It's the final Rightmove Roundup of this cursed blessed year (do you actually believe in years tho) and we're going to

arty penthouses in Marseille, a medieval cathedral precinct in Suffolk, the sweetest yellow wood-panelled cottage for £169k, and a London terrace for only half a mill. "Only."

ONE: 3-bed penthouse with a view of the old port, Marseille, €1,1m

They joined three flats together to make this one huge apartment, which is in the Quartier du Panier and looks across to the church Notre Dame de la Garde, in Marseille, a city where the light is so powerful that I think I would just lay up there in wilful bedazzlement and “freelancers’ liedowns” (ahem) until my life fell apart.

When I lived in LA, English friends would say I must be enjoying all of that sunshine. But it wasn’t the sun’s heat, it was the light. Los Angeles has a particular quality of it that caused the film industry to grow there, cos the emulsion in celluloid literally lapped it up, and I am saying ‘literally’ because I failed all of my Science GCSEs, literally.

It’s not only in California though - look at Marseille, right there on the Côte D’Azur with that light bouncing off the Med. Although Marseille is perhaps too exciting and gritty a city to believe itself part of that poncey and noncey riviera set. Whatever - look at the view from these flats, mon Dieu!

And wait til you see the kitchen and rest of the apartment - it has that very specific French art teacher quirkiness, that always looks a bit like a cross between a Calder mobile and a very jazzy opticians.

You know how French women, if they’ve got curly hair, have to wear glasses with rims in bright primary colours to show they’re not even trying to make their hair go straight?

Yeah, it’s like that.