OCTOBRE: One Foot in the Merde I visit different parts of Paris, touristy and less so, treading in plenty of dog-poop, literal and metaphorical.

JANVIER: A Maison in the Country I discover the EU-subsidized quaintness of rural France and decide to buy a suspiciously cheap cottage.

MARS: The Joy of Suppositories I explore France's wildly generous medical system and even try out typical French "treatment by the back door."

MAI: 1968 and All That With countless long weekends, holiday allowances to be used up, and the inevitable strikes, the French know that if you haven't finished your year's work by May 1, you're in the merde.

[5] The title of the book refers, in a metaphorical way, to all the difficult situations Paul West finds himself in during his stay in France, but also, literally, to the huge amount of dog excrement that can be found in the streets of Paris in this fiction.

At some point, Paul is invited by his friend Jake to a second-hand English bookstore in front of Notre-Dame-de-Paris, where most of the activity is taking place on the second floor, with expats from all over the world.

When Paul West starts his new job in September he is altogether unaware of the true character and the machinations of his boss, Jean-Marie Martin, who is in his early fifties, rich, handsome, impeccably dressed, friendly, and prepared to pay him a good salary.

West does not know yet that Martin, officially decorated for supporting the French economy, is illegally importing cheap British beef (the ban imposed during the BSE crisis not having been lifted yet); that through his political connections he has secured for his daughter Élodie a cheap, council-subsidised HLM apartment; that he associates with the far right; that, although married, he is having an affair with someone from the office; and that he wants to sell him, Paul West, a cottage in the country quite close to the site of a future nuclear power plant.