My friend Tim Andrew has admirable priorities. When I told him I had tickets for this week’s Six Nations opener at the Stade de France, he texted back: ‘Final whistle to a restorative glass in the 6ième arr: 40 minutes. Can’t even get to the station at Twickenham in that time.’ That’s the attitude you expect from a former chairman of the P.G. Wodehouse Society.

I last saw Ireland play in Paris 14 years ago, as a reporter, when the first attempt at holding the match was called off at the last moment. I arrived at Gare du Nord at noon with the temperature already below zero. There is no undersoil heating at the Stade as it was built on a gasworks.

It had dropped to -10°C by the scheduled 9 p.m. kick-off. As 80,000 of us shivered in the stands, the band came out and tried to warm our spirits as groundsmen prodded the turf before the inevitable decision: match frozen off. My day in Paris had run to a good lunch, a stroll........

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