You see them here, you see them there...

There it is in this morning's paper: a huge half-page ad for Norbert Dentressangle. You may well ask - who? I also used to wonder who they were as we drove to the Channel port on our way to and from France and saw these huge red lorries with Norbert Dentressangle painted on the wide.

To start with, what an extraordinary name! You couldn't make it up if you tried. And I was obviously not the only person mesmerised by that name because, some years ago, a poem
appeared in the press, all about the fantasies the author had about these trucks and their name.

And then, one day, we found ourselves in conversation with a solitary diner in a little brasserie in our corner of France. It turned out that he worked for our mysterious Norbert. At last I would have an answer to my question of what they did and why there were so many of them crowding our roads.Well, they transported goods from business to business. From France to England, from England to France. Logistics it's called,  I believe.

I expressed amazement to our co-diner and  I have never forgotten his rejoinder. " Madame, did you think the goods arrived in England by parachute?"

Now here they are in this ad, proclaiming "We are Norbert Dentressangle and we will move your business in 2013".