I was called Agnès after a character in a Molière play. When I looked at names for my daughter, I wasn't sure until Garance was uttered, and that was… - Agnès Poirier

The uncanny thing about spinal surgery, or at least the kind I had, is that I’m not allowed to sit down for three months. I can lie down or stand up, or at most perch on the edge of a bar stool for no more than 15 minutes at a time. This means reading and writing standing up, changing positions often and lying down to recuperate in between. My horizontal life has thus been rich and allowed for hours of listening: radio documentaries about Victor Hugo, radio dramas such as the Charles Paris mysteries, and mindfulness meditation podcasts during which I have discovered the art or rather science of proprioception; in other words the awareness of one's body position in space through nerves, muscle and joints.

I was 12 when I first saw Les Enfants du Paradis, at the Ranelagh theatre in Paris, a stone's throw from Balzac's house. The neo-Renaissance theatre screened this story of mimes, actors, impresarios and swindlers every week-end for more than 20 years until the 35mm print became too fragile. Two generations of cinephiles did as we did, going up the little street like pilgrims on a quest. If God was a film director, he would have made this film, thought the child that I was. Later in my teens, I would go back to the Ranelagh, dragging school friends along. If they didn't get it, I'd never speak to them again.

If Britain were indeed a person, one could add that it suffers from body dysmorphic disorder and mythomania.