*SEEKING shelter from a sudden thunderstorm in the rather swish French seaside town of Cassis, we dived under the awning of a café terrace.

Other people had obviously earlier had the same thoughts and were spinning out the consumption of their café crème or biere pression. Some were also smoking… Ah yes. Millions once indulged in this habit before the health commissars criminalised the enjoyment of millions of our fellow citizens. Across the channel, people are still permitted to commit slow suicide by nicotine.

But over here, more than a third of the population have become social outcasts, as evidenced by the huddled little knots of addicts to be seen shivering outside pubs and restaurants.

Liberty, equality, fraternity – kept alive in France but almost extinct in post-New Labour Britain.

*FIRST World War poet Rupert Brooke was born in my home town. Most bards are known for a handful of their creations. With Edward Thomas it’s Adlestrop, WH Davies would have been virtually unknown had it not been for Leisure and with Brooke, it was The Soldier that earned him immortality.

The euphoria of summer 1914 was distilled in this poem. The war had yet to bring grief and misery to every street in the land.

I suppose it’s only a matter of time before Hugh Grant or Colin Firth plays the quintessentially floppy-haired Englishman, killed not by bullet or bayonet but by the bite of a tiny insect.

Of course, dying prematurely has always been good for business.

That’s why John Keats and Buddy Holly live on in our hearts, forever young.

*THERE are many things I like about autumn but one is the fact that it’s much more difficult to fall out with your neighbours after the onset of shorter days.

Lawn mowers fall silent, drills and other power appliances are put away in the attic, the do-it-yourself maniacs retreat to their garden sheds… and the racket from other people’s children nosedives to a more acceptable decibel level.

Like the leaves on the trees, all these irritations just fall away into a relatively silent world. Hooray for the season of mists and mellow fruitfulness.