Hello, Melina.

I wouldn't be in Brisbane at the moment even if I were offered a box of chocolates. When you say "hot, hot hot!!!", it tells me everything I need to know about where I don't want to be.

Yesterday afternoon I pulled out a metal box set of the « Maigret » films with Jean Richard. We watched « Mon ami Maigret ». I swear the man had a pipe in his mouth throughout the entire thing. At one point, one of the male characters was swimming in the sea; I thought, "He hasn't got a pipe in his mouth!" - but then realised that it wasn't Maigret in the sea at all. It was just Pyke from Scotland Yard.

I'll bet that if this version of Maigret had gone swimming, he'd have had the same great pipe stuck in his mouth.