I finished Two Gentlemen Sharing - a feat which amazed me having only started reading it yesterday.

There's a Victoria Wood-written monologue for Patricia Routledge which contains the immortal lines, "'Dear Kitty, I've just moved to a strange area,' - well, whatever did you want to do that for, dear? - 'How can I meet new people quickly?' - you could get caught shoplifting..."

The gay evolution of that, therefore, is to get off with the local bar staff as suddenly you get invited to clubs and parties and things! A slaggy tactic, admittedly, but successful nonetheless. Anyway, I ended up at Bar Traxx - which was closed the time Jamie and I tried it - and after having been propositioned by a "straight" boy (who insisted on taking his shirt of then dancing in my face), got taken to La Panthère Rose, a private members' bar with its own driveable pink 2CV! I want I want I want!

They have traffic lights here which know how fast you're going and, if it's too fast, change red on you. That's quite useful for slowing people down as everyone seems scared of the police here (handcuffs and guns) but couldn't give a jot about speed cameras. When they tried introducing speed cameras into France, there was uproar and most of them were smashed by members of the public. So they withdrew the things.