Entropy in action

The train leaves the station just before seven. It’s a TGV, but there are unfinished works on the fast line, so we’re shunted onto the slow track. A delay of over an hour.

Vincent meets me at Besançon TGV. It’s cold and grey, but the heater in his car works fine. We’re at the office in no time, and I start the workshop at 11 - barely an hour behind schedule.

Séverine has invited me and a colleague from London (Marjus) to have dinner with her family. Her husband, Christoph, is cooking a vegan sweet potato curry. He’s a musician and sound engineer with a huge French act, Aldebert, that I’ve never heard of.

We get shown his recording studio and, upstairs, the playroom where HipTest was born. Gone are the desks or any semblance of order. Instead there are piles of indeterminate things, a child’s drumkit, a substrate of toys.

The food is great. Curry, then cheese, then apple tart. All accompanied by wine - a Pécharmant from near Bergerac, followed by a 2003 Chablis Grand Cru which was as astonishing as it was excessive. A really enjoyable evening all round.

Séverine gives us a lift back to the hotel. I leave Marjus outside to smoke a drunken cigarette and go to my room. Grey walls, melamine workstation, functional internet.