Champagne and other things Champagne and other matters Watching a soccer match on the television last night, from the  Stadium at Rheims, France, recalled to mind one of my (our)  experiences as a youngish married couple. We were underway on one of our many "unofficial" trips, from Germany, and our aim  had been to go to Paris, from Berlin, tracing the steps of a famous German Landau  coach driver "Gustaf" (a landau coach was a sort of open horse drawn taxi of the  19th Century) Not having such a vehicle of that nature, we were doing it in our 23 year old Triumph  Spitfire, with a canvas top, foldable back when the sun shone, so that made us almost  identical to "Gustaf" except that we had a few horses more (which often didn't work)  but we did have an open carriage, if I went faster than about 90km/h, because the press  studs which held the canvas cover on were weary, and popped open at the wind force  c...