Is cute ever ok?

The question is probably a culturally relative one. British attempts at cuteness are often gauche and infantile. It is no accident that the cutest of the Spice Girls was dubbed, 'Baby Spice'. Cute equates to puerile to our minds. Just think of Zoe Ball; she is undoubtedly cute, but she looks and acts like an overgrown toddler. France, however, does grown-up cute, it simpers from bill-boards, oozes from window displays, pouts at you during the TV weather bulletin,; it is inescapable. One more example to prove my point. Try to imagine a British re-make of 'Amelie'. It would emerge as more broadly comedic, a strange amalgam of Bridget Jones and Mr. Bean. We simply have to accept it, France leads the world at being seriously cute.

Our natural inclination is to snigger quietly at Gallic tendencies towards the frilly, the over elaborate and the overtly sentimental, but right now I think we need a dose of the fanciful as an antidote to the last few months which have been grim at home. The Ile de Ré exudes cuteness, seemingly it has been designed  as  France in miniature, all the good bits concentrated into a small island without the prairie-like wheat fields in between, the grim retail sprawl and slab like concrete apartment blocks. We are in the mood to embrace its blatant inauthenticity, happy to pretend the concoction represents the best of France. It is lovely here. Since it is mightily tricky to disentangle the cute from the picturesque, we took scores of photographs.

Here's a few on the subject of French cute...

1. Vernacular Architecture -

Ignore the reality that most of France is an ugly sprawl of garish retail parks, let's pretend it looks like this....

2. Vibrant morning market

Of course every cute village has its daily market...

Eager shoppers crowd the streets to buy fresh ingredients for this evening's culinary triumph.

 Local wine, sausages...

fish freshly caught this morning..

and presented with such a flair for design..

and Mademoiselle Piggy and Mr Bull are so happy to be butchered for your delectation. And not just food.....

3. Weird stuff on sale that nobody seems to buy.

Sailor striped tee shirts (wear one and you get a discount at the onion stall)

Clothes which have dropped through a wormhole in space from 1974.

Anything with meaningless English drivel on it is cute.

Gadgets and technical wizardry - a reversible umbrella - who would have thought it?

acres of ridiculous underwear

No, seagulls are not cute, they're a menace - think Hitchcock.

So, back to the original question - is cute ever ok? Well yes, but only when abroad. Once across the Channel you are free to indulge in all kinds of behaviours regarded with suspicion at home. Nodding approval of the cute is just one of them - others include my battered beach-bum hat, dusty pink shorts and crocs - not a look I would feel comfortable with wandering around our local Morrison's.