Bonjour, please excuse me, I saw your small ad in Libé. I would like to do a report on found bottles. However, I don’t have enough information, which is why I am writing to you. Please give me more information.

Many thanks in advance.

My heartbeat returned to normal.

Every time I opened my email account, I felt the same tension. But every day there was nothing. I rang La Voix du Nord and asked them if they had received the photographs of me and the bottle with the River Thames standing in for the sea. They finally decided to run the article. Nowhere in London could I find a copy of La Voix du Nord. I had no idea what they had written.

In the final insertion for the small ad in Libération, mine was one of five in its section, which provided an eclectic mixture of requests: for lodgings, for help with translation from Swedish, suggestions for a future career for an ex-pro footballer, and blunt demands for money with which to make a new life.

The editor at La Voix du Nord had promised to send me a copy. Meanwhile I opened my resolutely empty e-mail inbox ten times a day. I realized that it was not enough to have advertised in only one national paper and to have had a single article in the main local press for northern France. Convinced that I had to make a more comprehensive effort to publicize my quest, I rang Le Figaro. Once again the lady at the switchboard needed to know exactly which category of small ad I was seeking to place. ‘The one where you look for a person who sent a letter in a bottle,’ I explained wearily. The novelty value of explaining to intermediaries had worn off. ‘I’ll put you through to editorial,’ she said after only a moment’s thought.

Once again I explained to the person in editorial that I had been trying to place a small ad, but that the receptionist thought editorial might be interested.

‘We don’t do bottles,’ she interrupted me.

This was a new departure. ‘Could you explain why?’ I enquired, intrigued.

‘We just don’t do bottles.’

‘Is there a reason for this policy decision?’

‘We never do them.’

By now I was annoyed – I hadn’t asked to be put through to editorial, but since I had, I was not going to be put off so easily. I asked to speak to her boss, and she reluctantly complied. I explained my requirements once more. The boss partially covered her handpiece and called the elements of the story over the office to the editor . . . ‘There’s a woman here who found a bottle, with a letter, in England – are you interested?’ ‘Yes, can we have the details?’ ‘A journalist will be calling you . . .’