The big wheel is still turning at Marseille’s Borély beach, day and night through all four seasons, €8 a go for two loops. It is 55m high and from the top you can see into the Stade Vélodrome a few hundred metres inland, where, on Thursday afternoon, France and Ireland were busy getting ready to go-around again themselves.
It is three months and 19 days since the World Cup quarter-finals here and a lot of the old posters advertising the matches are still up around town, but it is already time for the cycle to start over and the opening match of this year’s Six Nations.
