Forgive me for being smug, but I saw the Bayeux Tapestry in Bayeux two years ago. It cost about eight euros, there was hardly anyone in the museum and I also got to drink a lot of excellent cheap wine, eat moules à la Normande every night and visit several D-Day sites, for some mechanised slaughter, rather than the stitched 11th century variety.

Give a Gallic shrug, open a wine in a can and plan a trip to Normandy next year

Give a Gallic shrug, open a wine in a can and plan a trip to Normandy next year

We shrieked over the vast, blown-up photos of Charles de Gaulle ‘liberating’ Bayeux, about two weeks after British troops had liberated it, which had been put up ahead of the 80th anniversary. I was able to parlez plenty of franglais with my eldest son whilst inoculating him against ever starting a war when he grows up – or letting defence expenditure drop below 3 per cent of GDP – by making him stand on the shoreline on Omaha Beach and consider how soldiers got from there up onto the bluffs under sustained machine gun and artillery fire. (Answer: with considerable carnage. Also, will you take your hands out of your pockets for the Last Post?)

Now, for approximately the price of the car ferry from Newhaven to Dieppe (£36.50, including suggested donation), you and a friend can view the tapestry in the British Museum. But only if you had the foresight to log onto the website when tickets went on sale at 10am back on 1st July and sat patiently as your place in the queue ticked down from 76,781. Some sat in the queue for nine hours, though you could skip it by a) buying a hotel package from One........

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