We drove over to Saint Tropez today because it seemed like the thing to do.

Of the towns in this bay, on the Cote d’Azur, Saint Tropez is by far the best-known, internationally.

What we found was underwhelming, even considering this is the depth of winter — when celebrities are least likely to be hanging about the clubs and runways near the port.

Nor would anyone travel to Saint Tropez in January in search of the tan once glowingly described by the Bain de Soleil brand.

But, still …

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A key moment during any stay in a French city?

The weekly “market” day.

This is when temporary stalls are set up in some wide spot in the ville and for four or five hours (presumably) fresh and higher-quality foodstuffs are sold at rates higher than the neighborhood supermarche.

What sort of producers show up, the breadth of their products and their quality is telling.

Which led us to market day, today, in the little Cote d’Azur town of Les Issambres.

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Hommes and femmes, both.

Men and women on the high side of retirement age appear to have have clustered along the Cote d’Azur, also known as the French Riviera.

It seems a fine place to retire, with mostly nice weather, lots of light and the “300 days of sun” which seems to be the standard boast, from Nice to Toulon. With sea views pretty much standard at all pieces of property hacked into the hills rising from the Mediterranean.

The influx of the mature masses, however, makes the towns in the area a little unusual, demographically.

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So, yes, it’s true: Telecoms are a pain in the neck no matter where you turn up.

After six years of various issues with the Etisalat telecom in Abu Dhabi (and, before that a variety of others, in the states), we spent much of our first day in southern France trying to get wifi in the apartment where we are staying.

It required two one-hour roundtrips to get it solved. Sorta.

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The super jumbo A380 to Paris on the evening/morning of December 31/January 1, semi-empty, as we hoped. A second (much smaller) plane, to Nice. Pick up a car at the airport. Drive for 90 minutes to the little apartment with the fine view of the Mediterranean.

Had we thought it through we would have expected a fine view. The Cote d’Azur is mostly hilly, and cities are arranged in steps so that nearly everyone has a view of the Mediterranean.

But this is a bit rich for our blood. We will not be staying more than a few weeks in the second home of a kindly acquaintance in Paris. Actually paying for a sea view here (see photo, above) is out of our price range.

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We are at Los Angeles International airport, headed for France.

Flying on New Year’s Eve may seem a little anti-social, but December 31 also has a reputation as one of the least expensive days to fly.

And here we are.

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Wow. What a mess.

USC football may be at a low ebb, at least in this century. The coaches and players who contrived to lose to Wisconsin in the Holiday Bowl tonight constitute a program that is in trouble.

The Trojans, over decades, have too often embraced the dim-witted arrogance of the biggest and most violent kid on the block, and it was all there in the game with the Badgers.

A lack of self-discipline. Poor decisions. A “me” mentality — it all seemed on display in a 23-21 defeat.

We know USC began the year led by a coach with alleged alcohol-abuse problems that led to his midseason firing … and left in charge what appear to be a dozen kids playing at being coaches.

But we had not seen the sausage being made, on the field. Seeing a team and how it reacts to adversity or fails to take advantage of chances, always is more visceral than reading about it.

And the Trojans, who finished 8-6, were awful in several areas.

Let’s recap a few.

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An added attraction at the San Clemente home where we have been staying is a collection of at least a dozen paperback books containing cartoons from The Far Side.

I can page through those for 20, 25 minutes at a pop, smiling at many of the (typically) single-panel cartoons that so often tweak science and mock the human race for its egotism. At some significant fraction of them, I nod with admiration as I marvel at the insidious wit.

And in nearly every case, during or shortly after my viewing of the cartoons, I find myself musing over why Gary Larson, the man who did The Far Side and turned it into an extremely lucrative endeavor, gave up doing the cartoon 20 years ago, walking away from his work at the height of its popularity, at the age of 44.

It strikes me as a bit bizarre and perhaps even sad that his decision to give it up kept a generation from knowing about Larson’s funny, insightful work.

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Back in the UAE, we paid a significant amount of money to get English Premier League soccer, despite usually being limited to one game in English when as many as six were going on and getting little more than highlights in the games we didn’t see.

We figured the situation would be worse in California.

Instead, it’s far better than what Al Jazeera-owned BeIN Sports gave us in Abu Dhabi.

To wit:

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I have been away. Have I mentioned that? And it’s hard to see the NFL play where I was living, on the other side of the world.

But, back in the USA for a slow Sunday … I slipped back into the couch potato mode and pretty much just stared at the NFL all day.

I have a sort of second-hand knowledge of what happened over the first 14 games, mostly by looking at the standings, but I do have some snap opinions from one day of new exposure to the league.

A list of 10:

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