Some of you may be wondering whatever happened to the public service joint venture – announced with so much fanfare at the beginning of last year – between this blog and the local newspaper, ‘Le Quotidien de Faire-le-Dodo (87)’.

Late last year Le Quotidien, like so many other print journals faced with rising print costs and a stagnant circulation, succumbed to the march of technology and, as The Independent in the UK has just done, went digital.

Unfortunately, it swiftly discovered that almost all of its – exclusively Francophone – readership either didn’t have a computer at all or had to wait for their grandchildren to come roumd to show them how to use the dial-up connection.

What’s that you say? 256kbps?

Furthermore, as M Jean Saisquoi, Le Quotidien’s editor-in-chief, pointed out to me at our valedictory booze-up meeting in the back room of The Surrender Monkey Bar and Grill in early January, his readership could get all the news they needed, in a far more effective and timely fashion, simply by rocking up to La Petite Superette et Salon de Thé for their daily baguette and petit coup de rosé.

It is also with great regret we have to announce that, following the discovery of certain fiscal irregularities during the annual audit of Le Quotidien’s accounts, M Saisquoi recently left the area at very short notice, being last seen on the new by-pass heading in the general direction of Angoulême.

Admittedly, it is theoretically possible that he might simply still be trying to work out which exit to take on the western rond-point, but we fear he has in fact done a runner with the petty cash.

Sad as all this is, however, daily life in Faire-le-Dodo (87) goes on, as it must. Accordingly, while we will no longer have the benefit of journalistic input from Le Quotidien’s editorial staff (M Jean Le Bidon, who is now carving out a new career as a freelance egg-sizer) we will continue, to the best of our ability, to keep our loyal expat readership abreast of all significant local developments.

As soon as there are any.