This sentimental journey around France is partly an evocation of things past - the author's search for the spirit of Sartre and Greco in the cafes and jazz clubs of late-1940s St Germain des Pres; a lucky breakdown on the old N7 which landed him in a Valence gastronomic paradise; family life and other games in and around St Tropez in the Sixties. It also offers a picture of things present - learning to live with the bloodymindedness of Parisians when More finally bought a tiny apartment in Montparnasse; the subterranean splendours of the Channel Tunnel; the magic of his tumbledown farmhouse in the Midi, near Mont Ventoux.