I always liked playing Petanque with my friends and my cousins during my many summer vacations in the Pyrenees Orientales.
I did not have much success in the tournaments.
I was a bit amused to find out that Petanque is becoming a hit with actors and models alike.
That's what Jon Henley reports in How boules got cool (Guardian, July 28) illustrated with a photo of model "Karolina Kurkova (second left) beside actors Joshua Jackson and Diane
Kruger during a game of boules at the Chanel party in St-Tropez in May".
So much so that this game of the people has been co-opted by "chic labels such as Chanel and Louis Vuitton are currently flogging
designer pétanque sets in soft leather cases for £1,500; and where the
country's biggest boules manufacturer, Obut, has just launched a new
line in tattooed steel for style-conscious teenage pétanquistes" writes Jon Henley.
On June 19, a Pétanque Tournament sponsored by Ricard at Chelsea Garden turned into A Day of Sun and Fun for some 900 people in London.
Who did you play Pétanque with last?
Famous or infamous?
(* illustration from 'A Day of Fun and Sun' in FranceinLondon.com)