Stephen Clarke 
Merde at the Paris Olympics 
Going for Pétanque Gold

’Some really excellent one-liners and a great story.’ Ian Moore, author, Death & Croissants.

’This novel is hysterical!’ Rebecca Leffler, writer and Creative Consultant on the Netflix TV series Emily in Paris, .

By the author of A Year in the Merde and 1000 Years of Annoying the French.

Englishman Paul West is living in Paris (where he arrived long before Emily, by the way) and he’s gearing up for the 2024 Olympics.

Paul accepts a job with a French group who are campaigning to get pétanque adopted as an official Olympic event.

In Paul’s opinion, throwing lumps of lead around while drinking pastis is barely a sport – it’s more an excuse for Provençal men to avoid cooking dinner. But he needs the cash.

Meanwhile Paul falls in love with a French tech genius – who thinks he’s an idiot (which, compared to her, he is) – and he tangles with his treacherous ex, Elodie.

Paul also applies for French nationality and has to embark on a war of attrition with France’s Napoleonic bureaucrats.

In the background, Paul’s friend Jake the grunge poet decides that the Olympics and Paralympics discriminate against lazy people, and invents the ’Nolympics’.

Let the fun and games begin.