On a hot summer’s evening some years ago at a well-connected Parisian’s holiday home in Provence, I witnessed a French magic trick. There were a dozen of us gathered – eight of France’s intellectual elite and four thirsty Brits. The host produced a bottle of champagne and proceeded to pour out equal micro-measures into 12 coupes.
The quartet from these islands looked on incredulously at how he achieved this extraordinary feat of rationing, promptly downed the meagre contents of our glasses the moment we were handed them, and then waited impatiently for the second bottle to be opened.
