So, Tiger Woods and his wife are to divorce.

Well, no surprise there, then. There's only so much humiliation a woman can take, and given that she's still young and pretty, and the settlement will be huge, she'll probably have a pretty good future in front of her, unlike the average sad, jaded, shat-on politician's wife. If he does indeed pay her $100 million, that's an awful lot of money for each illicit shag. They part on good terms, apparently, and will share the parenting.

Personally, I wouldn't want the man near my kids either, but that's her affair. Woods' texts were frankly unpleasant and show a violent personality - one can only be glad that the man is successful, as if he wasn't, he strikes me as possibly dangerous. But certainly I can't look at him the same way again. 

It is always a shame when your idols turn out to have feet of clay. I was quite a fan of Woods, who is a great golfer, and who always seemed polite and articulate. But his dark secrets are a tad too dark for me, I must admit. Infidelity is one thing, violence against women is quite another.

Having had personal experience of marital violence in my own family, I find that my reaction when he appears on television these days is to simply switch over, or at least to mute or leave the room until he's gone away.

The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has once more come out as the surprising voice of reason, in banning a police advertisement that suggested people might be terrorists for indulging in perfectly normal behaviours. In the ad, a man says: "The man at the end of the street doesn't talk to his neighbours much, because he likes to keep himself to himself. He pays with cash because he doesn't have a bank card, and he keeps his curtains closed because his house is on a bus route." The listener (this is a radio ad) is then told: "If you suspect it, report it."

Fortunately, there were swiftly 18 complaints from listeners to the ASA, suggesting that not only could the ad be offensive to ordinary law-abiding citizens, it might also encourage people to harass or victimise their neighbours and was appealing to people's fear. 

Perhaps ACPO believes every French citizen to be a terrorist. We all use cash here, not cards, and frankly, whether or not you keep your curtains closed is regarded as your own business. Shame on the UK police for coming up with such cobblers.

Anyone who thinks such an ad is not potentially harmful, I would suggest watches the series The Nazis - A Warning From History, particularly the interview with the lovely little old lady who had shopped her 'lesbian-looking' neighbour to the Gestapo for having 'Jewish-looking friends'. That neighbour died - like thousands of others who had committed no crime - in a concentration camp, simply because of a neighbour's nosy-parkering.

As the summer wears on, I become increasingly thankful that I no longer live in the UK.

It it hideous, watching aghast from afar as the Tories rip off their smug, complacent human masks to reveal that they are indeed the same shape-shifting lizards that they always were. 

Kiddies' playgrounds and a TB-detection service for the homeless are the latest funded schemes to go, this morning, following on from the ending of school repairs, changes to pensions that will affect the poorest in society, the cutting of legal aid for people in need, the withdrawing (then quick back-pedalling) of free milk for children, and yesterday that twat David Willetts (whose job title mometarily escapes me) suggesting that unemployed graduates should 'start businesses' on leaving college if they can't find work. 

Exactly what fucking planet do these people live on? A cosy, furry little world where mummy and daddy can't just buy Quentin a housey-wousy to live in, and then fund him in a business start-up before he goes on to a job in the Thity doesn't even occur to these people. They don't even know it exists. They don't know the rest of us even exist. 

Twenty years of this shite under Thatcher and her lickspittling cronies was what made me emigrate in the first place. The Tories of that era made me ashamed to be British and they destroyed everything that I had loved about my country. 

But this new lot appear to be no better and the way things currently look, they are, all of them, utterly unfit for government. I know - and everybody knows - that New Labour spent money like it was going out of fashion, and left the country in debt up to its eyeballs. But as for this 'big shit sandwich and we're all going to have to take a bite', when are they themselves going to tuck in?

Every measure they have so far introduced impacts on only the poorest, most vulnerable, most disenfranchised people in society.  I don't see Tories themselves suffering, or the upper classes or the middle classes. It's working class families who will be hit by every measure so far implemented. It is not City-banker public schools that are falling down, it's the schools that produce Britain's engineers and nurses and firemen. 

Let them just once manage on Jobseeker's allowance for a year, or live on a council estate plagued by drugs or gangs for six months, or be denied live-extending cancer drugs under the postcode lottery that is NICE, and then tell the rest of us how to live. 

Firstly let us allow the fact that there is no excuse for a man to kill his wife and children, but I do wonder if it's something we're going to be seeing more of. In today's very materialistic society, people seem unable in the UK to live within their means, and with temptation so close at hand, many people are only a few weeks away from disaster.

The saddest thing in this most recent case is that the couple both had jobs - they had not been hit by a sudden crisis, such as job loss or illness. Why could they not work through it together? It is so terribly sad. 

The materialistic urge seems so horribly prevalent in the UK. Here in rural France, for instance, most of we Brits own our modest properties outright and would never dream of taking out a loan to buy something other than a necessity. Even then, we would tend to pick the cheapest thing we could find and settle for what we could get.  

But I was talking to a close friend in the UK the other day who was spitting nails that the bank would only loan her £30,000 to undertake a loft conversion. "I need at least £40k," she said. "And it will add £100k to the house..." (ah, the house as an investment again, rather than as a place to live...)

I feel so dismayed by this kind of attitude that it's difficult for me to know what to say. She already has a mortgage on her own flat, plus two mortgages on BTL properties, and no work. Yet her solution to the problem is to throw at it yet more money that she hasn't got.

She is annoyed that the bank wanted to look at her outgoings, to calculate what she could afford to repay, and yet that is precisely how French banks operate - very sensibly - and it's a system I'm used to, after so many years living in Continental Europe. I think the loans available in the UK are utter madness - I had no idea until the Credit Crunch that such a thing as self-certification even existed. 

The DH and I have watched with mounting horror this past 14 years as the overspending in the UK got worse and worse. My unemployed, benefit-claiming, working-on-the-black relatives all have credit cards, bank loans, new three-piece suites and wide-screen televisions - items that we ourselves cannot afford.

One of my blue-collar relatives is currently refurnishing his house and I can't help noticing that he's buying everything new. He's entitled to, of course - it's his money. But I wonder if it even occured to him to buy second-hand, as I would do. Another, unemployed, has just landed a super little council house but is whingeing because it hasn't got fast enough broadband access. 

When, precisely, did the British get so bloody picky about everything? Here, with our financial situation improving at last, we are grateful to be able to afford steak and chips at the local bar once a month - we hadn't eaten out for two years until recently. What we did NOT do when things got really and truly tight, as they did in the past two years, was go around spending money we hadn't got.

The murder-suicide in Hampshire is a terrible tragedy, especially as it involved two infants, so let us only hope that society can learn some little thing from it: that children should be taught financial management and budgeting, for instance; or that bank lending should be tightly controlled; or even better, that values such as thrift and frugality should once again be valued in society, instead of keeping up with the Joneses.

I have been fearfully neglectful of this blog lately.

Partly it's the heat, but partly it's the biggest cherry harvest since 2003 (and possibly even bigger than that), which means, for me, a ton of stoning, juicing and general processing. I'm taking 3-6kg a day off the trees.

The wonderful thing about processing is that it warms you twice, or at least warms your heart. In the depths of a freezing winter, it's a great feeling to pop open a jar of cherries that you picked yourself and remember the sunny morning before breakfast, up a ladder, collecting the warm red fruit that stained your fingers purple with the juice. It is a psychological satisfaction that you simply can't get if you just buy them. 

Here in Normandy we've had just one day of rain since March. The countryside is brown, crisp, sweltering under blue skies, and the rain that has been repeatedly forecast has still not been forthcoming. With daytime temperatures of 34 degrees, our days are spent in deep shade or indoors to keep cool.

But this has all been fab for the cherries. The godly combination of circumstances has meant that even the birds are sick of them this year, and the cherries that I normally pinch as soon as they turn red have been left to blacken on the trees, with over 50 cherries per bunch, hanging like grapes from the branch. 

These days, I no longer make jam very much, as it never gets eaten, so I cook cherries in one of four ways:

1 Heat-processed

Fill a sterilised Kilner jar (that's the tough glass type with a rubber ring seal) to the fill level with cherries, then pour in as much sugar as the jar will hold (keep shaking it, and it will make its way down through the gaps in the fruit). Seal the jar, wrap it in a cloth and place it in a boiler (I use a 10-litre stockpot) that you've lined with a teatowel.When the boiler is full (mine only takes 3 x 1-litre jars), fill it with water until the jars are submerged, bring to the boil and boil for 20 minutes. You'll see the air in the jars being forced out, creating a vacuum seal. Leave to cool before lifting out. This method is useful to process whole cherries that can then be served in winter, heated, with custard or ice-cream.

Advantages: no stoning, little discolouration, you can do it without sugar if you prefer, leaving the stones in results in more flavour. 

Disadvantages: uses a lot of water, has to be watched, fills the kitchen with steam, you can only do a small amount at one time, the fruit can't be used in crumbles etc. 

2 Slow-cooked

Place the cherries in a slow cooker, with or without sugar, and leave to cook for about six hours, or overnight. Take them out while still hot, place in hot, sterlised Kilner jars and seal. This method is useful to process whole cherries that can then be served in winter, heated, with custard or ice-cream.

Advantages: piss-easy, no loss of flavour.

Disadvantages: fruit discolour to brown, fruit can't be used for crumbles etc.

Obviously, you can also do either of the above methods with stoned cherries, if you're willing to sit there all evening with a cherry stoner. 

3 Compote

This method creates a semi-set compote that can be used in crumbles, pies etc. 

Stone the cherries and place in a large pan or preserving pan with enough sugar to taste (50-50 preserving sugar and ordinary sugar), and perhaps ginger or cinnamon if you like it. Bring to the boil, reduce to a simmer and cook for 10-20 minutes until semi-set. Ladle into hot, sterilised jars and seal. You can also heat-process the jars if you wish, which gives them a longer shelf life.

Advantages: can be used for anything, as no stones.

Disadvantages: stoning is a messy business, fruit has to be watched carefully or it will catch.  

4 Juicing

Wash the cherries and place in a steam juicer, bring to the boil and cook for 20 minutes. Drain off the juice and place it back through the fruit, and cook for another 20 minutes. Press the fruit to get out the last of the juice if you wish.  Drain off the juice into hot, sterlised bottles, and seal (I used old Grolsch-type beer bottles with a rubber ring). This produces a clear, pasturised juice that keeps very well or can then be processed into jelly.

Advantages: very easy, don't have to stone cherries, can use slightly bruised or small fruit that aren't worth processing any other way. 

Disadvantages: you need to invest in a steam juicer. Mine was 48 euros from Amazon.fr, but they are more expensive in the UK and are only available from specialist websites. However, if you enjoy making juices and jellies, it is a worthwhile investment, especially useful for processing berries.