Flight of fancy to Paris in the spring

I’M not a big fan of the English football team. Aside from them being a set of arrogant, overrated, underachieving men who represent everything I detest in modern-day football, as a Sunderland fan there’s been little correlation between the two sides that would cause much interest.

So, with an international weekend robbing me of a game on Wearside, I decided to book myself a budget airline ticket to Paris to visit friends for a footie-free couple of days.

It started badly; as I got to the easyJet check-in desk at Newcastle Airport on the Friday evening, I could sense some excitement behind me.