Le fisc arrive / The taxman cometh

Posted on April 9, 2026 by JJS

🇫🇷

Et il plaisante pas

Il existe dans la vie certains rituels qui remplissent l’âme d’une sourde angoisse : le dentiste, le contrôle technique annuel, et le moment où le portail de déclaration des impôts français s’illumine comme un Faucheur numérique, faux aiguisée, béret bien vissé sur la tête.

Pendant sept jours, je me suis livré à ce qu’on ne peut appeler que de la préparation fiscale intensive — rassembler les documents justificatifs, déchiffrer les dernières règles en vigueur, et marmonner dans mon café d’un air sombre. Le sel de l’affaire, c’est que l’intégralité de mes revenus de retraite arrive de l’étranger, ce qui signifie que la France — dans son infinie générosité — me laisse faire absolument tout le travail moi-même. Pas de prélèvement à la source ici, merci bien. Chaque ligne, chaque case, remplie de ma propre main, armé de mes lunettes de lecture, d’un tableur et d’une légère panique existentielle.

Ce matin, ma liste de tâches — ce petit document tyrannique qui gouverne mon existence — a rendu son verdict : Assieds-toi. Fais ta déclaration. Pas d’excuses. J’ai obéi, me glissant dans mon fauteuil avec l’enthousiasme d’un homme qui marche vers l’échafaud.

Et là, chose étrange entre toutes.

Je ne me suis pas arrêté avant d’avoir tout terminé.

La totalité. Complète. Envoyée. Expédiée dans l’éther numérique de la Direction Générale des Finances Publiques. Voilà.

Est-ce que j’apprécie le chiffre qui me regarde fixement dans la case « montant supplémentaire à payer » ? Cher lecteur, je n’apprécie pas. C’est un petit nombre particulièrement offensant que j’ai choisi de ne pas répéter en bonne compagnie. Disons simplement qu’il a quelque peu réorganisé mes sentiments vis-à-vis des revenus de retraite d’origine étrangère.

Le prochain défi ? Trouver un expert-comptable ou un conseiller fiscal disposé à jeter un œil professionnel sur mon travail. En théorie, simple. En pratique — et je dis cela après avoir consacré un temps considérable à la question — c’est apparemment aussi facile que de trouver un fonctionnaire français qui aime la paperasse. Ils existent, paraît-il. Je persévérerai.

Mais pour aujourd’hui ? La déclaration est faite, le vin est ouvert, et le fisc peut attendre jusqu’à demain.

Vive la retraite. 🥂

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And he speaks French

There are certain rituals in life that fill the soul with dread: the dentist, the annual car inspection, and the moment the French tax declaration portal flickers to life like some digital Grim Reaper, scythe sharpened, beret firmly tilted.

For the past seven days, I have been locked in what can only be described as préparation fiscale intensive — gathering backup papers, deciphering the latest tax rules, and muttering darkly into my coffee. The particular joy of my situation is that all my retirement income arrives from foreign shores, meaning that France — ever generous — lets me do absolutely all the heavy lifting myself. No deductions at source here, merci beaucoup. Every single line, every single box, filled in by yours truly, armed with nothing but reading glasses, a spreadsheet, and a mild sense of existential panic.

This morning, my to-do list — that tyrannical little document that runs my life — issued its orders: Sit down. Do the taxes. No excuses. I obeyed, reluctantly lowering myself into my desk chair with the enthusiasm of a man walking a plank.

And then a funny thing happened.

I didn’t stop until it was done.

The whole thing. Complete. Filed. Dispatched into the digital ether of the French Republic’s revenue service. Boom.

Now, do I like the number staring back at me from the “additional tax due” field? Reader, I do not. It is an offensive little figure that I have chosen not to repeat in polite company. Let’s just say it has rearranged my feelings about international retirement income rather significantly.

The next challenge? Finding an accountant or tax expert willing to cast a professional eye over my handiwork. In theory, simple. In practice — and I say this having now spent considerable time on the matter — apparently about as easy as finding a French bureaucrat who enjoys paperwork. They exist, supposedly. I shall persist.

But for today? The declaration is done, the wine is open, and the taxman can wait until tomorrow.

Vive la retraite. 🥂


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When the Moon photobombs the sun

Posted on April 8, 2026 by JJS

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and your wife’s birthday

There are moments in life when the universe conspires to make a decision for you. Not assist you, mind you. Not nudge you gently in a sensible direction. Full-on, celestial-scale conspire, with dramatics.

August 12th, 2026. Mark it in whatever calendar system speaks to you — Julian, Gregorian, Mayan, the back of an envelope. On that date, a total solar eclipse will sweep across northern Spain from the Atlantic coast all the way to the Mediterranean , plunging a narrow band of the Iberian Peninsula into a brief, magnificent darkness. It will be the first total solar eclipse for mainland Europe since 1999  — a gap long enough that most of us have completely forgotten what a proper one looks like, and are therefore primed to be absolutely undone by this one.

August 12th is also my wife’s birthday.

I am not a superstitious man. I am, however, a married one — which means I have learned to recognise a sign when the solar system holds one up in front of my face and blocks out the light.

The path of totality cuts through cities that read like a greatest-hits of Spanish travel: Bilbao, Zaragoza, Valencia, Palma  — a corridor of ancient stone, excellent wine, and jamón of frankly unreasonable quality. For those of a more statistician’s disposition, the best cloud prospects lie atop the floodplain of the Ebro River, around Huesca and Zaragoza  — and if the weather gurus are to be believed, one couldn’t do better than Alcañiz, which statistically offers the best chance of clear skies on eclipse day . There’s even a medieval castle there, restored to a parador, which seems like exactly the correct setting in which to watch the moon erase the sun. Darkness, battlements, wine. One could do considerably worse for a birthday.

The eclipsed sun will be floating just a few degrees above the western horizon  when totality strikes, which lends the whole spectacle an almost theatrical quality — as though the cosmos has arranged its own lighting. Astronomers wax lyrical about intensified atmospheric scattering greatly enhancing the colours of the surrounding horizon  during such low-altitude eclipses. Non-astronomers will just stare, mouths open, and feel very small in the best possible way. The totality itself will last a modest two minutes and eighteen seconds  — brief enough to feel genuinely precious, long enough to remember forever.

We are, as I write this, sitting approximately 200 kilometres north of the path of totality, on the French side of the Pyrenees, which means the border crossing is less a journey than a formality. The plan is forming. The decision, as they say, needs to be taken fairly sharply — hotels in the eclipse corridor are already filling up with the particular enthusiasm of people who book astronomical events eighteen months in advance and are, frankly, more organised than the rest of us deserve.

So: a couple of days south of the border. A narrow band of shadow racing across Aragón at the speed of the moon’s geometry. And a birthday celebrated under the corona of the sun.

Some husbands offer flowers. I’m offering totality.

She may prefer the flowers. But I’m booking the hotel anyway.

JJ — currently pointing his eclipse glasses south and pretending this was always the plan.


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The month that was – March 2026

Posted on April 1, 2026 by JJS

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A travel, weather, democracy, and solo-parenting debrief — in no particular order of grievance

Spain called. We answered. Obviously.

The month opened with roughly the first third of it spent in the suburbs of Alicante, which is the kind of sentence that sounds braggy but frankly deserves to sound braggy. Sun, warmth, the Mediterranean doing its Mediterranean thing — the verdict is unambiguous: something to do again. File under: correct decisions made.

If you’ve never spent ten days watching the Costa Blanca exist at you while the rest of Europe shivers, I recommend you remedy this at your earliest convenience.

Spring: a concept, apparently

March, as it does every year with absolutely no shame, simultaneously declared spring on paper while delivering something that felt considerably more like “early November with delusions of grandeur.” The clocks lurched forward an hour — a tradition in which we all agree to lose sleep so that some theoretical future evening feels slightly brighter — and nature responded to the equinox by shrugging.

Spring remains, as always, a rumour pending confirmation.

Escale à Sète: a proper outing

On the very last day of March, Escale à Sète — the magnificent celebration of working vessels, maritime heritage, and presumably excellent seafood — kicked off, and some of us seized the moment to convene there for lunch. This is, objectively, one of the better excuses to gather a group of people and eat well by the water. Highly endorsed. Would attend again. Will probably attend again.

Next winter is already being engineered

Not content with having just returned from Spain, March was also the month in which serious planning began for next winter’s holiday. Serious planning, meaning: flights to and from South East Asia are booked, as are the inter-regional hops — Thailand, Singapore, Malaysia, Cambodia, the whole glorious circuit.

Three weeks of hotel bookings remain to be sorted, which is approximately the last 40% of the logistical mountain. We are in the best possible kind of problem: too many interesting places to sleep in.

Democracy, elections, and mild despair

March also delivered the local elections. I voted. The results arrived. I am not too happy with them. I shall say no more than that — this is a lifestyle blog, not a political manifesto — but know that the results were assessed with what I shall diplomatically describe as a raised eyebrow and a long sigh. Moving on, as one must.

Four days alone: a field report

For four days in March, my better half answered the call of grandparental duty and headed to Germany, leaving me to my own devices. Left unsupervised, I did not burn the house down, did not embark on any ill-advised projects, and maintained what I would consider a dignified domestic standard.

St Patrick’s Day, in the perverse way it has of finding people at their most vulnerable, fell squarely in the middle of this solo window. I can report that I remained quite reasonable — which is, I think we can all agree, exactly the kind of measured, self-aware statement that a person makes when they were, in fact, entirely reasonable and have nothing further to declare on the matter.

The shamrocks have been returned. The Guinness levels are where they should be. We move forward.

Looking ahead: a modest request to the sun

April, I am looking at you. The hope — expressed politely but firmly — is that the sun will begin making prolonged appearances rather than its current habit of dropping by for a brief, unconvincing cameo before disappearing behind cloud cover and leaving us all feeling vaguely misled. We have earned sunshine. Spain was lovely, but home should not require a weather advisory.

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Un débrief voyage, météo, démocratie et monoparentalité — sans ordre particulier de doléances

L’Espagne a appelé. Nous avons répondu. Évidemment.

Le mois s’est ouvert avec, grosso modo, son premier tiers passé dans la banlieue d’Alicante — une phrase qui sonne un peu fanfaronne, et qui, franchement, mérite de l’être. Soleil, douceur, la Méditerranée qui fait son numéro de Méditerranée — le verdict est sans ambiguïté : à refaire. Classement : décisions parfaitement assumées.

Si vous n’avez jamais passé dix jours à regarder la Costa Blanca exister sous vos yeux pendant que le reste de l’Europe grelotte, je vous recommande vivement de corriger cela au plus vite.

Printemps : un concept, apparemment

Mars, comme chaque année et sans la moindre gêne, a décrété le printemps sur le papier tout en livrant quelque chose qui ressemblait nettement plus à « début novembre avec des illusions de grandeur ». Les horloges ont bondi d’une heure — cette tradition collective consistant à perdre du sommeil pour qu’un hypothétique futur soir paraisse légèrement plus lumineux — et la nature a répondu à l’équinoxe par un haussement d’épaules.

Le printemps reste, comme toujours, une rumeur en attente de confirmation.

Escale à Sète : une vraie sortie

Le tout dernier jour de mars, Escale à Sète — magnifique célébration des navires de travail, du patrimoine maritime et, vraisemblablement, d’excellents produits de la mer — a démarré, et certains d’entre nous ont saisi l’occasion pour s’y retrouver autour d’un déjeuner. C’est, objectivement, l’un des meilleurs prétextes pour rassembler du monde et bien manger au bord de l’eau. Hautement recommandé. J’y retournerais. J’y retournerai probablement.

L’hiver prochain est déjà en chantier

Comme si revenir d’Espagne ne suffisait pas, mars a aussi été le mois où les choses sérieuses ont commencé pour les vacances d’hiver prochain. Sérieuses, c’est-à-dire : les vols vers et depuis l’Asie du Sud-Est sont réservés, tout comme les trajets régionaux — Thaïlande, Singapour, Malaisie, Cambodge, la grande boucle dans toute sa splendeur.

Il reste trois semaines d’hôtels à organiser, soit à peu près les 40 % finaux de la montagne logistique. Nous faisons face au meilleur type de problème : trop d’endroits intéressants où dormir.

Démocratie, élections et léger désenchantement

Mars a aussi apporté les élections locales. J’ai voté. Les résultats sont tombés. Je ne suis pas ravi. Je n’en dirai pas plus — ceci est un blog lifestyle, pas un manifeste politique — mais disons simplement que les résultats ont été accueillis avec ce que je décrirais diplomatiquement comme un sourcil levé et un long soupir. On avance, comme il se doit.

Quatre jours en solo : rapport de terrain

Pendant quatre jours en mars, ma moitié a répondu à l’appel du devoir grand-parental et s’est envolée pour l’Allemagne, me laissant livré à moi-même. Sans supervision, je n’ai pas incendié la maison, je ne me suis lancé dans aucun projet douteux, et j’ai maintenu ce que je qualifierais de niveau domestique tout à fait honorable.

La Saint-Patrick, fidèle à son habitude de surgir au moment où l’on s’y attend le moins, s’est retrouvée pile au milieu de cette parenthèse en solo. Je peux confirmer que je suis resté tout à fait raisonnable — ce qui est, je pense, exactement le type de déclaration mesurée et lucide qu’une personne fait lorsqu’elle a, en effet, été parfaitement raisonnable et n’a absolument rien de plus à déclarer sur le sujet.

Les trèfles ont été rangés. Le niveau de Guinness est conforme. Nous avançons.

En regardant devant : une modeste requête adressée au soleil

Avril, je te regarde. L’espoir — formulé poliment mais fermement — est que le soleil commence à faire des apparitions prolongées plutôt que de continuer à passer en coup de vent pour un caméo peu convaincant avant de disparaître derrière les nuages en nous laissant avec une vague impression de tromperie. Nous avons mérité du soleil. L’Espagne était formidable, mais chez nous ne devrait pas nécessiter un bulletin météo.


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Wars & Chaos

Posted on March 27, 2026 by JJS

(Based on a recent speech from Claude Malhuret member of the French Senate)

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In February 2022, a dangerous and megalomaniac leader launched a war in Ukraine, believing it would last a week. Four years later, the conflict is still ongoing. In February 2026, another unpredictable leader lit a new fuse in the Middle East. No one knows how long it will last or how it will end.

In the United States, Donald Trump’s team looks like a circus: an anti-vaccine figure in charge of health, a climate skeptic leading environmental policy, a former alcoholic heading defense, a former Qatari agent as attorney general, and a Putin admirer overseeing national security. As a Turkish proverb says: “When a clown enters a palace, he does not become a king—the palace becomes a circus.”

Trump has launched more military strikes in a few months than Joe Biden did in four years. Each time a troubling scandal resurfaces, bombs fall somewhere to divert attention. He takes advantage of every crisis to enrich himself and his family, without any scruples.

To calm the markets and bring down oil prices, Trump announces that he is negotiating with Iran. But just hours later, the speaker of the Iranian parliament firmly denies it. So here we have a first in the history of international negotiations: one side discovers it is negotiating… by watching the evening news.

In Iran, Trump encouraged protests, then allowed the regime to suppress them violently. Today, he claims he wants to free the Iranian people, but without any clear strategy. Collateral damage? Considered acceptable.

America’s allies refuse to follow Trump into this aimless venture. Europe, for its part, remains divided: it does not want to engage in a war without a clear purpose, but it must also ensure its own security and that of its partners.

France is right not to take part in an offensive without a plan, but it must also prepare itself. Europe must finally understand that it can only rely on itself for its defense, its policies, and its economy. Otherwise, it risks becoming a pawn in the hands of others.

France is the European country most aware of these challenges, but it is also heavily indebted. The next president will face a double challenge: strengthening security while reassuring the markets, without resorting to unrealistic promises.

The election campaign is approaching. Extremes promise everything and anything. It will take courage to tell the truth: security and fiscal balance do not come without effor

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En février 2022, un dirigeant dangereux et mégalomane a déclenché une guerre en Ukraine, pensant qu’elle durerait une semaine. Quatre ans plus tard, le conflit continue. En février 2026, un autre dirigeant imprévisible a allumé une nouvelle mèche au Moyen-Orient. Personne ne sait combien de temps ça va durer, ni comment ça va finir.

Aux États-Unis, l’équipe de Trump ressemble à un cirque : un anti-vaccin à la Santé, un climato-sceptique à l’Environnement, un ex-alcoolique à la Défense, un ancien agent qatari comme procureur général, et un admirateur de Poutine à la Sécurité nationale. Comme le dit un proverbe turc : « Quand un clown entre dans un palais, ce n’est pas lui qui devient roi, c’est le palais qui devient un cirque. »

Trump a lancé plus de frappes militaires en quelques mois que Biden en quatre ans. Chaque fois qu’une affaire gênante refait surface, des bombes tombent quelque part pour détourner l’attention. Il profite de chaque crise pour s’enrichir, lui et sa famille, sans aucun scrupule.

Pour calmer les marchés et faire baisser le prix du pétrole, Trump annonce qu’il négocie avec l’Iran. Mais quelques heures plus tard, le président du Parlement iranien dément catégoriquement. Voici donc une première dans l’histoire des négociations internationales : l’un des deux camps découvre qu’il est en train de négocier… en regardant le journal télévisé.

En Iran, Trump a encouragé les manifestations, puis laissé le régime réprimer dans le sang. Aujourd’hui, il prétend vouloir libérer le peuple iranien, mais sans stratégie claire. Les dégâts collatéraux ? Considérés comme acceptables.

Les alliés des États-Unis refusent de suivre Trump dans cette aventure sans but. L’Europe, elle, reste divisée : elle ne veut pas s’engager dans une guerre sans raison, mais elle doit aussi assurer sa sécurité et celle de ses partenaires.

La France a raison de ne pas participer à une offensive sans plan, mais elle doit aussi se préparer. L’Europe doit enfin comprendre qu’elle ne peut compter que sur elle-même pour sa défense, sa politique et son économie. Sinon, elle risque de devenir le jouet des autres.

La France est le pays européen le plus conscient de ces enjeux, mais elle est aussi très endettée. Le prochain président devra faire face à un double défi : renforcer la sécurité et rassurer les marchés, sans tomber dans les promesses irréalistes.

La campagne électorale approche. Les extrêmes promettent tout et n’importe quoi. Il faudra du courage pour dire la vérité : la sécurité et l’équilibre budgétaire ne s’obtiennent pas sans efforts.


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The need for speed

Posted on March 26, 2026 by JJS

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How I accidentally upgraded my life for €1

There I was, doing what modern humans do best: half-watching television, half-scrolling through the internet, fully committing to neither, with a drink performing the important role of hand ballast. A state of consciousness best described as “technically awake.” Scientists call it multi-tasking. My wife calls it “are you even listening to me?”

And then, through the beautiful fog of mild distraction, an ad from Orange France materialised on my screen like a divine revelation. The message was simple, almost offensively so: “Hey existing customer, fancy swapping your 2 Gbps connection for 10 Gbps? That’ll be one extra euro a month, please.”

One. Euro.

I’ve lost more than that down the back of the sofa. I once tipped a parking meter that much by accident. And here was my internet provider — an entity not historically renowned for its generosity — offering to multiply my connection speed by five for roughly the price of a third of a bad coffee.

There is, of course, a €40 setup fee, because nothing in life is entirely free and the universe demands at least a small toll for joy. I paid it with the enthusiasm of a man who has just been told the surgery is routine.

Now, here’s the thing about 2 Gbps — it sounds extraordinary. It is extraordinary, in the abstract. Say it at a dinner party and watch people nod respectfully as though you’ve said something meaningful about geopolitics. But then you get home and remember that your household internet connection is essentially a public transport system: the bandwidth gets divided among every gadget that has ever had the audacity to connect to your WiFi. Phones. Tablets. Smart plugs. The television that apparently needs to phone home to South Korea at 3am. The fridge that I’m fairly sure is developing opinions.

The result? A real-world speed on my main computer of around 930 Mbps — which, let’s be honest, is still ludicrously fast and I should be deeply grateful — but it’s the principle of the thing.

The new router arrived this morning. A sleek, purposeful little box that looks like it means business. It took me approximately four minutes to swap it out, which is frankly four minutes of my life I’m delighted to have spent that way. It now sits there, blinking quietly, brimming with potential it is not yet permitted to unleash. Orange France will apparently flick the magical 10 Gbps switch tomorrow, which means I currently own a supercar that’s parked in the garage while I wait for my driving licence to arrive by post.

Tomorrow cannot come fast enough.

Though let’s be honest — at 10 Gbps, even time itself should be loading a bit quicker.

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La soif de vitesse

Comment j’ai accidentellement amélioré ma vie pour 1 Euro

Me voilà donc, faisant ce que les humains modernes font de mieux : regardant la télévision à moitié, scrollant sur internet à moitié, ne m’engageant pleinement dans aucun des deux, avec un verre assumant l’important rôle de lest pour la main. Un état de conscience que l’on pourrait décrire comme “techniquement éveillé.” Les scientifiques appellent ça du multi-tasking. Ma femme, elle, appelle ça “tu m’écoutes seulement ?”

Et puis, à travers le brouillard bienveillant de ma distraction tranquille, une publicité d’Orange France est apparue sur mon écran comme une révélation divine. Le message était simple, presque indécemment so : “Bonjour client fidèle, ça vous dirait d’échanger votre connexion 2 Gbps contre du 10 Gbps ? Ce sera un euro de plus par mois, s’il vous plaît.”

Un. Euro.

J’en ai perdu davantage entre les coussins du canapé. J’ai déjà donné autant à un parcmètre par accident. Et voilà que mon opérateur internet — une entité pas historiquement réputée pour sa générosité débordante — me proposait de multiplier ma vitesse de connexion par cinq pour à peu près le prix d’un tiers de mauvais café.

Il y a bien sûr des frais d’activation de 40€, parce que rien dans la vie n’est tout à fait gratuit et que l’univers exige au moins un petit péage pour accéder au bonheur. Je les ai payés avec l’enthousiasme d’un homme à qui l’on vient d’annoncer que l’opération est bénigne.

Voilà ce qu’il faut comprendre avec le 2 Gbps — ça sonne extraordinaire. C’est effectivement extraordinaire, dans l’absolu. Prononcez ces mots lors d’un dîner et regardez vos convives hocher la tête avec respect, comme si vous veniez de dire quelque chose de profond sur la géopolitique. Mais ensuite vous rentrez chez vous et vous vous souvenez que votre connexion internet est essentiellement un système de transport en commun : la bande passante se divise entre chaque appareil qui a jamais eu l’audace de se connecter à votre WiFi. Les téléphones. Les tablettes. Les prises connectées. La télévision qui semble avoir besoin d’appeler la Corée du Sud à 3h du matin. Le réfrigérateur qui, j’en suis presque certain, est en train de développer des opinions.

Le résultat ? Une vitesse réelle d’environ 930 Mbps — ce qui, soyons honnêtes, reste ridiculement rapide et devrait m’inspirer une profonde gratitude — mais c’est une question de principe.

Le nouveau routeur est arrivé ce matin. Une petite boîte élégante et déterminée qui a l’air de savoir ce qu’elle fait. Il m’a fallu environ quatre minutes pour effectuer le remplacement — quatre minutes de ma vie que je suis ravi d’avoir dépensées ainsi. Il est maintenant là, clignotant doucement, débordant d’un potentiel qu’il n’a pas encore le droit de libérer. Orange France va apparemment actionner le fameux interrupteur 10 Gbps demain, ce qui signifie que je possède actuellement une voiture de sport garée dans le garage en attendant que mon permis de conduire arrive par courrier.

Demain ne peut pas arriver assez vite.

Bien que, soyons honnêtes — à 10 Gbps, même le temps lui-même devrait se charger un peu plus rapidement.


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Asian tour

Posted on March 24, 2026 by JJS

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It is done. Flights to Thailand are booked, paid for, and sitting smugly in my inbox like a promise I actually intend to keep. Bangkok will once again serve as our gateway to South East Asia — a region that has the remarkable ability to make you feel simultaneously overwhelmed, enchanted, and mildly concerned about your digestive system, all within the first twenty-four hours.


The itinerary, in its current gloriously vague form, reads like a fever dream drafted by a geography teacher after one too many: four countries, three capital cities, one tropical island, and at least one UNESCO World Heritage Site, because apparently we need a building several centuries older than our own civilisation to remind us that we haven’t really accomplished all that much.


The next steps are straightforward enough — book the inter-countries flights, research accommodations, draft a list of things to see, restaurants to try, bars to investigate with the appropriate level of scientific rigour. In fact at the time of writing this, one flight from

Koh Samui has already been booked. Friends scattered across the region who are, at this very moment, blissfully unaware that we are about to descend upon their lives with luggage and opinions need to be contacted.


One notable change from previous adventures: the paper landing cards that used to be pressed into your hands somewhere over the Bay of Bengal, always at the exact moment you’d put your tray table down and opened a drink, are now gone. Electronic Arrival Cards must be completed online before departure. Progress, presumably.


In any case, there is absolutely no urgency whatsoever. Winter is nine months away.

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Experimenting

Posted on March 20, 2026 by JJS

Channeling my inner Indiana Jones

(with a little help from AI)

Click on the link below


indy-travel-map.html

In a moment of forward-thinking brilliance—or possibly just impatience—I decided that planning a trip wasn’t quite enough. No, what I clearly needed was a cinematic visualisation of it.

Enter my anthropic friend.

Armed with a single, carefully crafted prompt (and a certain amount of blind optimism), I requested something along the lines of those classic adventure maps—you know the ones. The dotted line, the little plane hopping across continents, the vague sense that danger, mystery, and questionable travel decisions lie ahead. In short: full Indiana Jones mode.

And I must say… for a first attempt, I am rather pleased.

What emerged was not quite Hollywood, but definitely somewhere in the “Sunday afternoon adventure film” category—which, frankly, is already a win. The route looks convincing, the spirit is there, and most importantly, it makes the whole trip feel gloriously real… even if, at this stage, it exists mostly in spreadsheets, notes, and vague promises to “book things soon.”

Naturally, this is only the beginning.

Because once you open the door to this sort of thing, there is no going back. I can already feel the slippery slope beneath my feet: more prompts, more variations, more “just one last tweak.” Before long, I may well have an entire production studio dedicated to animating my holiday plans.

There is something oddly satisfying about seeing a future journey come to life before it has even properly begun. It adds a layer of excitement—and perhaps a touch of theatrical drama—to what would otherwise be a series of flights, hotels, and carefully timed connections.

Of course, the real challenge now is simple: making sure the actual trip lives up to the trailer.

More experiments to come. Possibly with better special effects.


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Strohwitwer

Posted on March 17, 2026 by JJS

🇫🇷

Les tribulations d’un mari provisoirement abandonné

Il faut savoir que lorsqu’une épouse s’envole pour l’Allemagne — fût-ce pour des raisons aussi nobles que la garde d’un petit-enfant — elle laisse derrière elle un vide que rien, pas même le mistral, ne saurait combler tout à fait.

Ma femme est partie pour Hanovre. Hanovre. Une ville qui existe, paraît-il, et qui s’en satisfait fort bien. Elle y est allée avec un entrain que je qualifierai de remarquable, voire de légèrement suspect, pour veiller sur l’un de nos petits-enfants. Moi, je suis resté à Carcassonne. Seul. Avec les pierres, le ciel, et le sentiment vague d’être un homme à qui l’on aurait subitement retiré le mode d’emploi de sa propre maison.

Les Allemands ont un mot pour ça, naturellement. Ils ont un mot pour tout — c’est leur manière à eux de faire de la philosophie sans s’asseoir à la terrasse d’un café. Ils appellent ça Strohwitwer : le veuf de paille. Celui dont la femme n’est pas morte, non, simplement ailleurs, ce qui dans la pratique quotidienne revient à peu près au même. César, dans ces circonstances, aurait commandé une anisette. Marius aurait regardé la mer. Moi, j’ai regardé le réfrigérateur.

Le réfrigérateur, il faut le dire, ne m’a pas répondu.

C’est dans ces moments-là qu’on mesure ce que représente une femme dans une maison. Non pas qu’elle fasse tout — attention, je ne dis pas ça — mais elle fait un certain nombre de choses essentielles que l’on ne remarque que lorsqu’elles ne sont plus faites. Il y a dans ce constat une profonde vérité humaine que Pagnol aurait développée sur deux actes et que je résumerai ainsi : je n’ai pas retrouvé le tire-bouchon.

Or, c’est aujourd’hui la Saint-Patrick. Et la Saint-Patrick ☘️, comme la tramontane ou l’addition au restaurant, ne prévient pas et ne s’excuse pas. Il y a dans cette ville un pub irlandais. Il y a dans ce pub irlandais de la Guinness. Et il y a en moi, quelque part entre le sternum et la conscience, quelque chose qui ressemble à un devoir civique.

L’Irlande et la Provence, au fond, se comprennent. Deux pays où l’on parle beaucoup, où l’on boit sérieusement, et où un homme seul au comptoir n’est pas un homme qui a échoué mais un homme qui réfléchit. Saint Patrick a chassé les serpents d’Irlande. Ma femme, elle, est partie pour Hanovre. Les résultats sont comparables.

Je lèverai donc mon verre ce soir — un pour l’Irlande, un pour l’Allemagne qui m’a fourni le vocabulaire de ma condition, et un, le plus important, pour elle qui est là-bas à bercer notre petit-enfant pendant que je cherche le tire-bouchon.

Sláinte. Prost. Et à ta santé, mon amour — le réfrigérateur te fait dire bonjour.

🇬🇧

There is a particular kind of solitude that descends upon a man when his wife disappears to Germany on grandparental duty. It is not loneliness, exactly. It is more like the eerie silence of a battlefield after everyone has gone home, leaving you standing there holding a spatula and wondering what you’re supposed to do with it.

My wife has flown to Hannover — a city which, to its eternal credit, exists, and which is twinned with several other cities presumably out of a deep civic need to share the experience — to perform heroic acts of babysitting for one of our grandchildren. She went willingly. She was, if anything, suspiciously cheerful about leaving. Meanwhile I have been left behind in Carcassonne, rattling around the house in a state the Germans describe with devastating precision as Strohwitwer: a straw widower. A man whose wife is not dead, just elsewhere, and who nonetheless wanders the kitchen at odd hours achieving nothing in particular.

The Germans, of course, have a word for everything. They have a word for the pleasure derived from other people’s misfortune (Schadenfreude), a word for the melancholy of things not lasting (Vergänglichkeit), and presumably a word for the specific feeling of standing in front of an open fridge at 11pm knowing full well that nothing in it has changed since you last checked three minutes ago. They call this kind of linguistic precision efficiency. The rest of us call it unsettling.

It should be noted that German humour is, on good authority, no laughing matter. This has not stopped me from finding the whole situation faintly comic — the abandoned husband, the faraway wife, the grandchild who will remember none of this, and Hannover, stoically getting on with being Hannover.

Now, under normal circumstances I might have spent this bachelor interlude in quiet, dignified contemplation. Reading. Listening to music. Performing small acts of domestic virtue to impress no one. Very ordentlich, as they say. Very tidy. Very correct. The Germans would approve, briefly, before suggesting improvements.

But it is, as fate would have it, Saint Patrick’s Day ☘️. And Saint Patrick’s Day, much like an old friend who shows up uninvited, does not really take no for an answer. It is, in this sense, the opposite of a German bureaucratic process, which takes every answer as a reason to request additional documentation.

There is an Irish pub. There is Guinness. And there is, somewhere deep in my chest, the faint stirring of a man who has remembered that Ireland once gave the world both Samuel Beckett and a convincing excuse to drink stout on a Tuesday afternoon. Two nations, Ireland and Germany, united tonight in my personal itinerary: one providing the occasion, the other the vocabulary to describe my domestic condition with clinical accuracy.

My wife will be busy with the grandchild. The grandchild will be blissfully unaware of geopolitics. And I will be at the bar, raising a glass to Saint Patrick, to Hannover, to whoever invented the concept of the straw widower, and to the quietly magnificent truth that sometimes being left behind has its compensations.

Sláinte. Prost. And also, darling — the fridge remains, as the Germans might say, suboptimal.


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Pi Day

Posted on March 14, 2026 by JJS

🇬🇧

A perfect excuse for pie

(and mild intellectual confusion)

Today is March 14, also known among mathematicians, engineers, and people who enjoy desserts with a philosophical justification as Pi Day.

Why? Because 3/14 resembles the famous number π ≈ 3.14159…, which represents the ratio between a circle’s circumference and its diameter. In simple terms: if you measure around a circle and divide by the distance across it, you always get the same mysterious number.

The peculiar thing about π is that it never ends and never repeats. Mathematicians have calculated it to more than 100 trillion decimal places, and it still refuses to settle down. Rather like certain travel blogs that begin innocently and then wander happily forever.

Timing Matters

The truly dedicated celebrate at 1:59 PM, because that gives you: 3.14159

Five respectable digits of π. At that precise moment you are supposed to raise a glass, a fork, or at the very least an eyebrow.

Ways to Celebrate

There are, naturally, several approved methods.

Eat pie
This is the most popular approach and, frankly, the most convincing. Apple pie, lemon pie, chocolate pie — any circular pastry will do. The mathematics community has been suspiciously supportive of this tradition.

Recite digits of π
The world record for memorising π is over 70,000 digits. If you begin confidently with
“3.14159265358979…”
at the dinner table, you will impress almost no one. But persistence is admirable.

The Pi Walk
Take 3 steps, then 1, then 4, then 1, then 5…
This walk goes nowhere useful, which makes it surprisingly similar to certain tourist excursions.

The Round-Pi Debate
In 1897 the state of Indiana nearly passed a bill effectively rounding π to 3.2. Fortunately mathematics escaped political intervention that day, although the idea remains an excellent conversation starter.

A Pleasant Coincidence

March 14 also happens to be the birthday of Albert Einstein, which adds a nice cosmic touch to the whole affair.

A Personal Recommendation

If you happen to be somewhere near the Mediterranean — perhaps between the sea and a small Spanish café — the proper way to observe 1:59 PM is with a slice of something local and circular.

Preferably with coffee.

After all, π may be infinite, mysterious, and deeply mathematical…

…but pie is immediately understandable. 🥧


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Spanish holiday

Posted on March 11, 2026 by JJS

Almost a few weeks spent away in Alicante

Week I Day 1 – Day 2 – Day 3 – Day 4 – Day 5 – Day 6 – Day 7

Week II Day 8 – Day 9 – Day 10 – Day 11 – Day 12 – Day 13 – Day 14

Week III Day 15 – Day 16 – Day 17 – Day 18 – Day 19 – Day 20 – Day 21

Week IV Day 22 – Day 23 – Day 24

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