Femme au foyer

Signing on

2010-08-26T08:22:00.001+02:00

It has been many years now since I have had to be in contact with the French administration system. This is not a coincidence. I have avoided it. Hours of sitting on hard chairs, starring at greying walls with depressing notices, only to be greeted with sneers and down-the-nose contempt as well as the inevitable “you’ve forgotten the yellow form “ which of course wasn’t on the five page list of useless photocopies and other bits of paper. So it was with some anticipation that I found myself at 8.50 on a Monday morning in front of Cachan Pöle Emploi clutching my dossier close to my chest.

There was already a French-style loose queue with a Malagasy woman first, then a young man with a shaved head who was filling in his forms on the wheelie bin outside, after him, seemed to be the skinny North African middle-aged man, followed by a young guy with a backpack and earphones. Then me. I hoped we didn’t all have the same 9 o’clock appointment and would have to rush in and grab tickets. We all paced keeping respectful distances and at 9 on the dot when the doors opened, we cruised in respectably calmly with Mr Shaved Head and Mr Backpack even letting me go in front, gentlemanly.

A huge typical admin looking room with glass-protected counter was only being used by two people behind a desk checking us in. I was sent under the stairs with the Malay woman and almost immediately received by a polite smiley woman. Too efficient to be true? Yes, indeed! The job adviser realised that I hadn’t been given an appointment with the money people upstairs when I phoned a central calling station to get my appointment. And I had to see them first. So I got, very politely, very apologetically, sent back to the starting point and got to sit and watch the unemployed coming in and sorting out their lives for two-and-a-half hours!
Two-and-a-half hours of people-watching! I have to say that apart from the cock-up with my case, the system seemed to run very smoothly. The check-in desk people were infinitely patient with the (sometimes) not-very-quick-to-get-it public. One particular woman with blonde streaked hair, a just-out-of-bed face, cerise pink shoes with a piece of pink fluff stuck on the front and a quickly-annoying high-pitched voice took a very long time to understand her situation and some of the other clients got impatient and made comments like “why don’t you bring your bed in, while you’re at it?” But otherwise, I was relieved to see that most of the ‘problems’ were cleared up very quickly and the clients left smiling. Even the Vietnamese woman who had explained her case to me – something about needing a paper signed but that the person was never there, went away happy – she was lucky – she was allowed to retire!
There was one sleazy-looking young guy who came in with a bad attitude because he wanted an appointment but they couldn’t give him one – he had to ring the (inefficient) central appointment centre. But the counter guy soon put him in his place and got him saying “please” and “thank you” and speaking quietly. Then again , they were warned – there were posters up everywhere advising clients to be polite and stating that aggressing an employee was intolerable and a punishable offence. I wondered how often these employees had felt threatened and if they ever lost it. Monday morning, everything seemed calm but by the end of the week, nerves could get pretty frazzled. Perhaps that’s why they closed on Friday afternoons!
Just as I was wondering if my bum could get any numb-er, I was given the magic ticket to go upstairs, where I found another huge waiting room, empty but for one guy. After about 10 minutes, I got called into on office and the woman asked for my identity card. I handed over my passport. “Don’t you have anything else?” she asked. Here we go, I thought, French administration, true to form... “An out-of-date carte de séjour? I am from an E.U. member country, you know...” In the end, the passport did the trick. Then she spent 15 minutes entering all my details, taking to herself as she went. I passed the time listening in to the conversations in the offices either side – on the left, a woman had taken payments that she shouldn’t have and now owed them money, on the right, some I.T. problem. Finally, she made a pile of photocopies, stapled them all together and liberated me.
Back to the seat under the stairs. It was time for my job hunting interview. By now it was nearly midday and I was feeling quite jaded. To think these two administrations had only been merged a couple of years ago (with much protestation). Before, the two separate bodies were in two different buildings. The counsellor was great – she understood my situation – we chatted about language learning, bilingualism and what a lettre de motivation was all about. She suggested that I did a validation des aquis which meant getting the French administration to recognise the value of my teaching experience by giving me the equivalent relevant degree. “You have to fill in an initial application, which is quite consequential, and then, if that is accepted, another much heavier dossier and then, go in front of a committee who can reject or partially or wholly accept your request.” She said it would be a middle-term project. It sounded to me like it would take the rest of my life!
But I left feeling uplifted. I was now officially unemployed for the first time in my life – even though I hadn’t got a centime yet as it was the public sector who had to pay me as I had been working for l’Education Nationale. But all I had to do was fill in another dossier, photocopy my passport, carte vitale, my payslips for the last twelve months... etc. etc. And then wait, and wait a bit more. Ah, the French administration system!

Language gadgets

2009-09-10T11:15:00.006+02:00

gadget: 1. a small mechanical device or appliance. 2. any object that is interesting for its ingenuity. (Collins English Dictionary)

We have a new education minister in France, Luc Chatel. Last week, he made his speech for la rentrée, saying «Je ne serais pas le ministre du statu quo, ni celui des réformes gadgets» I am not the status quo minister or he of gadget reforms. Hmmm. What does he mean by gadget reforms? I think he wanted to say he would not bring in quick-fix changes or that he is not in favour of change for change's sake but rather than using proper French he employed 'gadget', the new buzz word of the moment in France (or should I say in the French media). Used as an adjective, bien sûr. The TV channel M6 have launched their 'revolutionary' version of the news with the anchor dressed in jeans and standing up (OMG). The fact that she was standing up was dismissed by a radio presenter as being a ' gadget'. Gadget appears to be the new French trendy way of conveying a cheap gimmick but like all the English buzz words they adopt, it is quickly becoming over-used and tired. Like the use of 'speed' meaning fast/hyper-active/exceeded, the French have once again deformed an English word and, by using it for any circumstance, will eventually kill it!

Pink

2008-11-16T14:41:00.006+01:00

I used to belong to an English-speaking mothers' support group called MESSAGE. We'd organise coffee mornings, park visits, teas, and all the big Anglo-Saxon events so that our little darlings could play together and interact in English while we, the mums (and sometimes dads) exchanged ideas about the world and France and nappy-rash remedies.

My kids quickly grew out of it, preferring to chat in French to their schoolfriends, but I meet the mums regularly for nights out. I've met a wide-variety of interesting people, some only once or twice, others are lifers (here for life!) like me.

Anyway, last Friday, at our night out to celebrate Obama's victory (any excuse it good) I met a woman who I probably hadn't seen for a good 4 or 5 years who remembered me for a short story I'd written (and I'd forgotten about completely).

So I dug it out, dusted it off , and here it is:

PINK

When she was little, must’ve been about four, she discovered pink. Pink dresses, pink tights, a pink coat, even pink knickers. We had to physically force her into her black, patent-leather shoes, until we gave in and got her a rose-coloured pair. Anything, any other colour, was rejected. In the end, we stopped proposing, put the yellows, blues and greens away, hoping she’ d come round before they got too small.
Her colour obsession didn’t stop at clothes. In the kitchen, she’d scream if we accidentally presented her food on a blue plate and woe betide that fairy cake that had yellow sponge concealed under the sweet, pink icing.
Her father called her his little pink princess but when she wanted to change her name to Pink, he put his foot down. We wondered if we should take her to see someone, if it wasn’t one of those obsessive compulsive thingys.
Then she started school and discovered blue. Pink was discarded with a turned-up nose as she embraced denim. Her friends came round to play, and from the back they all looked identical. We started to miss the pink.
But the Prime Minister wearing jeans killed off blue's cool, and adolescence brought black with touches of white. Ghost-white foundation concealed blackheads while eyes and lips were coloured in black. She wore lace gloves with the fingers cut off and stopped eating meat. Her father said she looked ready for Halloween, but she only grunted in reply, her speech drained of colour like her face. Dark music filtered out of her grotto bedroom. Curtains stayed closed and her walls were adorned with posters, snarling out of the penumbras. But her father put his foot down at black walls. She dyed her hair so black that it was almost purple in the light, and backcombed it high off her head.
Her father tutted and said, “ Why can’t you wear a bit of pink now and again?”
So she ripped up the pink photos and then she went green.
I got home one evening to find a skinhead in combat trousers at the kitchen table, rolling a cigarette. It was my little girl.
She spent her holidays living in a tree – to stop them building a motorway. Her father said he wouldn’t pay for driving lessons, then, if she didn’t like the cars. I took her things to eat. Placed them in a basket that she lowered from her elevated platform. She’d thank me with a “Cheers mum!” but only if no-one was around. We even saw her on the telly. I don’t know if it was the way they’d filmed it, but her face looked green.
“Probably moss growing on her,” commented her father but he was still proud of her; I could see that.
She came down for her exam year and did quite well; got into university. We were worried about her going to London, living on her own, but you have to let go eventually.
We didn’t hear much from her during those three years, except when she needed money. She came back for Christmas and seemed to have taken to red, gold and green, which was altogether more festive. Her hair was long again and clumped together in strange plaits. They were held in place by an oversized beret that she was reluctant to remove. Her father said she looked like a parrot. Funnily enough she laughed at this. We hadn’t heard her laughing for a long time.
She’s still in London – joined a religious group. They meet once a week and go down Oxford Street, chanting and banging mini cymbals. We went down to see her once. It seemed to entertain the shoppers. They worship someone called Krishna and all dress in orange robes with nothing on their feet and a blob of orange paint between their eyes. Her father says it’s to show the pigeons where to aim.
Oh, and she’s shaved her head again. She rang us the other day, to tell us that she was off on a retreat or something like that. She said not to worry, that she was happy.

2004

You are my sleeping pill

2008-09-18T17:59:00.005+02:00

Am I alone in thinking that the first lady of France is... well... rather dull? (at least on TV) She has been on quite a few programmes recently: Jools Holland, Michel Drucker and last night she was redactrice en chef for Le Grand Journal on Canal +. Admittedly I didn't watch much of these programmes, but the bits I did catch didn't inspire me. Always the same questions: when did you start writing the album? When did you finish? Did your whirlwind romance avec Nico affect anything? Which songs are about him? Is he your 'junk'? etc. etc. And Carla replies in oh-so-nicey-nicey way with the same replies and the same slightly-shy smile and her tinge-of-Italian accent.

Luckily, the programme was saved last night by the wonderful Yann Barthès.

My life as a sitcom

2008-09-18T17:59:00.003+02:00

So I lost my passport. I'd been rushing around, sorting things out for my son who'd just started secondary school: lots of paperwork as only the French know how. I had to make a photocopy of my passport, so I saw there was a machine in my local Intermarché, right in front of the row of cash desks. I paid for my shopping and did my photocopy. It really was a marvellous copy, very high quality, I was impressed. I folded the copy, put it in my handbag and left the shop.

And life went on as normal for 3 days until on Monday morning I had one of those left-the-oven-on moments as I was walking my daughter to school and after a morning of ransacking my flat, I realised I'd left it in the machine. I phoned the shop. Nothing. Nobody had given it in, which means some f****er went to use the machine, saw my passport and stashed it in a pocket while in front of him/her customers were filling their trolleys and paying up. Nobody noticed a thing. There is probably someone usurping their way into the UK with my passport and nothing I can do about it.

So, next move: report it to the police. I did my first main courante which is the first level of police complaints. Made me feel very French but at the same time very stupid having to relate the facts. Then I had to go about getting a new passport and sharpish as I had a weekend planned in London on the 27/28 September. Got all the forms, went to get the 'orrible photos done. Both machines in my shopping centre were broken. Went to another one. Had to show my ears and forehead - came out looking like a bloke, but was past caring at this stage. Next, the birth certificate. It said on the forms to write to an address in Merseyside. I didn't like the sound of that - knowing how gifted the Brits are with their information storage. But I wrote anyway and crossed my fingers. A couple of days later, doubts set in so I investigated on the web and discovered that this was a paying service and not a cheap one! Eventually, I found another site for the county I was born in, filled in the online form, coughed up a virtual £10 (thus possibly exposing my bank details to the same criminal network who'd stolen my passport) and started the waiting game.

Meanwhile, I was working out a plan B. I could get my sister to go on the comedy writing weekend I'd wanted to do for ages. She could take copious notes. She's probably funnier than me anyway. And as for the Eurostar ticket, well, tant pis, too bad.

Then, against all odds, the birth certificate arrived last Monday. I had ten days till my journey - the minimum mentioned on the application form (even if it said it could take longer in case of loss or theft). So I rushed to the Embassy. Didn't even have to queue and the woman behind the counter said "yes, you can have it for the 26th, no problem" and she didn't even want to see my birth certificate.

Youpee! I shall go to the ball! Except that, in between times there was that there fire in the tunnel. And yesterday, I got an email recommending us not to travel on the next two weekends if possible and that my ticket would be fully reimboursed. But that if I did want to use the Eurostar, there were changes and delays. So my train would get in an hour later than scheduled meaning that, all going well, I would arrive in St Pancras just when my course started near Euston.

But I'm staying optimistic. I mean, anything could happen between now and the 27th...

To be continued...

Bye for now

2008-06-28T11:31:00.002+02:00

I haven't blogged for a long time. This may be my last post ever. Holidays are coming up and I fancy sitting in the shade, reading lots of stimulating books.
On my list are:

Entre les murs - the book which was adapted into the Palme d'or winning film of the same name

La consolante by Anna Gavalda, probably the first French writer that I managed to read (and enjoy)

Les tribulations d'une caissière by Anna Sam, the blog-to-book success story about the daily routine of a supermarket cashier

and I'll finish Sixty million Frenchmen can't be wrong which is an extremely good read despite the off-putting title. I have learnt a lot from this book but also found it irritatingly frustrating because it effectively reinforces the almost-stereotypical impressions which I already have of the French after living here for 16 years. Plus it explains why they are like that!

Unlike many French people, I will not be reading the latest Marc Levy (chicklit IMO) , anything about the President or his wife or the latest Dan Brown/Mary Higgins Clark. I will also not be testing my general knowledge by doing the adult version of the cahier de vacances. These books are big business in France for revising the year's work in a 'fun' way. I have tried buying them for my kids in the past but they are too smart to fall for that one!

Happy holidays everyone (oh, apart from the Brits - hang on in there only a few weeks to go!!)

Raz-le-bol!

2008-04-30T10:42:00.005+02:00

Tomorrow is the official 1st May workers' march in Paris. Well, I think we should march for sun this year. Never mind pouvoir d'achat and Sarko's reformes, Whaddawewant? We want sun! Whendeaweanit? NOW!

A couple of weeks ago, I smirked at le Parisien's headline: "On veut du soleil" especially as the weather wasn't particularly bad here. Talk about nanny state! But now, enough is enough - this is our second day of rain and it's the school holidays - this is totally unacceptable. What is the government going to do about it? Eh? Eh?

Enforced hibernation

2008-04-04T15:26:00.002+02:00

Just when the French media are reporting that the French spend, on average, an hour on internet every day, we change operators, and find ourselves without it - for two-and-a-half long weeks. No newspapers, no comedy shows, no wikipedia, no "I'll just check that..." and, worst of all, no email. My friends invited me out and got no reply - they started to worry. I felt like a social pariah, a boring old femme au foyer. Whatever did I use to do before? My life was on pause. It got the the stage that I was so bored I even did some housework! I went to the shops and bought stuff for the house. It was terrible!

In contrast, I could give up my mobile phone tomorrow. Whenever it rings I have a feeling of gloom. It's either work/scedule changes or people asking for last minute favours like picking their kids up because they're stuck in traffic. But it could also be an emergency -the school, an accident... I'd be a lot more tranquille without it.

Being internetless made me realise how addicted I had become. My fortnight of enforced sevrage has made me more reasonable in my internet usage. I've been to rehab. I've said "no" and now I'm just an ocasional dabbler. I can handle it. Honest.

Gone, gone, gone

2008-03-11T15:50:00.005+01:00

Today is the 30th anniversary of the death of Claude François (Cloclo to his fans).
Born in 1939, obsessive, perfectionist, womanizer and disco king. Had two sons - kept the second one secret for a long time so as not to spoil his image.

Has a square named after him in the 16th district of Paris. Today, his fans are mourning and laying flowers by his statue in the graveyard in Dannemois, near Paris where he lived in a renovated windmill.

Escaped a car accident in 1970, an agreesion by a fan in 1973 and an IRA bomb attack in 1975.

Died in 1978 - electrocuted himself in his bathroom (an accident).

Sold 61 million record (35 million while he was alive, 26 million since).

Wrote over 400 songs including Comme d'habitude after breaking up with France Gall. Adapted to My Way by Paul Anka and covered by Frank Sinatra, Elvis and Sid Vicious.

and on a more personal note: today is also my sister's 40th - Happy Birthday, Phil! Wish I could have made your party on Saturday. Sometimes, I wish that England was just a ticy-wincy bit nearer to France...

Another Paris film

2008-03-04T17:29:00.006+01:00

Paris by Cedric Klapisch

Pierre, a 30-year-old dancer (Romain Duris) discovers that he has a heart problem and will probably need a transplant. He isolates himself in his Parisian flat and watches the people go by. He could die anytime and they don't make the most of what they have - life. His social worker sister (Juliette Binoche) and her 3 children move in with him to help him out.

Pierre falls in love with a student (Melanie Laurent) who lives in the flat opposite. But she is in relationships with another student and her ex-lecturer-turned TV historian (Fabrice Luccini).

We also meet the lecturer's brother (François Cluzet), an architect whose wife is pregnant. Then there are the local food sellers - the baker, uptight and a bit racist (Karine Viard) and the fruit and veg / fish market stall holders.

Finally, there is a thread which follows a concièrge from Cameroon whose brother, who works in a plush hotel, decides to leave his native country and try his luck in Paris.

Paris is a mish-mash of all these people's lives and how they interweave, but there end up being so many characters and the connections only loose, so that we can't connect to all the stories, although the individual performances are often very entertaining.

With the market stall owners we spend some time in the Rungis MIN - the professional market where all the food and fresh products arrive near Paris. Having given English lessons in the MIN, I, like Klapisch, am fascinated by this town-within-a-town where 12 thousand people work, starting at 4 in the morning. The (film) market traders end up guiding a gang of supermodels around the giant food halls and snogging them between the carcasses of dead animals.

Likewise, the Cameroon thread was interesting but fizzled out in the end. He arrived in Paris but, so what?

All very cinematographic but not really key to the plot. Perhaps if Klapisch had been less self indulgent, he would have produced a stronger film. But as usual, we let him off and even if (for me) there were many false trails, the film is overall thought provoking and entertaining.

Visiting Royals

2008-03-03T15:08:00.007+01:00

I have just finished reading the screenplay of the Queen by Peter Morgan, courtesy of The Times newspaper (and my parents who sent it over!) It brought back strong images of the film and often made me smile wryly when reading the reserved, controlled reactions of the members of the royal family. I'm not putting down Helen Mirren's performance, but it was so well written that the actors really only had to do what it said on the packet (or in the script in this case) and the result was pretty perfect. Hence all the awards.

Having seen pictures of Sarkozy and Carla Bruni in South Africa, whispering and giggling like lovesick teenagers, I couldn't help smiling (the same wry smile) when I read that they would be setting off for Buckingham Palace shortly. If the Queen character in the film is really true to life (which we can imagine it is), she must be dreading their visit. Even Tony Blair was apparently embarassed when they were all over each other during his recent visit to Paris just before the wedding. Overfriendliness, lack of protocol and touchy-feely stuff are all the things our Queen loathes. Somebody compared Carla Bruni to a 2nd class Diana and I think the Queen's opinion of the original was not so favourable so I can't imagine how she will react to the first lady of France.

I think we will be seeing some very pursed royal lips in the press over the next couple of days!

The hills are alive...

2008-02-22T17:31:00.002+01:00

...with the sound of engines. Yes, the Paris sector is at last off for its February hols. and a large percentage are heading for the mountains - including us.

Rendez-vous in a weeks' time with clean, refreshed brain, lungs and soul, ready to do all those things I'd been meaning to do before I left...

All change...?

2008-02-21T11:33:00.000+01:00

Yesterday, Xavier Darcos announced the primary school reforms to come into effect as of the next school year. The goal is to reduce 15% of pupils arriving in secondary school unable to read or write correctly.

As we already know, Saturday school is to be abolished so that the total school week will be reduced from 26 to 24 hours. And guess what? More emphasis will be put on... reading and writing and maths. Revolutionary, n'est-ce pas? Makes you wonder what the teachers do all day!

Next, 4 hours of sport a week instead of 3. This provokes a wry smile here as my kids' teachers find it hard to fit in one hour of sport and anything above that is a trip to the local park where they do 'what they want'.

Teachers will now have to teach politeness and good manners - holding the door open, giving up your seat for an elderly person and saying 'please' and 'thank you'. From my personal experience in a French school several years ago, some teachers need to learn some respect too (and these were nuns!!). It was strongly debated yesterday by education professionals that all that should be taught at home. (well, yes...)

So, less geography, less history - just an outline of the main figures (including, of course, the much-debated child victim of the Holocaust that each class will be allocated), oh, and the introduction of art history. And less science.

Hard to imagine how the teachers will adapt to all of this, although I get the impression that in our school they do what they have always done, which works pretty well.

IMO, these changes will not change much. If they want that 15% to succeed, they need to take them out of the classroom (incidently, all the classes are mixed level, which doesn't help) and to give them extra coaching in small groups. Each region could recruit a base of peripatetic teachers who work with pupils in several schools.

Finally, I notice that languages have not been mentioned. Is this already the end of foreign languages at primary level? Whatever the case, France's dear president could have done with a few years language training in his youth to avoid this:

L'exception française

2008-02-18T15:08:00.005+01:00

(from Le Parisien)

How about this for a logline: The code has changed is a choral comedy (whatever that may be)where a couple wait for their friends to come for dinner in a clogged up Paris. Un prétexte pour évoquer les choses de la vie. A pretext to bring up things about life.

This is the new film by Danièle Thompson who has had some success with La Bûche and Fauteils d'Orchestre.

The story takes place the day of the Fête de la musique. Paris is blocked and masses of people are in the streets to see free concerts. A group of people are trying to get to a couple's house for dinner. The couple consists of Piotr, unemployed but brimming with ideas and Marie-Laurence, a well-known lawyer. Their daughter is in love with a Breton sailor who is much older than her - much to her parents' exasperation. Among the friends are a couple gynocologist + cancer specialist, as well as a highly-respected lawyer with his writer wife. Finally, there is the lawyer's flamenco teacher.

So, according to the blurb, the dinner allows the characters to meet and to talk about their jobs and their personal problems. Oh and, of course, it's a comedy.

Budget : 12 million euros.

Ms Thompson has managed to get some well-known, popular French actors who should be able to carry it off, but the whole thing sounds distinctly... dull, déja vu.

For a start it is super bourgeoise - set in Paris, with an all-white cast (although at least they didn't have the daughter falling in love with a black man!), and high income earning jobs. Okay, the husband is unemployed but he lives with a lawyer so he's not going to the secours populaire to get handouts at the end of every month. If the whole film is really about a meal, surely it could almost have been written as a play, and of course, there will be little visual action and a lot of talking. What sort of 'problems' will these people have? Quite frankly, why should we care?

I suppose we should be happy that this type of uniquely French film still gets made but at the same time, 12 million euros could have produced something fresher, more modern and less nombrilist IMO!

Perhaps I will eat my words when it comes out...

Mr WHO???

2008-02-12T11:18:00.000+01:00

It's been on all the French news reports today: The English have done it again! They have made the new Mr Rude French! (Watch him here) All the other characters have been given regional accents. The French are outraged because the show will go out to 4-7 year olds in GB but also in the USA thus reinforcing the old stereotype that the French are... well... not very polite.

I think the creators were probably much more scared of insulting a particular region or ethnic minority group in the UK than picking an easy target over the Channel. IF Mr Rude had been given a cockney accent or a Scottish one, it would have created a scandal. Perhaps, to break the stereotype, they should have given him a 'rich' RP accent. Let's just hope if the French buy the programme, they will dub him with an English accent!

French-bashing has been a popular sport for a long time (perhaps a new discipline for the 2012 olymics?!) but Bill Maher has a very interesting take, turning everything on its head:

H

Bill Maher aime les Français
envoyé par yom_

Ratty New Year

2008-02-11T11:27:00.001+01:00

While the Chinese community were living it up in Paris, I escaped to London on Saturday to do a sitcom writing course. A little Christmas present to myself to see if I could inject some life into my sitcom-in-not-much-progress and my writing in general. Considering it was only a day, it did the job. Now it's back to the computer screen for me for another rewrite...

Of course, the coolest thing was to do the return journey in one day. I got up at 6 and was home at 11 (admittedly knackered and with sore fesses!) . It almost makes London commutable!

From traders to toilettes

2008-01-29T10:52:00.000+01:00

Yesterday, all the newspapers were talking about Jerome Kerviel (the trader who lost 5billion euros of SocGen's dosh): today, they are talking toilets!

A survey by the ONS (l'Observatoire national de la sécurité des établissements) of 865 primary schools, including over 800 teachers and 25 000 pupils between the ages of 8 and 10, revealed today that *surprise, surprise* school loos are dirty, smelly and scary!

They are found to be often broken, flooded, without toilet paper or hand towels and lacking in privacy, so the kids are holding in their natural urges all day provoking stomach aches, bladder infections (21,6 % of pupils), constipation(15,1 %), and the humiliation of wetting themselves.

However, 15% of pupils are also afraid of going to the school loos - no lights and filth as well as fear of being locked in due to broken locks. (453 pupils have already had the experience) or even spied on by other pupils!

7.2% confess to never using the school toilets!

Mauvaise langue

2008-01-24T17:31:00.000+01:00

How about the one about the man who can only blink, you know, once for yes, twice for no? Oh, and it's French... but it's supposed to be good...

Unsurprisingly, we chose something else in the end and didn't get to see Le Scaphandre et le Papillon despite the French media raving about it. I must admit, heaving that it's based on a true story about an Elle editor having some sort of stroke and waking up from a coma with locked-in syndrome where he could only communicate using one eye, didn't sound like it had much to offer apart from gallons of pathos.

Then, last week, I heard that it'd won Golden Globes and I started to take an interest in the story. I remembered a friend had lent me the book so got it out, dusted it down and read the 139 pages of big print. But, although well written and not boring, it was as I'd imagined. His memories of before, the accident and his life after. His extreme difficulty in communicating with those around him, which so much depended on their willingness to acknowledge his attempts at communication. The book does not end with his death, apparently he dies just after its publication.

I ruminated on the adaptability of the book and still couldn't see it making an interesting film. I wondered if they included his death for an extra tear-jerking factor at the end.

Anyway, a quick click on imdb and I discovered that the screenplay was been written by the great Ron Harwood and then translated back into French! And the director is Julian Schnabel, a "neo-expressionist" artist/painter turned film director born in Brooklyn. So, although the film is in French and filmed in Berck, in the north of France with French actors, a lot of the creative imput is not!

Needless to say, I am now curious to see the film but will have to wait for the DVD release as it is only playing in one cinema in the whole of France - in Orleans...

Checkout confessions

2008-01-13T09:55:00.000+01:00

The latest blog-to-book success is French, but not about sex, infidelity or wild living, no, it's the confessions of a supermarket checkout girl in Rennes.

Anna reports the little anecdotes of her day, working 24 hours a week for 680€ in order to finance her studies: the mother who tells her son "If you don't work hard at school you'll end up behind the till like that woman!" Except that Anna has a masters degree in literature.

Anna started her blog because she was fed up of being 'transparent'. On a busy day, she handled the contents of 500 trolleys, but some of the customers would pass by her without a greeting, taking into their mobile phones instead. All this punctuated by the bip-bip-bipof the bar code scanner.

Anna proclaims to defend the interests the 170,000 checkout workers in France, a dying breed, which will eventually be replaced by automatic tills.

Her observations are spot-on, amusing, and sometimes saddening reflections of society, for example, the pressure of Christmas: the parents who spend 300€ on a game console and buy packets of pasta at the same time, not disappointing the kids taking priority over eating a varied diet.

Anna gave up her supermarket job on 4th Jan and is hoping to find something in the literary world while waiting for her book to be published. Meanwhile, her blog is still there - definitely worth a read (if your French is up to it!)

Smirting in French

2008-01-02T19:07:00.000+01:00

I learnt a new verb when at home for Christmas: smirting: smoking + flirting. This is what smokers do now that they can't smoke in pubs and restaurants - they go outside to smoke and at the same time, socialise (and flirt) with other smokers. In winter this would be a form of speed dating, knowing in advance that they had one thing already in common. Smoking never appealed to me (although I have indulged in the past) but as a shy teenager, I often wished I smoked in order to establish contact: "gotta fag/light?"etc

Anyway, as of 2nd Jan, the French (yes, the French!) will have to learn the art of smirting as smoking is now banned in restaurants, cafés, nightclubs, bar-tabacs and casinos. They, like their European neighbours, will re-discover the natural smells in these places: sweat, aftershave spilt beer and mould. (yum!). I wonder if the French will francosise the verb: smirter or invent their own version flumer? flirmer, futer?...

The French are moaning (of course) but on the news this morning they said the law was being 'perfectly respected'. What I don't understand is why they chose to introduce this law during the coldest period of the year. Smokers would be a lot less reluctant to go outside for one in the summer months and the habit would just glide in.

Still, I'm happy about the new law. The last time I went out for dinner in a narrow Parisian restaurant, two women at the table next to ours, practically chain-smoked all evening, regardless of the other diners. They'll get their comeuppance now - and they might even find love in the process...

Oh, and Happy New Year!

Don't know where I'm a-goin' to

2007-12-09T13:13:00.000+01:00

...but I know where I've come from.

On Friday, I had a leaving party at work. Mine. After 17 years of teaching English as a foreign language, I have decided to have a mid-life crisis and find something - anything else to do. I have no plan of action (although the extra job in the previous post was a good anecdote: "Oh, I'm stopping teaching to become an actress, darling!") But the truth is I don't know what I want to do. At the moment, the idea would be to try to earn as much (or should I say as little as before) doing something other than teaching. I don't officially finish till Christmas so I have a few more weeks to get inspired. So far, I've had my stint as an extra and a friend who works for a well-known cosmetics company has proposed me to become a lipstick tester (this involves doing nothing, biting an apple, eating a sarnie). Not exactly world-changing!

I'd like to say I'll write a(nother) book or screenplay or make a film but I'm not sure if I have the motivation or perseverance. But whatever the case, by leaving my present job, I'm out of the comfort zone. I'll be taking a big step into a dark empty space and I hope that in that space, an uncluttered and clear picture of what I want to do will come to me...

Am I being too idealistic?

Extra... useless

2007-12-08T16:03:00.000+01:00

Ricky Gervais eat your heart out! Wednesday, I 'worked' as an extra on a film called Espion starring the wonderful Guillaume Canet.

I'd only responded to the ad because they were looking for English speakers between the ages of 20 and 70.

We had to be at a fancy hotel just near the Elysée Palace at 9 o'clock: made up, hair done and with a packed lunch as there would be no possibility to go out during the shoot (but we did get paid!)

The scene we were needed for took place in the hotel restaurant in England, but the director didn't need all of us so after getting dressed up, being made up professionally and having our hair done, a handful of us ended up sitting around till 4 o'clock. What a bore!

Finally, I was called up to make short walk behind Canet as he went into the restaurant. I doubt I will be visible or maybe a black velvet shadow.

We were allowed to leave at 7.30 in the evening. While it was an easy buck, it was frustratingly boring and the extras were like decorative cows, to be hearded about where needed (even though the crew, director and actors were very nice and unpretentious). And being English didn't make the slightest difference.

It was fun chatting to the other extras and hearing their stories, but I don't think I'll make a career of it!

Release date in 2008. Oh, and the soundtrack is being done by one of my favourite groups

Au revoir, Paris!

2007-11-14T19:26:00.001+01:00

I'm off to GB for le weekend on Saturday taking the swanky new Eurostar line, and won't I be glad to get away from the strikes and doom and gloom of Sarko's France.

Is it any wonder that they are passing a 30 second ad. on French TV and radio at the moment explaining the symptoms of depression, stating that 3 million people suffer from depression in France?

I have to say, I am surprised - only 3 million?

A bilingual France - not for tomorrow

2007-10-31T16:51:00.000+01:00

A spot-on article in Nouvel Obs, describes how Nicolas Sarkozy's wish for France to be a bilingual nation is far from being realised. From a recent much publicised CBS interview (where Sarko walks out because the interviewer asks about Cécilia - 2 weeks before the divorce was officially announced), I tried to get an idea of France's president's English. Guess what? It isn't up to much.

The interviewer asked: They call you 'Sarko, the American' why do you think that is? to which Sarko replied with the Frenchest of accents: Coz I love America. I want to be friend of America. I am proud of zis nickname. J'aime la musique Americaine. Elvis Presley, of course!

I'd like to point out, at this stage, that he should be capable of saying "I love American music" as kids do "I like/I don't like/I love/ I hate... in CE2 (8 years old) nowadays. (I'm sure his 10-year-old son knows it!).

Anyway, I witnessed the ridiculously old-fashioned system in place in France, as far as language teaching is concerned, when I got invited for an interview to be a replacement English teacher in secondary schools. The requirement was a degree. I showed the inspectrice my degree certificate, plus my TEFL certificate. She handed me a sheet of paper in exchange. It was a book extract and I was supposed to go out of the room, read it and then discuss it when I came back in the room. I found this hugely amusing. How would my ability to talk about an extract from The Joy Luck Club be of any proof that I could handle a class of teenagers and teach them the past tense? I said nothing and read the extract, smirking inside. However, when I came back into the room, she told me it would not be possible to employ me because my degree was not in English! I was gobsmacked and furious at the same time. (and pissed off that I hadn't got to develop the book extract!) I asked her what an English degree had to offer that was so special, and she told me, the study of phonetics and syntax. I pointed out that I had studied phonetics when I did my TEFL course and syntax... well... I did it at school, and anyway, they didn't actually teach phonetics to teenagers. She replied that all of that came across in the teacher's general approach. And that was that! No discussion. She couldn't tick the boxes so I couldn't (in the education nationale's eyes) do the job.

So, 3 classes in my local secondary school haven't had an English lesson so far this year and they will probably have to wait a few more weeks till a suitable candidate can be found. In the meantime, I am teaching a group of the kids privately. Kids, whose parents can afford to pay and who care enough to organise something. And the others? Tant pis!, they will probably come out of secondary education with an English about as good as... their president's!

Totally Spies

2007-10-28T08:11:00.000+01:00

I found a post-it on the windscreen of my car which was parked in our résidence's private car park. It said (rough translation):

Madame,
You make a habit of this and we would like you to make an effort to park sociably.
I fear, for having overheard it, that certain people reserve some surprises for you.
As for me, although pacific, I find your attitude mediocre, and that makes me sad for you. (I couldn't park in the next space)

Unsigned of course! So, it looks like a self-appointed parking-police Big Brother is watching me and I'd better watch out if I don't want some non-pacific repercussions!

Needless to say, if I find out who wrote this I will give them a big chunk of my mind and if I don't find the appropriate words in French, I will resort to the most-used English word in the French language followed by a you or an off. (Yes, I am angry!)

Blog seeks posts

2007-10-27T09:18:00.001+02:00

Sorry to my blog for neglecting you recently. There has been so much happening in France and yet I haven't been inspired to write about any of it.

Let's start with the Sarkozy marriage break up. Firstly, it's been on the cards for a long time and they were fooling no-one. Secondly, nothing much will change in the Sarkozy household. If their son doesn't read the press or watch TV (or have cruel school-mates), he probably won't even notice anything different - he'll see his father as much (or should I say as little as before.

Unlike one couple out of two or three who divorce in the Paris region, Cécilia will not have to downsize her lifestyle - she will still be able to do what she (apparently) does best: shop till she drops, with the added benefit of being left alone by the press as she is no longer the 'First Lady'. Because her main ambition as a divorcee is to get out of the limelight, (hence the glossy interviews in Paris Match and Elle (???)). She sees herself as a French Diana, but Diana did not husband-hop to arrive at Charles and she threw herself into charity work (not shopping) when she was betrayed. So, we shall see, perhaps Cécilia will surprise us all, by making a useful contribution to the planet. Perhaps she won't...

This one's for the Sarkozys:

Then there's the rugby - buried and forgotten, with Bernard Laporte, the French trainer, now installed as a Secretary of State for sport. I love the French. I do, but when it comes to sport they can be so chauvanistic and obsessional that I pray for them to lose so that they'll shut up! (Although the post-mortem can be just as long and drawn out). My only exception on this is I think Paris should have got the Olympic Games for 2012 for so many practical reasons (like Paris has an infastructure). I think it may bankrupt London. Mais bon, tant pis!

Last, but not least, the strikes. It had been so long since we last had a strike that I was beginning to miss it. Strikes are such an integral part of French culture - heated exchanges, tales of passenger galère, political mud-slinging etc. France was really getting too optimistic and positive after Sarko's election. Logical reasoning was almost smothering pig-headedness! But no! The unions are spending their 35 hours preparing their banners and cleaning their loud-hailers and stocking up on mergez sausages ready for a biggie on the 20th November. Meanwhile, Air France personnel are continuing to disrupt air traffic on the first day of the half-term hols, promising chaos. Now, that's more like it!

Paris, je t'aime!

2007-10-08T10:04:00.000+02:00

Yesterday was one of those beautiful days that make you love Paris: the sun was out! For the tourists who had popped over for a romantic weekend, they would not be disappointed. Saturday night, was the nuit blanche where certain monuments and museums stay open all night as well as street entertainment. Sunday, being the first of the month, all the museums are free and now they can rent bicycles and cycle along the car-free roads next to the Seine.
And the French team beat New Zealand on Saturday even though the odds were against them, so tourists would see happy French people - perhaps less rude than usual!

The tourists would go home refreshed and resolve to come back once a month - after all, it's only a short train ride away. Of course, next time they come it will rain non-stop, they'll get ripped off at Gare du Nord, they will be held up by one strike or another and the Parisiens will be miserable and condedscending when they order a coffee with milk (or worse still tea with milk)for which they'll be grossly overcharged...

The tedium of motherhood

2007-10-05T09:58:00.000+02:00

told in an amusing way:

What book are you?

2007-09-17T18:44:00.000+02:00

Thanks Roger for the link. I am:

You're The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy!

by Douglas Adams

Considered by many to be one of the funniest people around, you are
quite an entertainer. You've also traveled to the far reaches of what you deem possible,
often confused and unsure of yourself. Life continues to jostle you around like a marble,
but it's shown you so much of the world that you don't care. Wacky adventures continue to
lie ahead. Your favorite number is 42.

Take the Book Quiz
at the Blue Pyramid.

Although very flattering, I don't think I am considered to be one of the funniest people around (unless people are laughing at me!)

Funny about the favourite number, as it is also my age...(there, you know now!)

Tongue twisters

2007-09-12T16:38:00.000+02:00

No matter how long you live in a country, if it aint your native language, there are some words you will never master. Here are a few of mine:

aérer: to air - like for a room and on Wednesdays where the kids don't go to school and their parents work, they go to the centre aéré. (luckily mine don't go there so I don't need to say it!)

au fur et à mesure: gradually, over time. It's a lovely expression but my lips just aren't agile enough.

goéland: seagull as in Jonathan Livingston le goéland. Luckily, there is also the word mouette which does the job for a non-ornithologist.

rue: street as opposed to roue: wheel. In context I can make myself understood.

émeute: a riot. Nobody understands my Kaiser Chiefs translation:" je prédis une émeute..."

The other thing I'll never get the hang of is when to use tous and tout. The pronunciation is, of course, exactly the same.

Oh, and don't get me started on le or la... At least I don't live in Germany

horoscopes rule

2007-09-09T08:58:00.000+02:00

I can't resist reading them, never really believe them but subconsciously hope that all the good bits will be accurate. Anyway, Lianne posted a link to a writer's horoscope, which is just irresistible!

With the rentrée, (back to school), I became more motivated on the writing front and decided to finish some things. My horoscope says:
The period from September 5 onward is definitely your best writing time this month. - yes, school's back!

Circle the 23rd on your calendar, when the sun enters Libra. The sun in a prominent position in your chart can bring good news, luck, and serendipitous experiences. - how exciting, you just have to believe it!

On the 8th, Venus turns direct in Leo, your opposite sign, so if you’ve been trying to sell a manuscript, it could happen after this date. OMG, where did I put that manuscript...

Another date to watch for? September 28, when Mercury enters Scorpio and the career sector of your chart. This transit, which takes you into October, brings about professional discussions, travel, and perhaps a contract as well. Help! I'm worn out already

The full moon in Aries on the 26th brings insights into what you’re working on now and positive news about a writing project. - Isn't life just wonderful?

I can't wait till next month

We all scream for ice cream... don't we?

2007-09-01T23:28:00.001+02:00

One of my husband's cousins sells ice cream. On a beautiful long white sandy beach. With no competition. Just one hitch - the beach is in Brittany, where there were about 2 half-decent summery-ish weeks this summer. Even the Brits, usually their best customers, were off the ice cream this year.

And it's not only in Brittany, supermarkets around France recorded a drop of 35% in their ice cream sales for the last two months.

Other product sales that suffered:

Anti-mosquito (for obvious reasons!) down 40%, sun creams down 20% and beach products, down 10%.

Campsites lost 5% of their usual summer clientèle, with Brittany suffering again with up to 30% reductions. La cousine told us, that clients had booked and paid deposits at the campsite, just near their beach, but cancelled at the last minute.

Meanwhile in the south: soaring temperatures, forest fires and water shortages: business as usual.

(It's not fair!)

Baaad weather

2007-08-22T22:51:00.001+02:00

Well, we had one okay week in Brittany before being hit by rain and high winds (at least the surfers were happy). Now back home it's been more of the same and we're starting to forget what the sun looks like and what sunglasses are for.

The Bretons haven't only been hit by bad weather - they've also been bad-mouthed by the President, quoted in Yasmina Reza's book as saying "I don't give a shit about Bretons..." Perhaps that's why he made the effort to turn up at the funeral of the Breton fishing boat capitain, killed at sea, even though the news reports showed him smiling and waving as if he was attending a political meeting or a book signing...

Away

2007-08-03T13:47:00.000+02:00

If you're looking for me...

...I'll be on the beach...

Bye for now!

Ratatouillastic

2007-08-02T22:09:00.000+02:00

Everyone can cook - even a rat, but Remy's career path is obviously more torturous than that of the average apprentice.

Isn't Paris the most beautiful city in the world? The people from Pixar did a great job in convincing us of this, showing Paris in (maybe) the 60s with the lovely 2CVs and Renault-somethings, which go so much better with the narrow cobbled streets than the 4x4s/white vans/monospaces which dominate nowadays. (Although I suspect Colette's powerful motorbike was more recent!)

There is a lovely scene where Remy (the cook-rat) is running through the sewers and up and down the pipes of Paris, witnessing glimpses of Parisian life - the shadow of a woman putting on lipstick, a couple having a domestic (with gun) and then kissing and making up!) We see multiple shots of Paris by night, the Seine and the bateaux mouches - even the man on the bike with his baguettes. And then details, like Linguini (the restaurant floor washer), trying to get his bike into his chambre de bonne and I particularly enjoyed the clientele of the bistro at the end - all in black, nouvelle vaguesque. Pixar showed all the clichés without making them clichéd (does that make sense?) Plus, they wisely avoided an accordion soundtrack: in fact the soundtrack was pleasantly unobtrusive.

I feel the writers were undecided about which of two plot directions to follow so did both: the inheritance of the restaurant - the current cook (Skinner)'s determination to develop the restaurant brand for his own benefit/his obsession with the rat, and the formidable critique and his approval (or not) of the new cook. The film switches clumsily from the first to the second about 20 mins from the end.

But this is just me being picky and Ratatouille is definately worth seeing on the big screen - there is something for all ages.

Born to scrub

2007-08-01T09:32:00.000+02:00

Here's a nice femme-au-foyerly subject from Aujourd'hui en France. Out of 100 minutes of housework, women do 63 and men, 37. This subdivides into:

Do washing up: women 93%, men 7%

Ironing: women 86%, men 14%

Cooking: women 74%, men 26%

Shopping: women 37 mins (wish I could do mine that quickly!) men 27 mins.

(I must admid to finding the men figures quite high!)

And a book on the subject: L'injustice ménagère, by a sociologist, François de Singly, who explains that us women aren't so fussed about their men helping them to clean up as long as they listen to us now and again! (yes, I'm simplifying to the extreme!) Women look after their houses for themselves, for order and well-being, maybe for their kids but not for their men. Oh and to keep their power.

De Singly reckons that deep down, we accept that housework is our role from deep seated conditioning - he uses the example of toyshop Christmas catalogues where the boys pages are blue and full of war toys and the girls are pink and full of dolls and mini domestic appliances.

Thank god for freezers, clothes dryers and online shopping is all I can say!

The President wears Prada

2007-07-31T16:29:00.001+02:00

Not only is he omnipresent in his presidential role, but now he has appeared in this year's Vanity Fair's best-dressed list. He's up there with the Beckhams, Brangelina and Lenny Kravitz.

"Nicolas Sarkozy is a world-class dresser. He's dashing, manly and romantic, with a very appealing sense of humor and ease," the magazine's special correspondent, Amy Fine-Collins, says in the September issue.

"We like the Prada suit he wore to his inauguration, and we wouldn't change a thing about his wardrobe -- not even his jogging attire."

I don't think, however, that being impeccably dressed will help him force through laws about minimum service on public transport (and then in other public services) during strikes. 1000 people demonstrated against the law today and the debates are heated...

Actor Michel Serrault dies

2007-07-30T09:42:00.001+02:00

Yesterday, I read about Mike Reid's death and remembered his key roles and especially his catchphrase 'Runaround now!'. Reading about Michel Serrault's death today, I realised I had been in France long enough to have followed a fair bit of his career and feel saddened by his passing away.

His first great acting break was appearing in Cage aux Folles, first on stage and then in the film version.

I remember him as playing gentle, sometimes quirky grandfatherly figures. He was not prone to on-screen hysterics like so many other French actors, which gave him a calm, soothing image. Perhaps that's why I liked him. Maybe his white beard contributed too.

Rest in peace, Michel.

He was 79 and married to Junita Peyron since 1952.

Things I don't give a shit about

2007-07-20T17:32:00.001+02:00

1. Katie Holmes' bump. Pregnant again or not? Who cares - isn't a woman allowed to have a beer gut, for God's sake?

2. Harry Potter - book or film. Not interested. And what does it matter if the plot is revealed yesterday, today or tomorrow? They'll buy it anyway.

3. Apple i phone. I can only concentrate on one thing at a time - can't even listen to music/telephone when I'm walking so have no use for fancy gadgets.

4. The Beckhams, their move to LA and anything remotely related to their decision-making process.

5. Le Tour de France. Even if it is in France and even if it were drug free.

But I do like this though:

Not waving but drowning...

2007-07-17T18:31:00.000+02:00

It's so much easier when you're young

I have never been sporty. My husband has to do some form of sport every day to eliminate stress. (He is also capable of drinking one glass of wine and eating one piece of chocolate!) whereas I tackle stress with bad habits: eating sweet things, drinking too much and taking illegal substances (well, I used to).

I am lucky, though, that I have always been fairly thin – skinny as a child. But my babies came and went, and post-natal, I found out what it was like to be fat for the first time. I learnt to wear baggy t-shirts, not tucked in etc.

The fat did eventually drop away and as I didn’t got back to work quickly, I didn’t have to worry about squeezing into power suits and could bum about in my husband’s track suit bottoms until I managed to get into my old clothes again. I did, however, become vaguely curious about the idea of doing some kind of physical exercise.

My first attempt was aquagym where we thrashed about in and out of the pool with the help of loud throbbing music and various foam supports. I stuck that out for a year but gave up as I got fed up of drying my hair at 10pm, especially in the winter.

Next, I joined a gym and discovered the joys of coordination and step. But as for pounding on the machines on my own, I found little motivation. I stopped going and eventually stopped paying.

I flirted with jogging but really couldn’t find any pleasure in it and was out of breath after about 10 minutes.

Well, just before my holidays, I signed up for a swimming course. Saturday mornings so no late-night hair-drying, , but an hour-and-a-quarter of non-stopish swimming – breaststroke, crawl, backstroke and butterfly.

Hmmm, only problem is I learnt to swim when I was about 11 and have only ever used breaststroke since then. Swimming up to now has been a quick width and back in the pool on holiday to cool down.

Now, I am forcing myself to take it seriously. Have I gone too far?

This holiday I decided to train, goggles and all (fear of looking ridiculous is a wonderful motivator). I did a few lengths and then attempted crawl. One length almost killed me. I managed to build up to about 6 by the end of the fortnight. I was pretty chuffed.

Back home, however, I’m knackered. All that fresh air and exercise has done me no good and I’ll need at least a week of slobbing about, watching TV and drinking too much wine before I’ll feel normal again.

Perhaps some people are just not made for sport…

Yakketty yack

2007-07-15T14:35:00.000+02:00

Well, it turns out that we wimmin are not more chatty than men, according to the American magazine "Science".

Their study of 400 students of both sexes, 17 hours-a-day, from 1998 to 2004, showed that women use about 16 215 words a day, compared with men, 15 669.

Apparently the 546 extra words are not significant statistically speaking (those are perhaps the ones where we're repeating ourselves to our deaf offspring e.g. "Dinner's ready!" "Dinner's ready, did you hear me?" "Dinner's ready, NOW!" "If you don't come now, it'll be cold!" " Are you deaf, it's ready!" "F*** you all, then, I'll eat on my own..." etc etc...

Most unpopular French politicians

2007-06-28T15:21:00.000+02:00

according to a survey carried out by RMC radio (their fourth year running), given the choice of 100 politicians, here is the barometer of unpopularity:

10th Jose Bové

9th François Hollande

8th Eric Besson

7th Patrick Devedjian

6th Larent Fabius

5th Arno Klarsfeld

4th Philippe De Villiers

3rd Alain Carignon

2nd Marine Le Pen

1st Jean-Marie Le Pen

Personally, I don't understand why Sego and Sarko aren't in there.

...you make the rockin world go round

2007-06-27T12:54:00.000+02:00

Obesity is on the increase - even here in France where, according to one American author French women don't get fat (yeah, right...) So, the government have recently started a campaign to increase awareness and encourage healthy eating habits.

The first step was to encourage us to eat at least 5 fruit or veggies (or 400 - 800g) a day. Hmmm, nice idea but setting the barrier so high rather put us off even trying!

Next came the manger bouger (eat, move) campaign, encouraging us to do regular exercise. Good idea.

Now, since 28th Feb this year, we have a message posted after each ad., for food or drinks.

« Pour votre santé, mangez au moins cinq fruits et légumes par jour »

« Pour votre santé, pratiquez une activité physique régulière »

« Pour votre santé, évitez de manger trop gras, trop sucré, trop salé »

« Pour votre santé, évitez de grignoter entre les repas » (avoid snacking between meals)

The last two strike me as being a little vague - how would you define too fatty/sugary/or salty? Wouldn't that depend on our taste buds as well as family cooking habits?

Of course, it would be simpler and more effective to ban advertising for the too fatty/sugary/salty products altogether or to show the super-dynamic ad. and then recommend that the watcher doesn't actually buy or consume the product - ever.

Well, in Nicolas Sarkozy's new across-the-political-board government, he has appointed Martin Hirsch, the former head of Emmaüs France, the High Commissioner for Active Solidarities against Poverty in the government of François Fillon. And guess what, Hirsch's first proposition is brilliant: Add a tax to the fast-food products which are destroying our health and making our kids obese (but which are more accessible price-wise so over-consumed by households on limited budgets. At the same time, subsidize fruit and veg so that the same households will be able to afford their 5-10 daily consumption.

Somehow, I suspect that the multinationals will quickly squash the tax idea and even if fruit and veg prices came down, it may not encourage families to buy more (look at how the Jamie Oliver's school dinner campaign backfired). Let's face it, how can a soggy green mush compete with a hit of monosodium glutamate?

Mud-wrestling, anyone?

Never again...

2007-06-21T19:35:00.001+02:00

It started okay...

On Tuesday evening we had our second annual fête des voisins.

The weather forecast had predicted storms but the organisation committee didn't let that bother them and laid on a high-key affair with lights, champagne, table cloths - all the frills. And, of course, the famous 'sound system' from Kiloutou.

Yes, once again, I got to be DJ for the night. I dusted off my copy of Abba Gold and Capital 80s hits, reluctantly sought out the Crazy Frog album and other such horrors from the depths of my kids' bedrooms, a bit of reggae, a touch of latino and a sprinkling of Mika and we were all set.

This year, each family had to bring a plat sucré and a plat salé, so I spent my afternoon preparing food.

My sound system was protected by a thick, waterproof cover (centre right in the above photo) When the first raindrops fell at the official start time, I pulled it over and had to poke about underneath to change records. It brought back memories of childhood family camping holidays...

The first real deluge must have come about half an hour later, thunder, lightning an' all. Everyone ran for cover ,while I tried to protect the speakers with a couple of bin bags which were (of course) too small. By the time I'd finished, I could have entered a Mrs Wet t-shirt (and everything else)contest. I managed to shelter for 5 minutes, grab some champagne, (yes, I'd abandoned not-drinking for the evening -this was drastic), and then the rain stopped and it was back to work.

This process was repeated 3 or 4 times, during which time I discovered my neighbours were getting drunker and drunker. In between the showers, the dancing got going with the kids doing a routine to Shakira... and again... and again... and then the Macarena and then Las Ketchup. Basically, after every downpour, we started again with the same compilation. Do I need to say that I now severely hate Shakira, the Macarena and any 'party' dance routine music?

Luckily, one of the showers lasted long enough for me to be able to go home, get changed, dry my hair and have a cup of tea.

Finally, rain stopped play at 11ish.

The head organiser came to thank me, saying he was glad that I was willing to do the music... every year... I told him I just might not be there next year...

The only positive thing during the evening was that my husband managed to get me an invitation to the Cannes festival next year. Now, we'll have to see if the person is true to his word.

No Kids - hesitating?

2007-06-13T10:13:00.000+02:00

Following my post on No Kid, if some women are undecided, the promise of a car , a TV or a fridge could sway them.

The governor of a southern Ulyanovsk region promised one of the above to every woman who gave birth on Constitution Day (12 June).

Apparently it worked - there were about 500 births around that day compared with 15-20 normally.

Well yes, who cares about sleepless nights and Nutella stains on the sofa when you can have cold beers?

Myths and legends

2007-06-13T08:58:00.000+02:00

It turns out that the Beatles track Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds had nothing to do with psychedelic drugs, but was inspired by a picture that Julian Lennon drew of a classmate at nursery school called Lucy. How cute!

Next we'll be learning that Mick Jagger found his inspiration for Brown Sugar when the au pair girl got mixed up in the supermarket and brought home Demerara instead of granulated white.

Jefferson Airplane's White Rabbit (no, I didn't go to Woodstock - no, Woodstock isn't an English public school...) was written after a family day out to the fairground with a schoolfriend called Alice.

Because everyone knows that rock stars don't do drugs.

Like cyclists.

Yes, okay, tests often come out positive for the Tour de France participants, but it must be someone slipping illicit substances into their urine samples when they are on the dance floor, relaxing after a hard day's uphill étape (don't know where they get their energy from...)

I dunno, they'll be saying Star Wars is based on the bible and Teletubbies is promoting homosexuality next...

eh ho!

No kids, please, we’re French

2007-06-10T11:36:00.000+02:00

Michael Moore and his camera crew couldn’t believe their ears when Parisian mothers explained the good care systems available to working mothers over here. French women are encouraged to have kids, families are given tax breaks and lower cost transport after the ‘magical’ third child.

However, according to an article in Le Parisien this morning, 10% of French women don’t want to have kids. Two recent books have questioned the benefits of motherhood: Etre femme sans être mère, published in January by Emilie Devienne and now Corinne Maier, (famous for her book Bonjour paresse which explained how to do a minimum of work without getting sacked), has brought out No kid, quarante raisons de ne pas avoir d’enfant (40 reasons not to have kids).

The Parisien article mentions Big Kids No Kids – an American site (surprise, surprise!) whose statement of rights is:

1. You have the right to choose not to have kids.
2. You are as equal as the person who does have kids .
3. You are not selfish for choosing not to have kids and should not be made feel guilty.
4. Big Kids without kids can and do help society in other ways than just breeding.
5. Having kids does not make people better human beings it just makes them parents, good or bad.

Lionel Shriver wrote We need to talk about Kevin, a chilling tale of a Virginia-tech style butchery carried out by her narrator’s fifteen-year-old son. Shriver had been considering motherhood before writing this novel but on its completion had been completely put off – well yes, no mother could wish or imagine that her child could possibly turn out so evil. Personally, I didn’t expect motherhood to be such a slog, but can’t imagine life without 'em now.

Whatever the arguments for and against motherhood, one thing is for sure: once it's done, it's done and there's no point in looking back over our shoulders wishing things had been different etc etc. Corinne Maier’s two children will be proud of her when they grow up and are able to read her catalogue of retrospective regret- sympa, as they say in French...

On the wagon

2007-06-07T15:55:00.000+02:00

I decided to give up drinking for the month of June.

(alcohol).

I thought I’d be less tired, might look better and just wondered if I could do it, actually.

On Sunday we trotted off to my sister-in-law’s. Generally, when it’s my husband’s family, I don’t drink anyway as I’m driving and it’s easier and more socially acceptable for me to refuse alcohol than for my husband (yes, totally crap, I agree).

As usual, my b-in-law asked me if I was pregnant when I refused champagne. As usual, I answered yes, of course. Then, I explained that I’d set myself a one-month-no-drinking challenge. Rehab at home. Everybody found this very strange and asked me if I had a drink problem.

And that has been the reaction of anyone I’ve told about my challenge so far. I explain that usually I don’t limit myself so can easily drink over the recommended alcohol level for a week (14 units). I wanted to see if I was addicted or if it was just a reflex action – end-of-the-day crutch. Well, I am relieved to say the latter seems to be true. I have got to the 7th of the month without any difficulty.

When you don't drink alcohol what do you drink instead? Still water seems too... flat, boring, so I was quaffing coke and various juices on Sunday which aren’t super good for you either. Now I've found a compromise - sparkling water - at least I get the bubbles.

What does worry me is that having no vices at all (I stopped smoking when I came to France) could turn me into a goody-goody health freak. I’ll be eating bio food and jogging next – who knows I might even find God! Plus, I'm not sure what to do with any excess energy I acquire (which is potentially pretty annoying for all those around me!)

All in all, I’ll be glad when June is over and I can swan off to Provence and drown myself in rosé.

In the meantime, my favourite problems-in-modern-society children’s book collection have written a book especially for me:

2 weeks'll do nicely

2007-05-07T18:45:00.000+02:00

Last week I found my copy of A Year in Provence. It had been posing as a cookbook in my kitchen for well over a year. Having just booked two weeks in the Luberon, I got stuck in straight away. Et voilà, I have now read it, 18 years after it was originally published and… so… what was all the fuss about?

Well, the book is well written and pleasant enough to read – Personally I feel a sense of déjà lu, but then I have read similar books/blogs about other regions and have experienced la France profonde first hand too. What made it such a big deal, I imagine, was that it was the first in the genre. When Peter Mayle ‘discovered’ Provence, it was probably pretty undiscovered except by other rich property investors/sunshine seekers from various parts of the world.

I knew very little about Mr Mayle before reading the book apart from the fact that he’d been something in advertising. Presumably he’d earned a load of dosh and then decided to purify his (fairly rotten) soul by getting away from the rat race on his fat profits. Certainly in the book, his most difficult decisions are how to persuade the local workmen to do his jobs first and to shift his stone garden table as well as where to eat in the most ‘authentic’ fashion. Money never seems to be an issue – lucky them! He and his wife spend their time swimming, buying, and eating and drinking. His wife plays a background role in the book. We have to hope that she let her hungry husband indulge while she abstains from stuffing her face and drinking like a fish so that she can drive him home.

He frequently mentions their tedious house guests - presumably ex-colleagues so understandably obnoxious as they work in the advertising industry, (like the ridiculous character played by Russell Crowe in Ridley Scott’s cliché-ridden film “A Good Year”). Other visitors are perhaps ex-friends/neighbours who have the cheek to want to visit while he is trying to fit in with the locals. I must admit the whole thing has more of a lord of the manor mixes with the rabble feel to it.

Still, having visited Provence, I can see how the landscape could inspire him although the thought of living – I mean really living, working and keeping to timetables there, does not appeal to me. While a family would undoubtedly have a lot more grassy space than in the Paris suburbs, any trip – be it to school, the doctor, buying bread or dance classes would involve a minimum of 5-km of windy, narrow lanes – there and back.

Two weeks are enough to photograph the lavender fields and quaint villages, taste the local goodies and resource myself and then it’s back to the city for me!

Oh yes, and France has a new president...

Driving danger

2007-05-05T09:02:00.000+02:00

I have written before about music which you shouldn't listen to when driving as there is a risk of falling asleep at the wheel. Well, the creators of the PSP game Burnout Dominator have conducted a survey to find out which songs could get you into that burnout mood - i.e. driving aggressively. They did stress, however, that the would be good for playing but certainly not for real-life driving.

Unsurprisingly there is a lot of heavy metal in there:

1. Paradise City (Guns N Roses)
2. Song 2 (Blur)
3. Bat Out of Hell (Meat Loaf)
4. Ace of Spades (Motorhead)
5. When We Were Young (The Killers)
6. Buck Rogers (Feeder)
7. You Will Be Under My Wheels (Prodigy)
8. Born To Run (Bruce Springsteen)
9. This Ain't A Scene... (Fall Out Boy)
10. Tainted Love (Soft Cell)

In my research I found this fab version of Ace of Spades done by Barbies!

Belated happy 1st May

2007-05-02T15:52:00.000+02:00

I spent my day planted behind a plastic garden table trying to sell my children's old books/clothes/toys. Yes, 1st of May, brocante day!

We arrived at 8 in the morning to set up the stand only to find a sea of hijabs already out hunting for the bargains. It reminded me of the lively markets we'd visited in Morocco and Tunisia and the level of bargaining was certainly as fierce!

We'd paid 20€ for 2 metres of tarmac and it was definitely worth the investment. We ended up bringing a couple of bags home, but also a tinful of euros.

Good job I didn't charge the kids for my labour as we were out till 7 in the evening and I think the going rate for working on 1st of May is double or even triple the normal rate!

You dirty frog

2007-04-28T08:37:00.000+02:00

A survey by TNS revealed that the French really are dirty. The survey was reported on the news. The presenter started by explaining that 40 years ago, children were taught about personal hygiene at school as they didn't have a bathroom at home.

In 2007, 16% of households never buy shampoo.

31% never buy deodorant. (but some prefer to douse themselves with eau de cologne)

French households spend 222€ a year on personal hygiene products and are last in Europe.

37% of households don't own a toothbrush and half of the rest only buy one toothbrush a year.

90% never buy shower gel (but we have to imagine that they use the more traditional bar of soap instead).

The presenter said that the survey made foreigners laugh at the French - well, yes, he's quite right!

Go wild in the country!

2007-04-21T17:04:00.000+02:00

Well, I'd never seen myself as a hunter and fisher before but according to this 25-question test, Frédéric Nihous is the best candidate for me (only 48% though!). I did it twice yesterday and got Marie-George Buffet (communist) the first time and Philip de Villiers (extreme right) the second.

Good job I'm not voting!

The Zimmers

2007-04-18T11:15:00.000+02:00

I read about this project on the bbc website. A group of OAPs have rerecorded the Who's My Generation in the Abbey Road studios.

The Zimmers even have a MySpace page which gives bios of some of the members of the 40-strong group plus sobering facts about old age in the developing world including this one:

In the developed world, the very old (age 80+) is the fastest growing population group.

Truly inspiring! Gets me thinking about making a French version...

vote for me, me, me

2007-04-15T11:56:00.000+02:00

One week to go and the posters of the 12 candidates for the French presidential elections have been stuck up in front of all the voting centres. They start off looking all neat and respectable like here, but are soon subjected to graffiti or are ripped off altogether.

In front of our local school they all still look fairly clean but close up...

French music, but not as you know it

2007-04-11T08:49:00.000+02:00

This is what I'm listening to at the moment. Wax Tailor is French but you'd never guess from his album!

Drive with restraint

2007-04-05T17:05:00.000+02:00

Today is national politeness behind the wheel day. Drivers are supposed to be tolerant towards other road/pavement users. Not to use rude gestures, not to honk impatiently and flash slow or indecisive drivers. To stop at zebra crossings but not to park on them. Not to do queue de poisson (cut in on another driver) and not to phone while driving.

Here are some statistics:

47% of those surveyed said they thought French people were good drivers (29% disagreed)

60% found drivers agressive (27% didn't)

52% of drivers lack respect for pedestrians while one French person out of 3 admits to parking on the pavement.

44.5% use a hands-free phone while driving, 18% a normal phone.

10% admit to driving after drinking - occasionally or often.

Perhaps these people will be tempted to vote for Jean Marie Le Pen who announced recently that if he was elected he'd increase the alcohol limit for driving from 0.5g to 0.8g. (Yes, it's the silly season for electoral promises!)

Happy happy driving! The sunshine should certainly help.

My American accent

2007-03-30T15:08:00.000+02:00

What American accent do you have? Your Result: The Northeast Judging by how you talk you are probably from north Jersey, New York City, Connecticut or Rhode Island. Chances are, if you are from New York City (and not those other places) people would probably be able to tell if they actually heard you speak.
Philadelphia
The Inland North
The Midland
The South
Boston
The West
North Central
What American accent do you have? Quiz Created on GoToQuiz

(I am British with what is known as an RP accent)

Surveys, surveys...

2007-03-26T09:15:00.000+02:00

In the run up to the Presidential elections, we are presented with daily predictions of how the candidates are doing. Generally, they say Nicolas Sarkozy will get slightly more votes in the first round of the elections and then win in the second round against Ségolene Royal - although the other day they were at 50/50 (the suspense!)

In order to break up the monotony of these surveys, the Parisien, a popular daily newspaper which becomes Aujourd'hui en France in its national version (yes, there is life outside Paris, honest!), decided to publish other lighter surveys.

Today, they surveyed the French population about what irritated them most. Top of the list was their credit card getting swallowed up in a machine, followed by all the typically French annoying things: dogshit on your shoes, long waits in public administaration buildings, queuing for hours just to have the counter close as you arrive, driving round and round to find a place to park, finding one and then somebody nipping in just in front of you.

I'd have to agree on all of those!

Last week's survey in the same paper was one of the most ridiculous I'd ever seen: 50% of the French population believed that PSG (Paris St Germain football team) would be relegated. It even subdivided the findings into social sectors and then regions! Relegation is not a subjective thing - if they lose too many matches they will be bottom of the division and therefore get relegated - full stop. Public opinion can't and won't change anything! But football sells newspapers and there is a love-hate relationship with Paris vs the rest of the country and, especially in the football world, with the Marseille team (bit like the North-South divide in GB). Unlike London, Paris only has one team hence the pressure and of course there are other things at stake like TV rights.

But the survey is still pointless. And the overuse of surveys like any other tool, makes us indifferent to their findings in the end. And let's not forget that in 2002, the survey institutions were as surprised as anyone else when Jean Marie Le Pen got through to the second round of the elections...

Airing my opinion

2007-03-17T10:43:00.000+01:00

Call me a thug, a philistine, you can even call me an airhead (!) - perhaps my musical neurones have been irrevocably damaged by too much 80s disco/punk (yes, I have eclectic tastes!) BUT I just don’t get all the fuss about the new Air album.

There I said it. I feel better already.

I have another of their albums which I find agreeable to listen to when we have guests and don’t want anything too evasive to interrupt the flow of conversation. The perfect soundtrack to a pseudo-intellectual evening, washed down with lashings of champagne and red wine. But what decided me to make the purchase was a Oui FM DJ who, after playing the first single, declared the album to be the antidote to stress. He said that if you listened to Air in your car you couldn’t possibly be moody and aggressive. I put hand in pocket and bought Pocket Symphony.

Monday morning, sun shining, shades on, I slipped it into the CD player in my car and relaxed into my seat. Waited for the intro to finish, whoops no that was the first track, okay... Then comes the one I know, lalala hum-along, so far so good. The problem came when I realised that Air is so 'relaxing' it is hypnotic and ultimately a driving danger. The plonking electric piano cords (which reminded me of when I used to practice scales and arpeggios as a child) kept promising to go somewhere, moved up a note, yes, yes, yes? plonked a bit more with the odd ping on a triangle (which in turn reminded me of music classes in primary school), now something? Eh hop, back down a note and plonky, plonky, plonk to the end. And on to the next track. Between Sleeping and Waking is not a good state to be in when driving on a busy motorway with lots of impatient French drivers coming at you from all angles and I felt the music actually starting to irritate me in its complacency. It was like watching a placid kid who won’t stand up for himself when being picked on with that same feeling of raging helplessness.

When I’d said to a music industry person I was going to buy Pocket Symphony, he laughed at me and said it was lift music. I took this for professional jealousy as they were on another label – The Guardian gave the album 4 stars and talked of the songs’ “beautiful sense of disembodied, transcontinental drift” (not sure if that’s a compliment really!). Air is cool, it’s fashionable – they use traditional Japanese instruments and Jarvis Cocker sings on one of the tracks for fuck’s sake – this is the ultimate in cool, isn’t it?

Is it just me, then?

No. Finally, I think Air is the equivalent to modern art (you know, those splodges of paint on a huge canvas – the same ones you have on your walls at home ‘cept yours were done by your two-year-old with poster paint at the crèche). You either get it or you don’t.

And I don’t. And I’m not afraid to say it.

Here's a taster for those who don't know Air:

I know I shouldn't complain, but...

2007-03-12T18:28:00.000+01:00

Often the rooms I give my English lessons in are nothing more than... pokey holes. Converted broom cupboards, ex-dark rooms, or just windowless, joyless training rooms, with smelly carpets, a pile of yellowing A4, a few sad plastic cups and a half-finished bottle of Evian.

After a day in darkness, I really appreciate a blast of fresh air, except, well... now outside has become, more than ever since the introduction of the new law, smokers' territory. Industrial-sized ashtrays have been installed in front of entrance doors and benches are inevitably occupied by smokers.

Even the streets are not safe as the nicotine-deprived workers madly puff at their last cigarette on the way from car to office(or vice-versa), blowing all the smoke out straight into your face if you are following them.

With spring-like weather upon us this week, will we non-smokers be restricted to staying indoors to avoid being smoked on?

Show beasts

2007-03-10T08:30:00.000+01:00

"Not us, pleeeease!"

The salon de l'agriculture closes its doors in Paris this evening.

Every year, we are bombarded with images of various hairy species, and hoards of people gawping at them, taking photos and trying to stroke whatever body part they can reach through the barriers. It is an incredibly popular event and rakes in the money at 12€ for adults and 6€ for kids.

It boasts the finest breeds, including 600 cows and bulls, 550 sheep, 70 goats and 60 pigs.

This year, as the election looms, we were subjected more than ever to molte photo opportunities of politicians patting bulls, sampling regional saucisson and washing it all down with a good dose of bonhomie (and even something much stronger for those non-teetotallers). We started the week with Chirac next to a bull, and finished with Ségo clutching a lamb, with Sarko grasping a goat in between. (Imagery?)

Poor beasts!

I'm sure the animals are letting out animal-sized sighs of relief that this media circus is over and they can go back to their tranquil fields away from the city crowds and flashbulbs.

Now, I understand that this might be the first opportunity for inner-city kids to see farm animals in real life, even though there are a couple of zoo-farms in they city. (There is one in the Jardin d'Acclimatation in the famous Bois de Boulogne where they can experiences the animals in the open air with considerably less people.) Also, that there is the whole rural France political side to the event. This heritage that we need to protect if we want to continue to squeeze our veggies at the local market every Sunday, and that politicians mustn't neglect as they represent valuable votes.

But other than that, IMO, the whole thing is a week-long torture for the animals (perhaps they are drugged to keep them placid), and a thoroughly disagreeable experience for the visitors to trail past cooped up beasts with hoards of other people.

Borat, eat your heart out!

2007-03-09T19:35:00.000+01:00

I apologise to my American friends in advance but this is just too...!

France's Eurovision song contest entry...

2007-03-07T09:12:00.000+01:00

...like anyone gives a ****

Franglais at its best!

I think they should get rid of the bald guy (or give him an instrument)

Great ad. for Brokeback Mountain (Canal +)

2007-03-01T18:11:00.000+01:00

Brokeback Mountain pour Canal+
envoyé par samdprod

They did a fab one for La marche de l'empereur too:

pub C+ La Marche De L'Empereur
envoyé par betizfest

A star is born?

2007-03-01T16:37:00.000+01:00

France's Nouvelle Star (the equivalent to Pop Idol) started its 5th series last night. Here's one of the hopefuls who bluffed the jury:

Paint the whole world with a...

2007-02-26T09:41:00.000+01:00

After a week of blue skies, dazzling sunshine and diminishing snow, we woke up on our last morning to thick, wet flakes which turned to brown slush as they hit the road.

As we wound down from the mountains towards Grenoble, the snow turned to rain and suddenly, we witnessed the most magnificent rainbow - the sort that seems solid enough to walk on. Like the good tourists that we are, we had to stop and snap it up!

CAF... off!

2007-02-17T09:23:00.000+01:00

We are going skiing tomorrow. My husband's company own a hotel in the Alps and we get a reduction on the full price (du jamais vu!) In order to calculate the reduction, the C.E. (company social committee) need a copy of our yearly tax declaration and a declaration from the CAF (caisse d'allocations familiales).

In France, everyone gets allocations familiales (family allowance) from the birth of their second child. The amount is fixed. So, in theory, as we have two children, they could calculate the sum with 100% certainty. But no, administration oblige, we need the official piece of paper.

I go on the website. Type in your number (okay) and your secret code... (Secret code, hmmm) Your secret code it four numbers and on any of your correspondence from the CAF. (yes, but where?) If you don't know your secret code press here. (press) Your secret code will be sent to you within 8 days. (good!).

2 weeks later... still no secret code. I try phoning the super expensive, automatised phone number. "Welcome to the CAF, you will need your number and your secret code composed of 4 numbers..." (forget it!)

Now, short of driving to the offices which are in a town I don't know and not nearby, I would not have my CAF declaration and we would have to pay full price. Panic!

Then, on Thursday, my husband came home and said "No panic, the CE have paid, they'll calculate the exact amount later". Phew!

Meanwhile, I still haven't received anything from the impenetrable CAF...

But we're off tomorrow: sun, snow, and no sego-sarko... please!

Heed ye the warnings

2007-02-11T11:56:00.000+01:00

Here are some proverbs for February. They are pretty gloomy.

Février et mars trop chauds
Mettent le printemps au tombeau.

If Feb and March are too hot - Spring to the grave

Neige de février
Tient comme l'eau dans un panier

Feb snow sticks like water in a basket

Si février est chaud
Croyez bien sans défaut
Que, par cette aventure,
Pâques aura sa froidure

If Feb is hot, believe me, Easter will be cold.

Quand février n'a pas de grand froid
Le vent dominera tous les autre mois.

When Feb doesn't get really cold, wind will dominate all the other months.

So, no snow for the 2-week February skiing holidays which start tomorrow for the 'A' sector of France (and us 'Parisians next week).

Then, no Spring and freezing Easter (just when we've got another two weeks off) .

Finally, all-year wind.

Work in progress

2007-02-09T18:11:00.000+01:00

I am trying to write a radio script for this competition I'm a bit intimidated by the required length ( 60 mins) so have tried to break the work down into bite-sized chunks - 3 pages a day. I put the counter on the side of the page to force me into working.

It's an adaptation of a short story I wrote a while ago.

It's about shoes.

And I've just realised I'm a quarter of the way through - whoopee!

Just say no!

2007-02-08T21:59:00.000+01:00

Yesterday, they announced that 394 people were killed on the road in France in January, up 13.9% from 2006. One possible reason given was the unusually warm weather - implying that people are more cautious in colder, icier conditions (which are dangerous). However, another suggestion was that as this is an election year, drivers were counting on the traditional amnesty for minor traffic offences, and so were not worrying too much about such boring things as speed limits and amber lights.

Except we're talking about deaths here. Losses of lives.

So, drivers are consciously going out and driving like maniacs because they know that even if they kill themselves, they will be amnestied so everything will be okay? They will go to their version of heaven with a clean slate, the amnesty representing a state version of the last rites?

Well, they should think again. Nicolas Sarkozy has declared he is against the amnesty as has François Bayrou while Segolène Royal is still thinking about it...

Thank you, Tetley

2007-02-07T12:31:00.000+01:00

"Oh, you're English, would you like a cup of tea?"

"Er, yes... okay..."

"Now, let's see... Fruits of the forest? Lemon? Rhubarb?..."

"Errr... have you got any... you know... ordinary tea, I mean, black tea?"

And they get you out an excuse of a teabag individually wrapped with a piece of string stapled to it with a paper tag on the end. And you know you'll have to wait a good five minutes for any taste to possibly filter through the thick-paper and even then it will be a lighter shade of grey when you add milk (if your host thinks of offering you milk).

Worse still, in cafés, they serve tea in glass cups with metal supports with a slice of lemon on the side (and charge you a fortune for it).

At home, I had a regular supply of Tesco's economy bags from my parents, until one day, I discovered a box of Tetley real teabags in my local Carrefour. I'm sure I must be the only person who buys them!

Now, like a secret alcoholic, I slip my round bag in my cup when I have visitors while offering them Earl Grey or Jasmine or Camomile 'tea'.

Mmm, now I wouldn't go as far as Boy George, that a good cup of tea replaces sex, but I do enjoy the first sip of a nice strong cuppa!

Paris is melting?

2007-02-05T22:38:00.000+01:00

No, an original camouflage job by the company Athem to hide ugly scaffolding on the prestigious avenue George-V. Not sure it'll be effective against building-work noise, though...

Greener than thou

2007-02-01T13:42:00.000+01:00

José Bové has announced that he is standing for the presidential elections today. He wants to represent the invisible people in the rural areas and the (in)famous suburbs. I think he was predicted about 5% of the vote in the last survey.

Meanwhile, Nicolas Hulot, a presenter of nature programmes for TF1, the most watched private channel in France (owner by Martin Bouygues, friend of Nicolas Sarkosy), got all the main election candidates to sign his Green Charter yesterday in a highly- mediatised meeting at the Musée Quai de Branley. Hulot had been thinking of running for President himself and had reached double figures in the surveys, but opted out on Monday, saying he was satisfied now that all the major candidates had signed his charter. (Apparenly, TF1 had suspended his salary at the end of last year as he was dedicating more time to his presidential campaign than to his TV shows... Their relationship has become less tense since Monday).

Another TF1 star Evelyne Délias, who does the weather just before the main news (le 20h), has been handing out little tips for 'helping the planet' at the end of her bulletin e.g. turning the telly/computer etc off at night instead of leaving them on standby etc. Well, tonight to help the planet, we have been invited to turn her off! Between 19h55 and 20h an ecological group have asked the French population to turn everything off to see what saving effect it would have on the electricity supply. Our children are delighted by this adventure! However, some are worried that the surge of electricity when everything is turned back on again at 20h could trip a major switch somewhere and leave us in the dark for longer than we might have wished!

A suivre...

Yeeeesss!

2007-01-31T11:35:00.000+01:00

Tomorrow, smoking will be officially banned in public places in France. This means that smokers will have to go outside to smoke. In large companies, there are organised places, like bus shelters, that have been put up. In smaller companies like mine, everyone huddles together just in front of the entrance which means unless you hold your breath, you breath in a high concentration every time you enter or leave the building. And of course, your clothes do not escape. Worse still, if your office happens to be just above the entrance and you don't have air-con, you get a constant flow of smoke all day long in the hotter months!

Of lives and men

2007-01-29T22:14:00.000+01:00

Not a day goes by without a report about who has opened what on (or in?) Second Life. Even our lovely French politicians have got in on the act.

Well, I don't have enough time to do everything I want in my first life so totally get where this is coming from...

(courtesy of Le Xeul)

Thanks, but no thanks

2007-01-24T12:56:00.001+01:00

Dear Amazon.co.uk Customer,

As you've bought similar books from us in the past, you might like to know that we have up to 50% off books in New Year New You, and many other great offers on New Releases in Books.

(Book titles)

You: on a diet
Neris and India’s idiot proof diet
10 years younger nutrition bible
Darcy Bussel’s dance body workout
How the rich get thin.

*****

Dear Amazon.co.uk

Thank you for your kind offer but I'll have to tell you to fuck off on this one. Here's why. Okay, I'm a woman, okay I'm over 40, but actually I am thin and always have been (except twice from months 5-9 of pregnancies and a few months after). Never been on a diet in my life and certainly never bought a diet/workout book. You must be mixing me up with another Amazon.co.uk customer...

Nice try!

p.s. you and the author of How the rich get thin can take your sad, little book and ... give the profits to 3rd world countries.

Diam's France à elle

2007-01-19T14:33:00.000+01:00

While the Big Brother race row is raging in GB, Diam's new video shows a harsh side of day-to-day racism in France. In Ma France à moi, she talks of her vision of France, a France which talks loudly, dances to hip-hop and some rock, rages against the system. She says how she doesn't identify with cette France profonde (this expression usually refers to the 'deep' countryside but I think in this song she means the Le Pen voters).

Ma France à moi ne vit pas dans l' mensonge
Avec le coeur et la rage, à la lumière, pas dans l'ombre

My France doesn't live in lies, with its heart enraged, in the light not the shadows.

And Diam's has a big following. Dans Ma Bulle was last year's best selling album in France. And she has recently been appointed head of Universal's new Motown France record label.

Tagged

2007-01-19T12:58:00.000+01:00

I've been tagged by Optimistic Reader - the instructions being to "Grab the book nearest you. Turn to page 123. Go down to the fifth line. Type out the next three sentences".

So, just to show what disorder I live in - I grab:

Mmmm, Playmobil catalogue, 2007 (daughter's birthday wish-list) - not really a book and only has 51 pages of zoos and châteaux, male-bonding train sets and scenes of domestic bliss...

Grab again: An atlas (son's homework last Tuesday). Page 123: Etas-Unis, Nord-Est Funny that, I saw a Canadian comedian just the other day... Remember our visit to Quebec: the Celine Dion museum and looking for whales on the St Laurent, that funky accent and lashings of maple syrup. My, they've got some big lakes there...

Grab again: Collins Gem French-English dicco. Page 123... five lines down:
"heckle vt interpeller (un orateur)

hectic a agité(e), trépidant(e)

he'd = he would, he had

hedge n haie f // se défiler;

to hedge one's bets (fig) se couvrir

hedgehog n hérisson m"

(I knew 'em all apart from trépidant - I'll try and slip it into the conversation later and see if anyone understands what I'm on about.)

Voilà, your French lesson for the day - you'll be tested next Monday.

Now, I'll tag Pat from Ivry and St Bloggie de Rivière

The Naked Racist comes to Paris

2007-01-18T13:46:00.000+01:00

Comedy? Okay, when? Tuesday? Wednesday? Wednesday's fine for me. Who is it? Dunno, some... Canadian guy, born in Scotland, won something at Edinburgh. Sounds good.

This was roughly how R & I ended up at La Java last night. We had no idea who we were seeing or what it was about. And even when Phil Nichol announced the name of the second act The Naked Racist, I didn't really think about it. 40 mins later we were being asked to get out tits out for peace.

I googled him.

Steve Bennett on Chortle said:

"Phil Nichol isn’t the first comic to spin a routine out of a drink and drug-fuelled visit to Amsterdam, and he surely won’t be the last.

But he is, perhaps, the only one to be intimidated by a gang of Dutch skinheads as his addled brain tried to take in the monument to the gay people persecuted by the Nazis. And he’s certainly the first to try to confront these aggressors by stripping naked and running through the streets after them."

I'm sure if I lived in the UK I would have heard of him, but I must say there is something to be said for the element of surprise. I mean, had I known he was going to strip off, I might have spent the whole evening anticipating that moment and not sat back and enjoyed (yes, we were far enough away from the stage not to fear any dodgy interaction or anything!)

It was great to hear him taking the piss out of the English, the Scots, the Americans and the Canadians, and not to ponder on the French and all their funny ways for once. (Ségo/Sarko/Chirac were not mentioned!). Admittedly though, the tits/war thing had less of an impact on a English-speaking-living-in-France community as 'our' boys aren't out there.

After googling PN, I googled the Doukhobors, a Christian Russian pacifist group who rejected war and were persicuted for it in the 16th and 17th centuries.

So they really existed (although there is no mention of them stripping off in protest). In that case, all that other stuff about licking the bunyons, the one-legged girl and the magic-mushroom-fired-up Amsterdam trip must have been true as well...

Fatal Bazooka revisited

2007-01-17T13:15:00.000+01:00

I've been getting a lot of hits from people looking for a translation of Fatal Bazooka's Fous ta cagoule.

The cagoule is such a French article of clothing. It's the thing all kids are forced to wear to wrap up warm and it's decidedly uncool (even if it does the job). Most kids wouldn't be seen dead in one after the age of about 7, opting for the much cooler knitted hat (preferably branded). Hence, I've translated it as balaclava and not hood as hoods are seen as cool.

Obviously, it doesn't translate well. The song is a huge piss take of the French obsession with their (ill) health as well as rappers in general and those from Marseille in particular.

Appologies to no-one (I know I should have better things to do) and thanks to my Larousse dictionnaire d'argot & français populaire. Voici:

Fous ta cagoule

Ouais gros, Fatal Bazooka
Quand c'est l'hiver quand ça fait froid
Qu'une chose à faire gars, écoute ça :

Représente le hardcore des montagnes en direct de la Savoie
- Savoie ou bien ? - Non ça va pas
Mec c'est le pôle Nord, on s'gèle les grelots
Bordel, y fait plus froid qu'dans ton frigo
Un pied dehors direct c'est la pharyngite
La morve au nez, les microbes qui s'agitent
Alors écoute avant qu'y s'ra trop tard
Avant qu'tu s'ras tout dur comme un surgelé Picard
On n'est pas v'nu pour jouer les papas poules
Mais un conseil mon gars, fous ta cagoule

[Refrain] :
Fous ta cagoule, fous ta cagoule
Ou t'auras froid, t'auras les glandes, t'auras les boules
Fous ta cagoule ouais, fous ta cagoule
La chair de poule, le nez qui coule, fous ta cagoule
Fous ta cagoule, fous ta cagoule
Du nord au sud de l'est à l'ouest même à Vesoul
Fous ta cagoule ouais, fous ta cagoule
Sauf à Kaboul, sauf à Kaboul

Ouais dis-leur toi aussi ProFanatioN FonkY
En direct des quartiers de Marseille

Dans ma ville, on craint dégun
Fracasse les estrasses sur instru yo le rat frère en même temps toujours froid aux mains
Contrebande, façon 90 dans la légende
Mange du cagnard !
Ici on joue au foot et pas au hand
Franchement
J'serre les dents
Comme Yves Montand
Qui r'pousse le pousse-pousse du mistral dans le vent
Planète mars, représente la cagoule, sans un franc
Cinq francs trente et deux qui nous font cent

- Hey mais hey oh mais, t'es au courant qu'on comprend rien à c'que tu dis ?
- Quoi, qu'est-ce quia qu'est quia quoi tu m'engraines ?
- Nan mais c'est pas ça, mais on a un message précis tu vois c'est...

[Refrain]

Je voudrais jeter un slam pour cette maladie qui l'hiver l'anus m'irrite
Un virus venu du froid qu'on appelle gastro-entérite
La prochaine fois, j'mettrais ma cagoule

J'mettrais ma cagoule sur le BIP pour pas me geler les BIP
Espèce de fils dE BIP, qu'est ce qui faut que je foute ?
Ca fait 15 fois qu'j'te le dis pauvre BIP, fous ta cagoule !
Mais qu'est ce que tu BIP t'es en train de BIP dans ma cagoule !
Elle me gratte comme un frottis dans la BIP à ta mère
Elle me donne de l'érythème, j'ai les BIP qui saignent
J'aurais pu dire “fous ton bonnet, fous ton bonnet” mais c'est moins cool
Que c'putain de slogan fous ta cagoule

[Refrain]

Ouais gars, c'est l'bazooka, B. A. Z…heu
En tout cas respect à Porte Blindée, Menstruations Douloureuses, Pandi Panda ainsi que Pitbull De Flipper
Coups De Couteau Dans La Glotte et bien sûr Canon A Neige Bentley !

[Refrain]

and in English

Yeah, right
When it’s winter and it’s cold
Only one thing to do, man, hear this:

I represent the mountain hardcore, live from Savoie
Savoie or what? No ça va pas (a play on words !)
Dude, this is the north pole – it freezes your bollocks off
Fuck it, it’s colder than in your fridge
Put one foot outside and it’s a cold for sure
Snotty nose, microbes doing their thing
So listen, before it’s too late
Before you’re rigid like piece of Picard (freezer shop) food
We haven’t come to play the soft daddys
But a bit of advice, mate – put your fucking balaclava on!

Put it on, put it on
Or you’ll get cold you’ll be pissed off, you’ll be fed up
Put it on, put it on
Goose bumps, a runny nose, put it on
From north to south, from east to west even in Vesoul
Put it on, put it on
Except in Kaboul, except in Kaboul

Yeah, you tell ‘em too, ProFanatioN FonkY
Live from Marseille
In my town we’re scared of someone
Smash up the ???? yo, rat brother, always got cold hands
Contraband, type 90 in the legend
Eat (soak up?) the sun
Here we play football not handball
Frankly
I clench my teeth
Like Yves Montand
Who turns down the rickshaw of the mistral in your belly
Planet Mars represents the balaclava without a franc
Five francs thirty and two which makes 100.

Hey, wait a sec – you realise we don’t understand a word you’re saying (me neither!!)
What? What’s the matter? What’s up? What’s bugging you?
No, it’s not that, it’s just that we have a precise message, it’s:

(chorus)

I want to do a slam for this winter illness, an irritated anus
A virus come in from the cold which we call gastric flu
Next time, I’ll wear my balaclava
(this is a tribute to Grand Corps Malade, who is the first successful slammer in France)

I’ll wear it on my BIP so as not to freeze my BIPS off
Son of a BIP bitch
What the f*** do I have to do
I’ve told you 15 times you poor BIP, put your balaclava on
What the f*** are you doing? You’re BIPing in my balaclava
It’s itching like a smear test in your mother’s BIP (a tad tasteless)It’s giving me a rash, my BIP is bleeding
I could have said “put your f***ing hat on” (x2) but it’s less cool
As this f***ing slogan “fous ta cagoule”

(chorus)

Yeah, man, it’s Bazooka, B…A …Z er…
Whatever, respect to Reinforced Doors, Painful Periods, Pandi Panda, as well as Pitbull de Flipper, Stab Wounds in yer Tongue (?) and of course, Snow Machine Bentley!

Please, give us a break!

2007-01-14T17:07:00.000+01:00

More irritating than Posh and Becks or Johnny (Halliday) and Laeticia, Ségo and Sarko might just as well be on the same side. Today Sarko was officially voted in as the UMP Presidential election candidate, even with the threat of re-Chiracation hanging over his head. Next, comes (more)tedious weeks of empty words before the elections this spring. Will the French population be able to take it? (I'm not sure I will!)

In the meantime, a parody done by Les Musclés, a group who used to play regularly on Club Dorothée, a kids programme, in the 1990s.

Just another Thursday

2007-01-12T09:26:00.000+01:00

I drop the kids at school and take my Thursday route to work. It's colder than yesterday and I wish I hadn't told them to wear less clothes today. I listen to Florent Marchet who sings about how he hates his father and daydreams about the whole family being killed in a car accident. I take the motorway. The overhead sign is flashing - an accident? I read ENLEVEMENT ENFANT, allumer votre radio. (Child abduction, turn on your radio). I had seen their faces on the TV before going out. 8 and 11. Abducted from their garden. Tears well up in my eyes. Hot tears. I'm powerless. I look around me - are they in one of the cars zooming past me? Or stuck in the eternal traffic jam on the other side? What can I do?

Worry.

I get to work. The burnt wreckage of a caravan is visible from our offices, between two lorries. Perhaps not arson, but to mark the death of the owner - a tradition.

My student arrives. We talk about God and what right we have to make moral judgements. And we talk about those children, while thinking about our own.

12h44. It's over. They've been found in a shopping centre. Safe and well. Identified by a shop owner who saw the alerts on the TV.

That evening, I hold my daughter's hand just a little tighter on the way home from school as she tells me about her day...

un petit faible

2007-01-10T19:27:00.000+01:00

This is a track I keep hearing on the radio and I have a soft spot for. He has a Zucchero deep gruff voice but not the musical naffness. Deep voices do it for me just as whining nasal ones don't (Placebo, the Cure). And the group AaRON is French.

The song is used in a film Je vais bien, ne t'en fais pas (I'm fine, don't worry) and the music actually makes me want to go and see the film, even though the trailer didn't inspire me. It's about a girl whose brother goes AWOL and looked pretty depressing but apparently it's good and well-acted. It may well be one of those films that gets across the Channel.

You heard it here first.

Happy 2007...

2007-01-08T21:18:00.000+01:00

In France, it is the custom to kiss for the New Year and at the same time make a mechanical little speech along the lines of "Bonne année, bonne santé, plein de bonne choses..." Sometimes they add surtout la santé !(especially your health and suddenly you get thinking about your health (which you wouldn't have thought about otherwise, unless it's midnight on the 31st and you're feeling tired/worse for wear). You suddenly think about breast cancer, diabetes heart attacks and bird flu. And you get quite worried about your health and vow to see all your doctors and specialists in the coming weeks... just in case.

In 2007, we should be worrying if this Observer article is anything to go by. The large quantities of the anti-viral, Tamiflu which would be taken if there was a threat of bird flu, would contaminate water, kill bacteria and generally upset nature.

With all the media coverage of global warming, we will probably have all sorts of (un)natural disasters this year and even if we don't have any, we'll constantly be worrying about them. If it rains for slightly too long, if the temperature is abnormally high (like now), if it doesn't snow... or it snows too much.

Morale is low in France at the beginning of this new year. This has been put down to the fact that there is an election coming up. Le Pen predicts he will reach the second round again, but this time against Segolène Royal - definitely something to feel depressed about as well as all the pre-election tedious crap (campaigning).

2007 is also the year hypermarkets have been allowed to advertise on TV. (yet more tedium) This will seriously affect the santé of the press, already shaky due to new media and free dailies, and radio stations which rely heavily on supermarket advertising for revenue.

Good news for la santé though, is that smoking will be banned in public places in France as of the beginning of February. Alas not in restaurants until 2008.

This year Tintin turned 100... well not Tintin himself, but his creator Hervé who would have been 100 on 22 May... had he not died in 1983.

2007 will be the year for Mika - Scissor Sisters meet Wham meet Freddy Mercury meets Leo Sayer etc etc

So, doom and gloom with a bit of camp pop. Plein de bonnes choses, quoi...

merde or just plain crap?

2007-01-03T22:23:00.000+01:00

London is not a good place to live nowadays. Ken has just put up public transport fares and if you want to get out of London, the other networks have increased their prices too. Congestion charges put people off (Woody Allen, for example) and let's not talk about the gross overspending that will be needed to be ready for the 2012 Olympics - I guess Londoners will be contributing to this...

Do I even need to say here that Paris should have got them?

As for tourism, according to David Higgerson in the Liverpool Daily Post, it is cheaper to fly to Europe than take the train to London. Britain had better watch it or Julian Barnes' fictional England, England will become a reality!

We've just got back from a 5-day visit to the UK - our luggage arrived there 2 days after us (British Airways ) but I suppose I can't complain when I read about the Heathrow cock-up.

So that's all the crap things about London. Now onto Paris. Although we flew British Airways, it was the airport authority which was actually guilty of all the disfunctioning in Paris. For example, we checked in (with a broken down conveyor belt) one side of passport control, while all the Air France passengers checked in the other side. Hence there was a huge passport queue with only one guy checking passports! Then, British Airways had a minuscule waiting place, with broken screens and a dodgy tannoy system for 4 flights. And, as I said before, our luggage didn't make it onto the same flight as us.

Air France passengers have Terminal 1, so no bus connection from the RER or the TGV stations. It's as if they are saying - "Well, if you're not flying AF, you can fuck off!" with a little shrug of the shoulders, bien sûr.

Fortunately, our luggage got the same plane as us on the way back but one of the cases lost a 'leg' and had to limp home.

Now, we knew from the aller that we had to get an airport bus to the RER station. There was a vague bus sign in the terminal, but once outside, it was nowhere to be seen. We wandered up and down the front of the terminal building for a bit, shaking our heads at taxi drivers, until a bus arrived and stopped randomly to let passengers down. The driver kindly explained that we needed line 3. Eventually it arrived and we hovered around trying to guess where it would stop and finally got on. After visiting all the other terminals it dropped us at what was supposed to be the RER station, but was in fact a smallish lift. The buttons had been vandalised so we guessed which floor we had to get off at.

Bearing in mind we speak French, live nearby and know the system. However, a tourist would have no chance. No signs in English and no explanations. Again, *shrug*who cares about tourists? They can take a taxi, can't they?

Well, according to Charles Bremner in the Times, the British visit the capital more than any other nationality and two thirds of them are from the London area. But there has been a 0.9 percent drop over the past year. Hence the launch of a campaign called C'est so Paris!

So, crap? merde? merde? crap? If you ask me, it's kiff-kiff (50-50)

Introducing.... Michaël Youn

2006-12-26T14:15:00.000+01:00

While Britain are seduced by Leona's dulcet tone's, France's number one is slightly less serious and much more energetic! Fous ta cagoule! (put your f***ing balaclava on!) is a rap parody by Fatal Bazooka, led by the uncontrolale Michaël Youn.

MY had already had chart success a few years ago with another parody Stach stach

(tragically, the group 'died' in a submarine accident!)

MY made his name in on M6's Morning Live where he woke up France with a megaphone, leapt around the studio, and did moonies at the slightest provocation.

Since then, he has adventured into cinema and stand up without (IMO) real success. He was engaged to Elsa Pataky, a Spanish actress (although on chat shows, he treated her more like a pet than a girlfriend).

Love him or hate him, Michaël Youn is overflowing with energy. Perhaps he will find his true way in the near future, but in the meantime, his novelty records are a great source of amusement for the youth of France.

Why don't you get back into bed?

2006-12-23T17:24:00.001+01:00

Reasons to be cheerful - Ian Dury and the Blockheads

My daughter didn't want to go to bed. She kept having nightmares and was afraid of the dark. The solution we found was simple but (so far) effective. We told her to think of three good things that happened during the day. She went to sleep feeling reassured. According to research, this method will actually increase happiness. At first it's be difficult to find three things but after a while you end up compiling longer lists.

Another way to increase happiness is through physical exercise. Studies have shown that 3 half hour sessions a week are enough to secrete the necessary dopamine in the brain to avoid depression (and the need for anti-depressants).

According to psychologist Ed Diener, "Happiness is the process, not the place. Once we achieve our goals we need new ones - The princess could not just stop when she got the prince."

Here's wishing you a happy, happy Christmas!

Kiffe, kiffe demain

2006-12-23T15:14:00.000+01:00

by Faïza Guène

I discovered this book on a Sunday evening report programme. They traced the success of the young author from the suburbs who had written an international bestseller. The book encouraged young non-readers to read and was written as spoken i.e. not grammatically correctly. Naturally, I was curious and bought the book, now a year old, in paperback.

My first reaction was it was very easy to read. The author is obviously a natural story-teller. The main character, Doria, has a strong voice and is engaging. I finished the book in a couple of metro rides.

The story is not earth shattering. Doria, a 15-year-old girl of Moroccan origin, tells of her life in the suburb of Livry-Gargan. Her father has gone back to Morocco to re-marry as her mother couldn't give him a son. Her mother is illiterate and works as a cleaner in a cheap hotel. They are desperately poor, but manage to get by - just. Doria is not academic and finds herself abandoned by the educational system too. Luckily, she is saved by the system: She regularly sees a psychiatrist and the family is followed by a social worker. Her only friend is Hamoudi, a dealer with bad teeth who reads Rimbaud. Yet, despite everything, they manage to rise up. Her mother is helped by soical services - she learns to read. Doria gets a job babysitting and is helped with her school work by the spotty Nabil. There is a true sense of hardship and lonliness in the book, but no bitterness or hatred and the ending is uplifting and manages to give us a sense of future.

I would be interested to read the English translation as there are many cultural references - TV programmes, advertising and personalities. I wonder if it will lose a lot in translation.

I would love to adapt this one for the big screen - I would imagine the rights have already been sold...

My film round up 2006

2006-12-20T16:46:00.000+01:00

My film/DVD review 2006 (very subjective as I didn’t see all the films I would have liked to)

Films which were over-hyped but in the end were extremely mediocre
US: Da Vinci Code
France : Les Bronzés 3

Crappiest films I saw on DVD (thank god I didn't pay to go and see)
L’anniversaire
Quatre Etoiles
Palais Royale

slapped-on sound track
L’anniversaire

Best French films
De battre mon coeur s’est arrêté
La science des rêves

Worst screenplay stuffed with clichés (but nice scenery)
La piste

An interesting film (some of which was shot in my town) with an ultimately frustrating conclusion
Caché (Hidden)
La moustache (not shot in my town)
Broken Flowers (not in my town either!)

Disappointing follow up films
Lemming
Un long dimanche de fiançailles

Best Actors
Gad Elmaleh
Gael Garcia Bernal

Best Actresses
Cécile de France
Charlotte Gainsbourg
Helen Mirren

Most boring/predictable/preachy film even if I do love George Clooney
Goodnight and good luck

Wrist-slashers
Babel
Djihad (telefilm Canal +)
The Wind that Shakes the Barley
Brokeback Mountain
La marche de l’empereur

Fun/funny
La doublure
Borat (quand même !)
La science des rêves

Just plain weird
Combien tu m’aimes ?

Films I didn’t see but would like to but will now have to wait for the DVD release
Volver
Thank you for smoking
Little Miss Sunshine
Prête-moi ta main
Ne le dis à personne (unless I find a cinema that’s still showing it)
Nanny McPhee (just couldn’t persuade the kids!)
Transamerica

Films I will see next year
Notes on a scandal
Stranger than fiction
A good year
Hors de prix

Babel me

2006-12-12T18:03:00.000+01:00

So what's this then? Brad Pitt looking rough with bags under his eyes and crows feet, Cate Blanchett all sweaty and covered in blood. This isn't Hollywood. This is Babel.

This is not a romantic comedy, there is certainly no feel-good feeling - the film is 2h28 of tension and stress and if the ending is not totally tragic, it's probably to stop the cinema goers from topping themselves after watching.

However, the landscapes are fantastic: Mexico, Morocco, and Tokyo in all their 'glory' without the clichés. This film manages to give us an insight into these totally different universes without judging, without any heavy humanitarian/socio-political message.

The logline is If You Want to be Understood...Listen but somehow, I don't feel it fits the film. Babel is about causality, grief, and fate - luck, or lack of it and turning points. Listening and understanding do not stand out more than in any other film. Language does not hinder communication - even for the deaf and dumb Japanese teenager.

Conclusion?
Go and see Babel but don't expect fun or glamour!

(oh, and watch out for the divine Gael Garcia Bernal - more rugged than in the Science of Sleep, but just as enticing!

We all hate 4x4s, don't we?

2006-12-10T10:57:00.000+01:00

The British press is full of articles about global warming and how to reduce the greenhouse effect. And the root of all evil? 4x4s, gas-guzzlers, Chelsea-tractors. Greenpeace even made a video stigmatising ownership. (It was so nasty, it backfired on them).

And there are many websites campaigning against 4x4s

Alliance against urban 4x4s

In French: Anti 4x4 consortium

Don't hide your head in the sand has some imaginative posters like the one above.

There are also pro-4x4 campaigners who feel they are being unfairly targeted in particular by Ken Livingstone, the mayor of London who has increased the congestion charge for 4x4s to £25 a day.

So why do people buy these cars in the first place? Well, in France people love and cherish two things: space and privacy. I suppose these cars, with their height and blacked out windows, provide both. They say 4x4 drivers are insecure and perhaps they feel safer in their city tanks. I would imagine there is a fashion/show off element in there somewhere too.

This is probably why they are so hated too. Personally, I would hate to have to manoeuvre one - they barely fit into your average parking space and practically touch the ceiling of our underground car park. I couldn't drive a car with such high, polluting diesel consumption. And I'm not at all into image and external signs of wealth.

I wouldn't go as far as to cover them in mud, but I am puzzled by their owners' determination to use these cars for the school/supermarket run - how can they not feel completely ridiculous?

And I couldn't help but snigger when someone told me how, during the night, in the quiet suburb where he lives, his neighbours either side both had their 4x4 wheels stolen, and found their beloved cars perched on bricks the next morning. He sniggered too as he drove off to work in his 'ordinary' car!

Autumn trees

2006-12-05T18:13:00.000+01:00

One of my students told me he bought a tree last weekend.

"A Christmas tree," I said.

"No, he replied, "A palm tree."

"A palm tree? Now?" I said, surprised.

And he quoted me this proverb:

A la Sainte Catherine (25 novembre)
Tout bois prend racine.

For Saint Catherine's day, any tree will take root(?)

And apparently, palm trees are all the rage this Christmas... (or so he says!)

Old ones die hard

2006-12-01T17:09:00.000+01:00

I am a creature of habit. It's part of my Englishness, I think. I like driving the same way to work, parking in the same spot at the shopping centre and using the same classroom.

At one of the companies where I work, I park in a side street and walk along a leafy avenue to get there. It is a pleasant walk, especially in autumn with the multi-coloured leaves contrasting with a bright blue sky (on a good day!). I walk along the pavement, cross at the zebra crossing and enter the site.

Except...

They moved the zebra crossing, painted it out. It's now a couple of metres further up - past the entrance. I almost didn't notice. Something seemed wrong but I couldn't quite see what.

Now, I've been forced to change.

Perhaps this sounds like a chapter out of a Mark Haddon book - could I be a showing early signs of Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder?

Who knows. I just like some things to be orderly so that I can live the rest of my life in chaos!

As Flaubert said:

Be regular and orderly in your life, so that you may be violent and original in your work.

And while we're on the subject...

2006-11-23T15:25:00.000+01:00

Take a look at these great pictures : Nature is sexy

And if you are looking for a name for your little darling, turn to the stars. According to website findmypast, more and more people are chosing celebrity names for their offspring. Top of the list for girls:

Keira
Kylie
Shakira
Britney
Peaches
Madonna
Dido
Apple

and for boys:

Tiger
Keanu
Dre
Gazza
Brooklyn
Tupac
Jay-Z
Snoop
David Beckham.

However, this does not mean schools are overrun with celeb name-alikes. In England and Wales, the birth rate last year was 645000+ and that doesn't include Scotland so with only 8716 Keiras since 1984, the overall percentage is very low.

Fave French names are:
Emma
Clara
Manon
Anaïs
Léa
Chloé
Lucie
Camille
Marie

Enzo
Hugo
Lucas
Théo
Mathéo
Thomas
Baptiste
Léo
Clément

Calendars for all the family?

2006-11-19T20:25:00.000+01:00

The rugbymen's calendars are famous in France for their raunchy half-naked poses. This year is no exception with the half-naked moving up a notch to practically naked. Almost shocking to the French. Almost.

Our doorbell rang one evening last week and it turned out to be someone selling calendars. Last year, we'd got conned into buying the Post Office calendar - a choice of puppies or flowers or other such unimaginative images. When I heard it was the firemen, I felt a shiver of excitement. Would the calendar show muscular, scantily-clad firemen, bravely rescuing damsels in distress, or sliding down poles, or just hanging out at the fire station - à la rugbymen?

Alas, no. I coughed up five euros (generous, I thought) for a very sensible series of photos with helmets, ladders and hosepipes n'all - absolutely no innuendo there, and the muscles were well and truly hidden under bulky fireproof clothing. Oh well, at least the money goes to a good cause.

However, if you fancy a glimpse of more rugbymen...

Things about Borat...

2006-11-12T18:51:00.000+01:00

The film opens in France this week (Wednesday)

A Turkish guy, Mahir Cagri claims Cohen has pinched his idea

Two fraternity members from a South Carolina university are suing Fox saying they were duped into making racist and sexist remarks.

The film may be banned in Russia

The population of Glod, a remote village in Romania which Borat used to represent Kazakhstan, feel cheated by the actor and have also decided to sue.

I think Cohen got his idea from Tom Hank's character in The Terminal

The film is No 1 at the box office in the US and GB.

You can never get enough publicity!

What about Christmas?

2006-11-11T10:01:00.000+01:00

Yesterday, they were putting up the Christmas lights, blocking half the road on my route to work. Perhaps they won't be turned on straight away but anyway, they will be there until the end of January. I remember feeling very ill-at-ease my first year in France when they didn't take the decorations down on the 6th. (It still doesn't feel right to me). The French also wait till after Christmas to send greetings for the New Year. It is acceptable to send these throughout the month of January so there is not the same pre-Christmas-last-posting-date panic here.

The weather has turned cold, car windscreens sport a layer of frost every morning. Christmas is in the air but we still haven't received any toys catalogues! What is going on? Okay, we got one catalogue from one of the super-cheapo stores, whose name rhymes with iffy, and the really-too-cheap-for-comfort prices smell of child labour and baaaaad quality, and one mail order catalogue which caters for the 0-3 age group, but from the biggies - nothing. Bearing in mind Christmas is only six weeks away, those lists really need to get done and sent off to FC in the NPole so that he can get working on it and won't be caught in a last minute shopping panic.

La reine du peuple

2006-10-29T09:21:00.000+01:00

On 31st August 1997, we were staying with my sister-in-law in Lille. Our baby sons were getting to know each other - us too. I remember my sister-in-law announcing in a trembling voice that she had some bad news for me. She told me about Diana’s accident. I was curious about the details but not heartbroken about the death of the ‘People’s Princess’. Perhaps I have some royal blood in me?!

Watching The Queen and the portrayal of the Diana-mania which built up after her death, I realised the intensity of the situation. All that emotion let loose, fuelled by the media. We had not felt that in France, although we had seen all the pictures.

The casting for the film was wonderful, and the screenplay showed once again that less in more (if only French screenwriters would cotton on to that one!). The scenery was breathtaking and made me realise just how wealthy the royal family are.

At one stage Tony Blair announces to the Queen that one in four people want to abolish the royal family. I’m wondering where she stands in the popularity stakes 9 years on, and what effect the film will have on them.

Finally, I heard recently that Ségolène Royal had been booed by her party members during a debate with the other two socialist candidates. Suddenly, her popularity was slipping in the surveys as she came under attack from the party elephants. As she looked momentarily fragile, I couldn’t help comparing her to Diana, the pretty, modern woman, alone against the establishment. What with her surname and all, is Ségolène going to be France’s future People’s Princess/President???!

Un very long dimanche de fiançailles

2006-10-21T17:40:00.000+02:00

Not having read ecstatic enough reviews of this at the time, I decided to wait for the DVD. Then we had to wait for enough time to watch the DVD as it lasts well over two hours. In the end we watched it in two gos (never a good idea!)

There is no disputing the fact that the filming is beautiful. Jeunet obviously made the most of his budget to capture corn fields, libraries, railway stations and lighthouses from all angles, as well as the stark contrasts of the WW1 trenches, and the spectacular hospital in the Zeppelin hangar.

The opening scene was suitably ‘hooky’ as we were introduced to five soldiers being led through the trenches to their deaths (?). Each had his own mini-bio and reason for the auto-mutilation that led him to be tried for treason. One of these men was the fiancé who Amél - I mean – Mathilde spent her time looking for throughout the film.

Mathilde had a lot in common with Amélie apart from being created by the same director and played by the same actress. She was a loner and had suffered from a childhood illness. She hooked up with a loner-boyfriend. She came across a box of tricks and then had a mystery to solve. She found happiness in the end BUT it took a looooong time.

However, unlike Amélie, this film failed to hook me. Mathilde embarked on her quest for truth and justice but I didn’t really care. Perhaps if I’d watched it on the big screen (i.e. had paid more attention!) I’d have got more into it, but I found myself struggling to work out who the characters were each time and what the consequences of each discovery was.

Even when the childhood relationship was eventually shown (after about 50 mins), I wasn’t particularly convinced. (although I did like the shots of the lighthouse). It was almost as if the ‘shock opening’ had cheated us. I felt like I do when I read a hyped-up bestseller which opens with a bang and then trots along without ever getting back up to that initial high. Perhaps this story, which was mostly told by a narrator anyway, might have benefited from being told in a more chronological order. Perhaps if the narration had been conveyed in the subtext rather than been laid out for us, the characters might have been forced to work more for us.

Whatever the case, I don’t feel the need to see another film directed by JPJ with AT in the leading role.