I had a friend, Loric, who owned a bar in France. The bar had an immaculate counter made of zinc set into dark wooden joinery, with glass shelves lined behind him. He'd put six boiled eggs with white shells into a stainless steel wire holder with a glass salt cellar set in the middle. It was often quite empty, quite still, unless we were in there. Gauloises bleu cigarette smoke could ascend without dispersing.
Today the sky looks zinc grey, and the sea has that grey-with-a-tint-of-blue that we imagine we'll find in the smoke of cigarettes being lazily ignored by French smokers.
