Automated living

In the absense of anything much that's open in small towns and villages, the French have found a way for some of life's essentials to carry on. Sadly light on job creation opportunities, the vending machine is nonetheless building a role for itself where real service has died out.

If you are stuck for entertainment with only cringe-inducing cabaret on TV or the cinema that has closed, you can always go to the hole-in-the-wall, insert your credit card and dial up a video or two, then post them back through the same hole when you're done. For more energetic entertainment it is nothing to see a condom-vending machine on the street - outside a school, a pharmacy, a post office, it doesn't matter.

You can weigh your letters and parcels, select your destination and class of post, print your stamp and pop your post in another slot, all without speaking to a postal employee; while as one of the ubiquitous motor caravan drivers you're able to park overnight in numerous laybys or picnic areas and, again with a flash of your credit card, access a modern tardis for water, waste disposal and electricity.

As well as the increasingly common - though only in cities - bicycles that you can borrow via a smart-card, in Troyes I saw my favourite vending service so far: at the car park outside the centre you can liberate an umberella or even a baby buggy for the duration of your visit. And there, the vended goods were free.

24th June 2008