4th October 2015

As a writer it's always exciting when awaiting a publisher's imminent verdict on a new manuscript. My two latest ones, called Lamplight and Vichyssoise, are books 1 and 2 of my David Klein series set in wartime Germany and France - the latter covering transportation of a victim to the notorious Drancy camp. Both are a lifetime's work. So it was with annoyance that I read of the recent shenannigans in Nice, where the Alpes-Maritimes prefecture unfurled a giant Nazi banner over the front of the building, in the middle of the historic Vieille Ville area and the Cours Saleya antiques market. Yes, this happened last week!  Had the neo-Nazis made a terrible come-back?  No, it turned out to be for a film. Realising the commotion that it caused, the prefecture then put out an explanatory press release at the end of the afternoon. The film, like my book, is also set during the dark times of Jewish deportations to Drancy. But what kind of idiocy is it to put a Nazi flag on a prefecture building, causing many, particularly the elderly who remember, to cry out?  Him indoors said it didn't help that the maire's name is Adolphe!!  You couldn't make it up.