Antoine, the British grandson of French writer Charles Exbrayat and his fiancee Jackie are blogging this week-end from Saint-Etienne, the late author's hometown which is celebrating his 100th birthday (blog in English only, unfortunately). Reading the Exabrayat Blog (with announced podcasts and photos), I learned that the originator of the comic detective used to describe the city as one of the ugliest in the world. I lived in "Saint-E," as locals call it, for 2 years, and enjoyed it tremendously. In the winter, the tramway in the main street under the snow along this so-ugly-it's-gorgeous '70s concrete shopping mall (Centre Deux?) would remind me of Eastern Europe: not always beautiful in a classical sense, but filled with personality. And in Saint-E, to quote an expression from The Prisoner, "everybody is very nice."