The best place to stay (and shop) for the Paris Olympics? London

BARELY a day goes by without someone prominent proclaiming that this summer London is going to be the overspill city of the Olympics.

- Dylan Jones

In fact, we've carried many pieces about it ourselves, on standard.co.uk. 

Come on in, we say, the water's lovely (considering the country's sewage problem, London's drinking water is certainly better than the water in Paris), and we don't have bed bugs! Not French ones, anyway.

And now it's not just Londoners who are saying this, it's the French themselves. Last week, Bénédicte Epinay, head of the luxury industry group Comite Colbert (which exists solely to promote French luxury brands), said that the Olympics would be a "terrible period for business and culture. There's a big question mark around the event, but one that is tinged with concern."