La région parisienne est frappée de plein fouet par des violents orages ce soir, qui sont remontés dans une masse d’air tropicale très instable. Plus d’une centaine d’impacts de foudre ont été recensés sur l’ouest parisien. Source : @Meteorage__ pic.twitter.com/Xwu1pcrYjW

— La Chaîne Météo (@lachainemeteo) May 9, 2020

What a storm! I sleep in the eaves, so I had a front row bed for nature’s sound effects last night. That’s as exciting as it gets in my bedroom and there hasn’t been all that much action in other people’s boudoirs, according to an opinion poll on the French people’s sex life during.

The rain pounded down – some of it was hail by the sound of it – stopping and starting again, thunder rolled, a lightning flash lit up the part of the room below the mezzanine below where I sleep. I thought of pagan gods fighting it out with thunderbolts and couldn’t help fantasising that the deluge would wash away the virus.

The tempest hit the Paris region, where three weeks-worth of rain in one night was reported, as well as much of the centre and the south-west, where the rainfall could be the heaviest in a century by the time it’s over.

Because there’s more to come, 18 départements are on orange alert this afternoon and tonight.

At least it will encourage people to stay at home.

How much sex have the French been having during lockdown? That’s the question some plucky pollsters have probing as déconfinement approaches.

Some 87% of single people have had no sex at all for the past 54 days, they found, a figure backed up by a slump in the sales of condoms.

And the number of couples having sex more than twice a week has gone down to 25% from a usual average of 36%.

Contrary to earlier reports there has been no porn boom: 38% of singles and 25% of couples have sought online stimulation. That’s confirmed by an investigation into Google searches by Le Monde. It found a dip in searches for smut mid-April, although searches for home-made pornography were up. There were also a lot of searches for how to find flour and bake your own bread.

Hints on perking up your sex life went down until mid-April, when they got their mojo back and soared to record heights. Among the searches: Kamasutra omelette, Kamasutra snail and, for the practically minded, Kamasutra position that helps lose weight – losing two stone with one bird, as it were.

There has been the expected amount of domestic violence. But most relationships don’t seem to have suffered from the claustrophobic circumstances. Some 88% of people living with someone else would lock themselves away with the same partner again, 84% are satisfied with their love life, and 73% with their sex life. A third of couples say they have become more in love during lockdown and only 10% say their relationship has worsened.

Little Richard has died at the age of 87.

I give you one of his best but least well-known records:

Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention did a cover with Don Sugarcane Harris on violin.

France’s Covid-19 death toll now officially stands at 26,310, 80 in the past 24 hours. 22,624 people are in hospital, down 110, with 2,812 in intensive, care down 56. 56,038 patients have ben discharged from hospital, 256 yesterday.