Thank God for summer and its long daylight hours! I’ve been able to do so much here and feel safer, because the sky only starts to dim at about 10:45 at night; I watched the sunset at that time by the Louvre last night, which I had accidentally stumbled upon whilst trying to walk back to my hotel. (It’s quite a distance away, I realise now.)

As predicted, I’m sunburnt. It happened on the walking tour organised for us on the last day in Montpellier, and it was almost impossible to avoid the sun anywhere, thanks to it flooding the streets seemingly from all angles.

Yesterday, I still had the other journalists for company before their earlier flight, so we went to the Eiffel Tower, naturally. Though it was definitely one of those must-see-once-in-your-life experiences, I’m not sure when or if there’ll be a second. Since we queued for 45 minutes to get tickets, another half hour to get the lift to the second rung, and a further 20 minutes for the lift to the top of the spire (and two more 15 minute blocks to come back down) most of the day was spent on it, and needlessly at that.

Surprisingly, there were no unpleasant incidences with all that queueing, and people getting antsy by being kept cramped against one another at that height, with no way of coming down without joining another queue. Maybe it was because they were from all over.

And not French. Do the French have a problem with queueing? Or just with feeling on par with everyone else? At the Montpellier domestic airport, we were almost at the head of the check-in queue, having waited probably more than half an hour, with everybody seemingly verbose at the counter, taking 15 minutes each.

Suddenly, one guy in a suit slips into the head of the queue, ahead of us. One of the journalists taps him on the back to tell him that we were there, and he mumbled something about him being in a hurry, as if no one else had the privilege of being so. We repeated ourselves and he said, “But are you Abonné?” Which I guess refers to some frequent flyer thing.

And the journo said it didn’t matter, that he had to queue. And he said, “Abonné Abonné, but I am Abonné!” Another French guy behind us told him off in French, and he replied likewise, his retort peppered with “Abonnés”.

Most surprisingly, the woman at the counter beckoned for him, instead. When we asked a nearby airport staff walking around for the reason why, she said, “This is a mess, this morning is a mess, just get settled!” as if that explained anything.

The woman at the counter was predictably unrepentant, telling us he was in a hurry and so on. It left most of us speechless, because there really isn’t anything you can say in response to irrationality thinking itself logical.

He can Abonné himself in a place the sun doesn’t shine.