I spent Christmas in France, which was on its best behaviour: tasteful, twinkling lights, market stalls stacked with exquisitely fresh fruit and vegetables, and enough cheeses to coat the entire Channel Tunnel with arterial plaque, piled platters of glistening shellfish on ice glimpsed through fogged brasserie windows. As I watched a long but orderly queue of well-dressed citizens collecting their artisanal Bûche de Noël (yule log) I thought, disloyally, that my home town of York,........

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