….when the cafes and streets are deserted, because all the Yanks and Brits are drifting around elsewhere on a pilgrimage to track down Peter Mayle, advertising guy who bailed out and wrote “A year in Provence” which kicked off the mass tourism surge in the 90s.

You hear them at a distance, plaintively wailing “Peter! Peter! Peter Mayle! Where are you?!”

They’re quite disappointed to learn that he sodded off elsewhere (Long Island, actually) to escape people walking into his living room with a book to be autographed. (I kid you not…)

And get rather tearful – hysterical, even – when you let slip that he fell off the perch last year…

Désolé about that.

As they say around here…