Last week when Síle and I were visiting the excellent Le Memorial de Rivesaltes internment camp museum Síle read in one of the accounts there that the occupants of the barracks had to live in “Toute Promiscuité”.

Fascinated but sure that this didn’t mean that they were forced into free sex Síle looked up the word in the dictionary.

The french word is translated into English- in our most reliable “Robert”- as : “lack of privacy”. A very different kettle of fish.