory that if the world does end, as predicted, in 2012, all the Stuff will be left floating in space. Poor old Mars - it doesn't want our crap either.

Perhaps I should be less harsh on all those pitiful addicts, who have hocked themselves to the eyeballs to buy Stuff. Every year, Santa preys on millions of innocent children, luring yet another generation into Stuff addiction.

Stuff-peddlers are getting ever more cunning. Nobody wants cars, telephones, or TVs that are ludicrously over-complicated and fall to bits in five minutes. Nor do they want an over-priced "choice" of 9 billion different mobile chargers or printer cartridges. But THEY force us to buy them. You will buy what we want you to buy.

Soon you won't be able to buy nice simple drugs like 'Erroin. It'll be replaced by Tri-methyl-dioxy-trypto-phospo-penta-hyper-gunge-amide, which gets you high for about 3 milli-seconds and costs 14 times as much. Sometimes it's even worse. There are dealers in the banks who steal your money . . . and then don't even give you any Stuff.

But we're all criminals really. Even those of us who have kicked buying the Stuff, still have to make the Stuff. Until someone comes up with a way of enabling several billion people to survive without having to make yet more mega-tonnes of Stuff, nothing is likely to change.

I suspect the world is more likely to end because we have successfully excavated every last gramme of anything vaguely worth having. Answers on a postcard please.

Yup, I reckon it's that time of year again already

Oui, c'est le saison festeeve. Encore?? Déjà?! It seems but a few fleeting moments since 'ere we had last Tinsel Time. I'm sure it comes quicker every year.

Whether that's due to the ever more speedy passing of unrecorded time, or because Christmas now starts in November even in l'haute vallée de l'Aude, I don't know.

The good ladies of Fa, who faithfully decorate everything whether it likes it or not, have truly excelled themselves this year. What with the café doing its bit as always, Fa has become a three-tree village. Quite impressively kitsch.

I've only pictured one of them, partly because I don't like these things to get out of hand (Bah! Humbug!), and partly because, with the other two trees being at the far end of the bridge, I couldn't get them all in at once.

The weather too was not co-operating; all matters the other side of le pont being largely lost in the dim and driving greyness. My notoriously obtuse Kangoo also felt mysteriously compelled to join in with the general festive denial, by spending three days refusing to start.

I must congratulate Renault on producing a vehicle so incredibly difficult to service. It was only by combining parts of two comprehensively gigantic socket sets, that my mate Graham and I were finally able to extract and replace the duff glow plugs, essential for adopting Go-Mode.

Once upon a time, there were two sorts of spark plugs: Big and small. There are now about 12. Why? I ask myself, if not to make sure that you CAN'T possess the right spanner. I'm not naturally paranoid but sometimes I can't help feeling that THEY are out to get us all.

It was with some relief that Claire and I repaired chez sa mère at The Last House Before Spain, where all is bathed in brilliant sunshine. Bonnes fêtes à tous!

Round 'em up boy! C'est le collie de Collioure

One man and his geese. I didn't know Phil Drabble Syndrome had penetrated so far into our beloved South of France, but evidently they have their own take on it.

As a long-ago trainee hack, I was once deputed to telephone the late Monsieur Drivel; a distinctly abrupt man to put it tactfully, so I don't mind cracking the odd franglais gag at his expense. The geese-herding collie was nonetheless rather the star of this Christmas market, which Claire and I visited in Collioure.

Your bill, Sir? That'll be €15 and a Matisse . . .

I've been meaning for a long time to drop into le café des Templiers. You'll find it at Collioure, a seaside town near Perpignan, closely with Les Fauves - that's to say Matisse, Derain, Vlaminck etc.

Being penniless and unknown back in those hopeful days before the First World War, the young artists were in the habit of bartering paintings to pay their hotel and bar bills.

Thus the bar eventually ended up with a remarkably valuable set of pictures. I'm not sure how much of the original collection survives, as some of the current paintings are of distinctly later period, but it's still a great place for a beer.