Not such an early start today and it looked as though most of my colleagues had a late night on the beers too. I’ve managed to avoid doing too much work today apart from the necessary…. Cannes really is a nice place and I feel quite priviledged to be here but there is a huge disparity between those in their Rolls Royces and the deaf man in the restaurant I’ve just come out of asking for 4 Euros for a cigarette lighter with Paris embossed on it.

Nice doesn’t feel like any French city I’ve been to before – the cafe culture isn’t as prevalent, but like most French towns, the city centre is bustling even at 10pm where most UK cities would be litter strewn and desolate. The whole attitude is so different where you have a few chain stores here and lots of boutiques, bars, cafes scattered around. It gives the town a soul and a reason for people to walk around in the evenings. It feels safe too – the old town is situated at one end and is full of little dark alleyways, but as I walked around looking for some good photos, I didnt feel at all afraid like I would in similar situations in Lille, Paris and Marseille (I expect)….

French TV generally was having a huge go at the Sun this evening, apparantly they distributed a version of the ‘popular’ tabloid in French with Chirac depicted as a worm – not in my name is what I say. Also talking a lot about the congestion charge which seems (?) to be working though I’ve been without the net for most of the week (just surviving) so don’t really know the news. Thats the wost thing about Anglo-French feeling, most of it just isn’t true but people from each of the countries see newspaper headlines and believe that is the populist position…. Oh well those who want to see through the media manipulation have every means of doing it I suppose.