Media: A moment with Marquis.

You will be pleased to know that your intrepid correspondent is undertaking an in-depth, hands-on, 24/7 analysis of European advertising opportunities. In other words, as you will have rightly surmised, he's lounging by a pool somewhere in the Med.

But, thanks to wireless broadband and a workaholic laptop, I can despatch un moment avec Marquis direct from Peter Mayle country, the cicadas chirping away in the pines, rose chilling nicely in the fridge and figs (and family) fattening sweetly on the terrace. The truth is, our rented eyrie on the slopes of the Luberon is a media-free zone.

We listen to no radio, watch no TV, have not bought a hilariously overpriced British newspaper, have eschewed the pile of antique Hello! magazines and are not even splashing about (you couldn't call it surfing) in the shallows of the internet. We are on a media fast.

It is truly bizarre to consume absolutely no media at all for a week or more. It's like suddenly stopping drinking (perish the thought) - you find that you can do it easily enough, but it's a very unfamiliar sensation, not unpleasant exactly, but certainly peculiar. On holiday, of course, it's good to suspend your daily routines and fiddle experimentally with the lens on your ...