French Leave

The Man from the Maine et Loire...

2012-02-02T01:27:00.000+01:00

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Ah, Victor!

Maurice! Yes...a glass of Albert's...while there's still some left. Turns out he's not the only one with esca in his vines...old Robert has it as well but he's keeping mum.

Clement was in earlier...says he saw a foreign car in your yard this afternoon while he was valuing a house for Maitre Plouc. Wondered if you were selling up or what.

No...and if I had been I wouldn't go to Plouc in any case. Sits on your money for months. Probably uses it to go on holiday!

Not from what Clement says.
He reckons Plouc has political ambitions.
Never in the office, always shut up with Lepalfrenier on the Conseil General.
Trying to get him to retire and let Plouc have the candidacy, Clement reckons.

It'll take more than a few piddling house sales to get enough to satisfy Lepalfrenier!

Well, I expect Plouc can put a few juicy morsels his way by way of property...widows selling up, kids inheriting and living away...relying on Plouc's advice as to price and glad when he turns up with an client with money in these hard times....oh, I reckon Plouc could pull it off.

Well, not with mine he won't!

So who was your foreign visitor? Your farm's hardly a tourist attraction, especially after that accident in your yard with your biogas experiment.
Manure everywhere.

Well, manure's how I met him, this man from the Maine et Loire.
After the accident, the gendarmerie got nasty, not to speak of the Prefecture - I've even had men in hazard gear poking round the farm frightening the cows, you wouldn't believe the half of it, - and then old Joel the deputy maire came up with this idea to put me back in everyone's good books.
Pays me back for helping him out when they were going to do him for running an illegal bar.
He'd had this paper for ages, lying around, didn't even pin it on the board because he couldn't see any farmer bothering about something so fartarse, but then, when the shit hit the fan, he remembered it and brought it round.

What was it? Another EU directive?

Well, in a way. It's to do with this biodoversity rubbish. You know, not to use herbicide and insecticide where people can see you, stuff like that, only this time it's a course.

What, like having to take your driving test again for being a naughty boy?

No, nothing like that. It's a course in how to tart up your farm.

I bet it's not called that!

No, some nonsense about blending in with the landscape...though how you do that with a silo is beyond me..

And how much does the course cost?

Nothing!
There's EU grants for the people to run the course and the EU give you eighty per cent of seven thousand euros to do the tarting up. Not bad, eh? Over five thousand euros!

Yes, but you've got to find the other twenty per cent...

Ah, this is where the man from the Maine et Loire comes in!
He's the landscape gardener who's paid to advise us...does two visits over the six months the course runs. Well, I've got a lot of manure I can't shift because the slurry pit isn't repaired yet and his brother in law needs manure for his plant business up in Mayenne.

Yes, but you don't have a permit to sell manure and I can't see them granting you one as things stand....

Who's talking about selling anything? I invoice him for the bits of metal lying about the yard, which he'll use in designing poncy gardens for Parisians, and deliver them on a bed of manure. He pays me the twenty per cent and I get the trees and plants from his brother.
Win win!

With all this Greek business going on it's a wonder the EU is still dishing out grants for nonsense like this....

Oh, the man from the Maine et Loire explained it all to me.
Apparently they've got all these bureaucrats in Brussels and they keep on inventing things to spend money on to keep themselves in a job.....and they have to please the Greens by doing crackpot things like straw houses and wind farms and suchlike, so they think up something, call it biodiversity and that keeps everyone happy.
Anyway, as he said, why look a gift horse in the mouth...take it while you can...
So I did.

So what did he suggest for your place? To tart it up, like?

Well, he took a good look and he suggested the best thing to do was to plant a two metre high living osier barrier along that stream by the road in front of the farm...where the run off from the cattle sheds is...his brother can do that.....and then two lines of Leylandii behind that. He reckons by the time they grow a bit you won't be able to see the farm at all.
Best of all it won't cost too much and I can spend the rest on geraniums for the wife and some more fruit trees round the back.
Win win!

But I thought it had to blend in with the landscape....

It will! That's the whole point!
It'll blend in with the Leylandii hedge the English over the road put in so they didn't have to look at my farm!
Win win!

When did you last burn Joan of Arc

2012-01-24T17:39:00.002+01:00

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While living in France, I wasn't one to take Sunday drives...the price of diesel for one thing and disinclination to move from the garden for another.

Friends visiting, however, called for efforts to be made and we used to roam the small roads, with a vague aim in mind for somewhere to picnic....as by the time you'd shifted them out of bed, stuffed them with croissants and herded them out to the cars it was a sure fire bet that no restaurant would be open by the time we reached any selected destination.

Most friends had made many annual visits to us and 'done' the tourist sites, so were looking for the 'real' France...whatever they thought that might be.

Country drives were the answer.
Not so much in the immediate surroundings where most villages would have been in fierce competition for the 'most banal in France' category, but a little further off...in limestone country, where the houses gleamed white and cream in the afternoon sun.
Picture book France.

With a few favourite brocantes and antiquaires....junk in all its forms and prices.....along the way.

On one journey to a much favoured junk shop we would descend from the heights...cross a bridge over the Dive...and drive through a village with the remains of a medieval fortress on the hill up from the bridge....Curcay sur Dive.

We crossed without incident...but had we come this way in the Hundred Years War, this would have been a frontier between England and France, or, more accurately, English and French territory and we would have risked considerably more than a gendarme jumping out with a breathalyser.

The tranquil Dive was at that time not the tamed, canalised stream that we knew, but a series of watercourses running through marshes between the heights on either side...a real obstacle.

The only crossing was the old double arched bridge in the photograph above, said to date from the time of St. Louis and named for his mother, Queen Blanche of Castille.

There are a whole range of fortresses guarding Loudon (French held territory) from incursions by the English installed to the south and west.....

Curcay sur Dive itself

Ranton

Ternay....the old fortress destroyed and replaced by the modern chateau which is today a hotel...

While my favourite...Berrie... to the north was held by English adherents, the Tremouille family.

This disputed ground had long been inhabited...surviving dolmens bear witness above ground....while archaeologists find remains of gallo roman and merovingian settlements below....only the experience of war led people to take shelter in the caves in the limestone which exist under all of these fortresses.

Du Guesclin reduced the English strongholds one by one and relative peace returned to the area...apart from the raiding bands of paid off mercenaries.

When hostilities started up again some forty years later the action was mostly up to the north and east, as Joan of Arc galvanised the Dauphin into action to reclaim the kingdom signed away by his father.

As I say, we had no difficulty crossing into 'French' territory physically...but do we find difficulty into crossing into French territory mentally, or culturally?

On holiday, there is not generally the opportunity. Too little time, too many places to see, or just the wish to collapse into a lounger and forget the world of work.

With a holiday home there is some involvement...paying your taxes, having your chimney swept, meeting the same people in the local superette....but I have come to think that it is not until you live full time in France that you get to grips with how it all works, how people think,....and your own reaction to it all.

I'd moved for financial motives.....but thought that, having travelled widely in France, learned the language and studied the history I would acclimatise fairly easily, and in one way I did.

The area in which I began my life in France was not rich, it did not attract important people for the holidays, there were no big houses except the dilapidated chateau up the road which was being turned into a privately run children's home.

Most of my neighbours were elderly, all were friendly, and the maire and her staff were extremely helpful, in the sense that I left them alone and they left me alone.

I made friends...I went everywhere I was invited and used my ears and eyes.

It became apparent that the words over the door of the mairie - Liberty, Equality, Fraternity - were a parody of the reality.

Coming from a culture where central government was viewed with a high degree of scepticism, where newspapers (pre-Murdoch) investigated and criticised and where (pre-Blair) one was not afraid of the police I found I was living in a society where you could not tell an officious gendarme where to get off (outrage), where the press 'confused' a respect for the private life of people in the public eye with a cover up of corruption and traffic of influence and where government had the last word.

People knew their place.

The phrase I heard over and over again was

'Nous sommes pour rien'...We don't count...

There was a lack of confidence in oneself...nurtured, in my view, not only by the hierarchical nature of society but by an education system in which was there was not only just one correct answer...but also just one correct question; where mistakes were treated with scorn rather than used as opportunities for explanation.

Thus people who had learned English at school hesitated to use it for fear of making a mistake...while I burbled on regardless.

A good French friend, principal of a maternelle, used to joke that I was a woman with no past and no future, such was my lack of acquaintance with either tense when speaking French in the early days...I recognised the tenses when I read them, but for speaking it was the present every time...and I'm going through the same stage with Spanish now.

Friends who talked about politics and explained political structures to me were convinced that the Mitterand reforms, decentralising government, were a force for the bad because they brought about the rise of local political barons, whose snouts were ever seeking new troughs and, over the years since, I am convinced that my friends were right.

In practice these string pullers are the medieval baron restored to life....they exercise middle and low justice through the local courts; they have a privileged financial position as the local tax offices look the other way and they almost inevitably live in chateaux.

Then there was the chauvinism....not met so much among my elderly neighbours, but prevalent among those who felt themselves to be of a more exalted order...accountants, architects and suchlike, whose answer to queries was simple and universal.

'This is France!'

French practice was best...unquestionably...in everything.

I beg leave to differ.

A country which produces the andouillette has a lot of explaining to do.

As does a country which uses coefficients to complicate what should be simple.

The reaction of these people to dissent was speedy and unpleasant.

What would a foreigner know about anything?

Especially one from a country that does not respect reason.

A country that is duplicitous.

And...wait for it...

A country that burned Joan of Arc!

I could not believe this the first time I heard it...but I was to hear it many times over the years.

It always amazed me that the very people who were proclaiming the superiority of France as based on the use of reason could come up with this particular gem.

My reply used to be

Yes, we burned her...but you sold her.'

Which went down like the offer of steak tartare at a coven of vegans.

The Front National (right wing) think a great deal of Joan of Arc....the woman who kicked out the foreigners.

I used to know a number of FN supporters and used to joke with them about how long would I have to pack my suitcases when they came to power.

The answer was always the same....

Oh, not you and people like you......it's the foreigners living on benefits....who won't speak French...who live in ghettos.

So should Marine Le Pen do the unthinkable and win the Presidential election that's most of the British expats on the ferry for home, then...

No Chateaux... no Culture...no Croissants - My France

2012-01-18T22:03:00.000+01:00

Alone in the house, I had been able to rise early (midnight) to listen to the Test Match Special team commentate on the first day of the Test match against Pakistan in Dubai.
The dogs went out dutifully then returned to their beds, flicking the odd glance at me, huddled up in my old djellabah with a cup of tea and plate of Marmite toast alongside the computer.
Bliss.

And then England collapsed....wicket after wicket.....exciting stuff, but not the performance expected of the team rated first in Test cricket.

The light came up, and I went out onto the balcony for the part of the morning I like the best...when the sun rises over the mountain behind the house and hits Grifo Alto across the valley, making that great bluff a soft golden ball emerging from the shadowy woods below.

The solitude ended quickly. I had hardly done the watering and fed the chicks before the Man from ICE was at the door.
ICE - the electricity board - wanted to reroute its lines along the road rather than crossing private property....fine with me....but needed my permission to cut back two branches of the huge higueron tree which stands guard over the water tank on my land.
Fine.
There was a consent form to sign, so he came in to the house and accepted a cool drink while we undertook the formalities....and I had to dig out my passport as I had forgotten my passport number.

English! He exclaimed.

I have learned by now not to complicate things by mentioning Scotland on first acquaintance so I agreed.

Big Ben! Houses of Parliament! Westminster Abbey! Trafalgar Square! Nelson!

The Man from ICE was a fan of London...big time. He wanted to go there, but...the money...

He departed and I decided to set up the lap top which I had bought in London.
I looked at it...it looked at me...and I decided to do something else.

The weeding was interrupted by American friends bringing their visitors over for a coffee....
The conversation came round to 'and how did you come to Costa Rica?' as it always does, but on hearing that I had previously lived in France, the jaws dropped, the eyes widened and out it all came!

Paris! The fashions! The croissants! Pavement cafes! Boules! Provence! The food! The wine! The culture!

Slapping down the temptation to say

All good reasons for leaving

Which would have been neither polite nor totally accurate I let them bubble on...but when the house was quiet again I started thinking about my own images of France.....if asked, what would mine be?

The true treasure was the time spent with friends...but that's universal. The sure knowledge that you'll be greeted with a smile is one of the best feelings in the world.

But as for France itself....

Driving back from the hospital in the late afternoons over the plains around Poitiers two sights would always lift me....

The first, lying back from the road, the tiny church of St.Martin at Noize, a place of worship long before St. Hilaire brought his brand of Christianity to the pagans of the area.

Closed for years because of its poor state of repair, locals got together to put it into some sort of order and it is now, once again, a place of worship.
It is a simple building dating back to the tenth and eleventh centuries, but has an atmosphere of stillness and peace sometimes lacking in more elaborate surroundings.

Then, soon after, the necropolis of Taize, the dolmens rising from the surrounding farmland....man has been here a long time which could be a comforting thought after hospital visiting.

And when feeling in the mood for a good time...nothing better than Le Trianon at Saumur...

with Monsieur Jacques in fine form...

and the fellow customers giving the only example I came across in France of the craic. Good times!

And the end of holiday river festival...le Rendez-vous de l'Erdre....the river running into the Loire at Nantes, lined with the mansions of of the merchants who had made their pile from the trade in tobacco and brandy.
This always gave a great day out....boats of all sizes and shapes, from rowing boats to a steam tug via gondolas and traditional working boats....jazz bands on the river and in every nook and cranny ashore...the muscadet flowing like the river and teenagers sniggering about 'voile et vapeur'.

Earlier in the year...and earlier in my years..I used to be invited to sail in what was then le Raid du Golfe...now much more elaborate and called la Semaine du Golfe, up in the Morbihan....a video clip will give you a taste...

Although as far as boats are concerned, the thrill of my life was to be invited aboard a garbare at Nantes

although not La Montjeannaise shown above, and to sail down the estuary on a cold spring day which promised rain and squalls.....a promise duly fulfilled.
Hair plastered to my face, my jeans running dye over my shoes I was absolutely exhilarated as the squall filled that vast sail and a ton of wooden boat lifted her nose and planed!

Back on dry land I have good memories of the troglodyte village at Tourtenay....not least because when taking my mother on a tour of the landing sites where a Lysander would drop off and pick up British agents during the Occupation we heard an elderly man in the group comment to his mate
'She doesn't have bad legs for her age!'...

The current village stands on a limestone bluff which, since the third century has been used as a place of refuge. Part of it has been sold off as a 'police' training area, but in the part still accessible is a wonderful underground pigonnier...

I love the revolving ladder for checking the nests...and I miss the grandad in the cardigan who owned the vines on the land above.

But my most abiding memory is one which I have no photograph to illustrate....and it comes back to friendship.

Sitting under the cherry tree in Madeleine's garden with the others she'd invited to lunch, the tranny playing in the branches to deter the birds and a glass of Suze with ice cubes in hand - all talking politics!

The dentists waiting room.

2012-01-06T23:07:00.000+01:00

Image via Wikipedia

The door to the waiting room opens and the occupants look up as the newcomer salutes them.

'Bonjour, Messieurs..Dames'

'Bonjour, Monsieur' comes the subdued reply from a chorus of swollen jaws.

'Ah, Roger! I'll take the corner seat near you. How are things?'

'Oh, not so bad Jean Marie, not so bad...I've got this filling that that butcher over at Partouze le Bains was supposed to have done and it's come out. Giving me gip.'

'You're lucky that Mme. Forage could see you...her list is full to overflowing.'

'Well, I'm on the list, it's just that she was on holiday when I had the toothache....'

'So what happens now she's retiring this year? There's no one else nearer than that butcher and it's no better if you try to find a dentist in Chiottes la Gare or Benitierville...same story, all their lists are full.'

'I hear some councillor had the bright idea of having vets fill in for the shortage of doctors in rural areas....they could fill in for dentists as well while they're at it! They might even do house calls! And come out at night rather than tell you to ring the emergency services!'

'It would never work...the local doctors and dentists would never stand for it....the vets might do a better job...after all, their patients bite if they're not happy.'

No...something helpful, they'll squash that before it starts.'

'Mme. Forage is running a bit late, isn't she? Not like her.'

'No...she's got an emergency. Albert from the superette. He's had a bit of an accident.'

'Not that old Solex of his....I've been telling him for ages he'll have an accident cornering the Place de l'Eglise like that over those cobbles they put down.'

No, nothing like that...it happened in the tax office at Chiottes la Gare.'

'What was he doing there? The nearest he goes to them is posting his tax returns through their letterbox after dark on the last day for returning the forms.'

'It's about the new VAT rules. He got himself into a bit of a paddy about it all and went to see them.'

'Well, how does it affect him?'

'Because they've put VAT up on some of the stuff he sells in his superette and the whole thing's a minefield.
As far as I can understand it, they want to discourage people from eating fast food...so up goes the VAT.'

'What, pizzas and things?'

'Yes...unless they're frozen. And soft drinks and suchlike. According to Albert, if you sell a fruit drink in one of those plastic cups with a lid...it's 7 %. If you sell the same thing in a box...it's 5.5%.'

'Mad...totally mad.'

'That's what Albert says. He's having to alter his till to cope with it. They don't think these things through, either. Albert says that if he sells one of those snack lunch packs...you know, the sandwich with a serviette and plastic kinife...then it's fast food and it's 7 %. If he sells it on its own...then it's 5.5%.
Now my son in law works for old Duvenin...they've got big contracts for plastic packaging and I bet they do those lunch packs....so that'll be another contract down the tubes.'

'So he went in to kick up, then?'

'No, he went in to demonstrate that there was no real difference. That it was absurd. And to kick up.
He took one of his frozen pizzas -5.5% - and one of the chilled ones - 7%, then one of those soft drinks in a cup - 7% - and another in a box - 5.5%.
By the time he got there the frozen pizza was starting to defrost a bit and by the time he got in the office it was well on the way. Just the way it would be if you bought them in his superette and took them home.'

'Not if you had an igloo bag...'

'Albert doesn't sell igloo bags.
Anyway, he pulled all this out of his shopping bag and started to demonstrate that there was no difference.
He opened the plastic cup with his fingers and tore the box open with his teeth. Same amount of time.
'Where's the difference?' he asked.
It was when he got to the pizzas that he had the problems.
He tore a piece off the chilled one and then a piece off the defrosted one. Same amount of time.'

'So where was the problem?'

'That blasted new man. He said he wasn't convinced that the frozen pizza was in the same state as the chilled one and that if Albert expected him to write a report then Albert would have to show him that one was as ready to eat as the other. By eating them.
Albert said he could try them himself if he liked but he said he had every confidence in Albert's veracity.

Albert managed the bit of frozen pizza, no problem at all...it was when he started on the chilled one that his tooth broke off in the dough...'

'Probably weakened opening the box....'

Just a little something for the weekend....from Rue 89.

2011-12-31T22:21:00.000+01:00

For the French speakers among you....General de Gaulle gives his New Year message...from the Other Side........where not even Sarkozy can have him put in detention for 'outrage' to a serving President.

Source...Rue 89, to whom many thanks and awaiting the royalty bill in the new year.

Tennyson

2011-12-31T03:20:00.000+01:00

'Ring out, wild bells, to the wild sky;
The flying cloud, the frosty light;
The year is dying in the night;
Ring out, wild bells, and let him die.

Ring out the old, ring in the new,
Ring, happy bells across the snow:
The year is going, let him go:
Ring out the false, ring in the true.

Ring out the grief that saps the mind
For those that here we see no more:
Ring out the feud of rich and poor
Ring in redress to all mankind.

Ring out a slowly dying cause,
And ancient forms of party strife;
Ring in the nobler modes of life,
With sweeter manners, purer laws.

Ring out the want, the care, the sin,
The faithless coldness of the times;
Ring out, ring out thy mournful rhymes,
But ring the fuller minstrel in.

Ring out false pride in place and blood
The civic slander and the spite;
Ring in the love of truth and right,
Ring in the common love of good.

Ring out old shapes of foul disease,
Ring out the narrowing lust of gold;
Ring out the thousand years of war,
Ring in the thousand years of peace.

Ring in the valiant man and free,
The larger heart, the kindlier hand;
Ring out the darkness of the land,
Ring in the Christ that is to be.

Tennyson.... 'In Memoriam'

But it won't happen unless we all put our hands to the bell rope.

If You Go Down to the Sales Today...

2011-12-28T00:26:00.000+01:00

Image by Nils Geylen via Flickr

In the U.K., you had just recovered from Christmas when The Sales were upon you and if you were of the tendency that has had its eye on a particular cashmere jersey for three months but baulked at the price tag, then you would sharpen up your elbows and head for the shops.

In France, of course, these things are better regulated....well, the French shopkeepers think they are.
You can't just have sales when you feel like it, that would be unfair competition for those who didn't feel like it, so you all have to have sales at the same time - though there are shops which get round this by frequently 'liquidating' their stock ahead of remodelling the store...i.e., moving a cash desk.

It's not worth nipping out between Christmas and New Year in search of bargains in the supermarkets either.
Those chocolates will not be reduced by fifty per cent until the last member of the family has returned to work after the break and the womens' magazines are full of post holiday diets.....
While as for the turkeys, it is amazing how a bird with a sell by date of 31/12 and present on the shelves at closing time on 30/12 can have metamorphosed into full price turkey portions with a sell by date of 07/01 by opening time on the next day instead of whole bird marked down to half price.
Just who was it who was supposed to be 'a nation of shopkeepers'?

Having moved to Costa Rica and experienced supermarket shopping here there are two things I could recommend to Mssrs. Leclerc et al. for their French operations....

One.
Armed guards on the car park who also note any damage to your car and stick a note on the windscreen as to circumstances thereof.

This would put a stop to the wild side swiping and bumper crushing so typical of French supermarket carparks, though I'm not sure that I wouldn't prefer the perpetrators to be shot rather than just identified....
Especially when they try to claim on your insurance on the lines of Old Harry's marine insurance claim...
'Stationary end of pier slot machine flying no signals carried away my jibboom...'

It would also empty the car park of 'gens de voyage' threatening to smear your car windows with filthy rags while attempting to sell you overpriced baskets made in China.

Two.
Car parks that are designed for people with large cars and larger ideas of space when it comes to parking them......

A far cry from my local French supermarkets which always seemed to be arranged in a herringbone fashion with the one way systems deliberately arranged so as to make turning into the spaces provided as difficult as possible and extricating your car an exercise in gymnastics when the two bright sparks who have parked on either side of you while you are shopping decide to huddle close to you in case of a German invasion.

I have entered my car via the hatchback more than once.....and, thanks to the brainwashing administered by my schoolmistresses, have done so by sitting on the tailgate and wriggling forward backwards, if you see what I mean, to avoid awarding passersby an unseemly view of my backside - something we were always solemnly warned to avoid.
We used to speculate about these shibboleths as schoolgirls...but, ours not to reason why, ours just to get a slipped disc obeying the rules.

Had suggestion Two been adopted in the north of France we might not have had the incident of the 'doigt d'honneur'....the raised finger which is the French equivalent of the 'V' sign.

Two drivers, one male one female, were competing for a car parking space....and from my experience it isn't just the shortage of places which is the problem, but the awkwardness of design that makes manoevring such a nightmare.
Both became incensed and high words were exchanged.
Finally the woman managed to park and the man drove off, but not before giving her the finger.
Typical car park rage.....

But not a typical outcome.
The woman was a deputy maire in the town in which the car park was situated. After doing her shopping she complained to the police who, instead of uttering soothing words, shot off to arrest the man.
He was an immigrant. From his name one would imagine that he did not have the typical Nordic colouring.

He found himself held at the police station for forty eight hours.....the police could not do this on their own initiative, they needed the permission of the public prosecutor....the 'procureur'.

The charges? 'Outrage' to a representative of the state...to wit, a deputy maire....one of the many classes of person so protected...everything from a gendarme to the President.

The man said he did not know she was a deputy maire....the woman admitted that nothing he said indicated that he knew...the man admitted making the gesture....so...a storm in a teacup.

No.
He was brought to court and the procureur sought a sentence of five months in the jug...on the grounds that elected representatives and functionaries of the state were entitled to protection at all times, even if not in pursuance of their duties.

A dangerous doctrine.
Wives of councillors who give them a curtain lecture on the virtues of correct positioning of the loo seat risk being bundled off to the cells in their negliges....
A landowner who finds the maire illegally fishing in his lake and gives him the verbal one two might find himself wrapped in his own lines and carted away....
Carla Bruni, upbraiding the President for not getting up for the night feeds, might find herself following Marie Antoinette to la Conciergerie...so handy for the Palais de Justice...

Clearly, the judge....another whose name does not bring up associations of blond hair and blue eyes...was aware of the dangers.

He fined the man 38 Euros.
For insults...not 'outrage'.

And they worry that Le Pen might gain power.....

Spanish practices.....

2011-12-26T17:28:00.000+01:00

Which may explain some of the problems of the clubmed countries in stimulating their economies.....

Merry Christmas

2011-12-22T11:49:00.000+01:00

My favourite French carol...so soothing after a surfeit of commercial muzak in the supermarkets....I hope you enjoy it.

I have given the words below...please forgive the background as I had to copy and paste to keep the accents!

Quelle est cette odeur agréable,

bergers, qui ravit tous nos sens?

S'exhale t'il rien de semblable
au milieu des fleurs du printemps?
Quelle est cette odeur agréable
bergers, qui ravit tous nos sens?

Mais quelle éclatante lumière
Dans la nuit vient frapper nos yeux
L'astre de jour, dans sa carrière,
Fu-til jamais si radieux!
Mais quelle éclatante lumière
Dans la nuit vient frapper nos yeux

Voici beaucoup d'autres merveilles!
Grand Dieu! qu'entends-je dans les airs?
Quelles voix! Jamais nos oreilles
N'ont entendu pareils concerts.
Voici beaucoup d'autres merveilles!
Grand Dieu! qu'entends-je dans les airs?

Ne craignez rien, peuple fidèle
Écoutez l'Ange du Seigneur;
Il vous annonce une merveille
Qui va vous combler de bonheur.
Ne craignez rein, peuple fidèle
Écoutez l'Ange du Seigneur.

A Bethléem, dans une crêche
Il vient de vous naitre-un Sauveur
allons, que rien ne vous empêche
D'adorer votre redémpteur
A Bethléem, dans une crêche,
Il vient de vous naître-un Sauveur.

Dieu tout puissant, gloire éternelle
vous soit rendue jus-qu'aux cieux.
Que la paix soit universelle
que la grace abonde en tous lieux.
Dieu tout puissant, gloire éternelle
vous soit rendue jus-qu'aux cieux

And meanwhile, as Merkozy fiddles....

2011-12-19T22:32:00.000+01:00

Image via Wikipedia

The gendarmerie van pulls up in the farmyard. Its sole occupant gets out and heads for the barn.

Hoy! Victor! You there?

In here....in the tractor shed...I'm overhauling the muckspreader. Well, you're a stranger these days....what fine breeze blows you in my direction? Here....let's drink to it.

Well, I'm on duty..

So who's going to breathalyse you?

Yes...well, go on then. What've you got there...is that Albert's?

Yes, a good drop, make the most of it, he's got esca in the vines and he'll be pulling a lot out this winter...
Anyway, what's it all about? I see you're on your own...

Yes, I wanted a quiet word...

If it's about young Laurent's speeding ticket then all I can say is that one of those Parisians with holiday homes round here must have copied his numberplate...
How the hell could my muckspreader be doing 170 kilometres on the periphique at three in the morning!

No, no...that'll get sorted out. But the muckspreader is involved, in a way...there've been complaints.

Complaints? What about? If that's those English again complaining about me not ploughing in Bernard's duck manure for him for over a week ...when we had that hot spell a way back...they can just forget it. They're living in the country, not the middle of London.

No...but you know you're supposed...

I know what I'm supposed to do, but I was organising the Algerian veterans do what with Jean-Antoine being ill...and anyway, it's Bernard's responsibility to get it ploughed in in twenty four hours, not mine...I was just giving him a hand.
So what's it about if it's not the manure?

Well, it is the manure....you seem to be collecting a lot of it.

And if I am? Not illegal, is it? I'm a farmer. Farmers always have manure.

Yes, of course.....but there have been complaints that you're not keeping it in an approved manner...you don't have it drained and whatnot in accordance with EU regulations.... it's all in your barns.....piles of it.

You'd think people would have something better to do...what business is it of theirs?

I don't suppose anyone would have been interested but after young Laurent drove the muckspreader through Ste. Conasse last week with the spreader attachment still going, it caused a bit of ill feeling...

With all this rubbish going on about the euro you'd think they had other things to worry about!
I'm sorry if Mme. d'Enculade got her car covered in it, but that's life in the country!

From what I hear it was lucky the cold snap had started...if people had had their windows open you'd have had a delegation round your ears in a flash and a fair few claims for compensation.
Still, let's stick to the point.
Do you or do you not have a slurry facility in line with EU regulations?

Yes, you know I have...your son's girlfriend works for old Machin who installed it.

So why is all that muck stored in your barns?
I hope you've not been buying it....no one round here has a permit to sell manure..

No, people without 'a slurry facility in line with EU regulations' have been giving it me......for my project.

And what might that be?

Well, with all this crisis and whatnot, we're supposed only to buy things made in France...but there isn't much made here anymore so that's a bit difficult...look at my muckspreader...made in Italy!

I don't know who you think would be buying manure in those quantities Victor...but you'll still need a permit to sell it...even if you stick a tricolour on it.

I tell you, I'm not buying or selling manure!
I was wondering what to do to make a few bob extra....on the small scale, you understand...and then it came to me!
People are getting paid God knows what to make those windmill things...which is why the electricity bills will be going up again...so what about something much more efficient....
Biogas! Made in France!

From the manure?

Yes, to start with...but you can use anything organic. Next year, the supermarkets are going to have to recycle all the stuff they chuck out in their bins and my idea is to get this up and running and go for a contract with The Mutant over in Les Deux Biscouilles.....
They pay me to take it away and I make the gas and sell it!
Win win!

But manure's not the same thing as supermarket waste.....oh no! Don't tell me that's you!

What's me?

The dustmen are complaining that someone took all their food waste bins from here, St. Ragondin and Ste. Conasse this week.....

Well, yes...I wanted to see how it would work so I got young Laurent to nip round the night before the collection and pick them all up...a sort of dry run for The Mutant contract.
Don't worry, I've got all the bins hosed out and he'll take them back as soon as he gets back from the dump...

Where, I suppose, he is dumping all the containers and wrappers....

What do you think we are! We're not fly tipping. This is professional.

And I suppose he'spaying the professional rate at the dump?

No, or course not...we're farmers.....

Isn't it a bit messy, this food recycling?

I should say so...Laurent had to take a shower and put his clothes in the wash by the time he'd finished...but it won't be so bad with the supermarket packs, they won't have been opened and squashed up with other stuff.
I was thinking that I could hire a couple of English pensioners to do the dirty work....they're all on their uppers with the pound the way it is...

Was,Victor, was. The way the euro is going the English will be the only ones with any money round here...apart from the politicians, that is.

Well, all the more reason to diversify...the biogas. It's a way of showing your patriotism...not just national but local....environmentally friendly...
It's win win!

So where are you making this stuff? The food waste gas, I mean?

I've fixed up the old root clamp...few valves and whatnot...it'll be a few days before it gets started properly, but I've already got the manure started...in the slurry facility in line with EU regulations. That's going well. I'll soon be able to sell it off.

But how are you going to sell it? You can't lay pipelines all over the commune?

No, I'd thought of using that old pump I used to use for the tractors......people can bring their cubis and fill them up at the pump....just like getting your wine in bulk...

Victor, you can't just start up like this. Where are your permits? Have you contacted the Fire Brigade for an inspection? Gas is dangerous stuff!

Typical! No wonder France is in a mess!
You get an idea to make a few bob and help the environment - just like these firms flogging windmills - and the next thing you know it's permits and inspections and all to be paid before before you see a penny...and when you do make a penny you've got the taxman hanging on one of your balls and the social security on the other...all useless mouths!

And don't go on to me about safety...I've worked it all out and there's nothing to worry about.

If the worst came to the worst and the tank explodes my bungalow is behind the cattle sheds so I'll be sheltered from the blast....I can claim the sheds and the animals and whatnot on the insurance and the only house in the path of the blast is owned by English.

And anyway, there won't be an accident. Young Laurent has made this sign to hang on the pump.
What do you think? You can't miss it! And it's in two languages!

Defense de fumer
Now smoking.

Fog in the Channel, continent isolated.

2011-12-10T20:09:00.000+01:00

Image by Getty Images via @daylife

Well, that's got the Front National vote sewn up ahead of the Presidential elections, hasn't it!
Booted the British out of play!
Who's a clever boy then?

President Sarkozy is triumphant.
He has saved the Euro.
He has used the British to ensure that Chancellor Merkel...the other half of the pantomime horse....can't settle the finances of the Eurozone by a European Union level treaty.
So no referendum, no unpleasantnesses....and no binding agreement to what he has signed up to do.

Cigar for the gentleman!

Whatever one might think of the financial legerdemain practised in the City of London, whose lack of regulation is a major factor in allowing the shenanigans of the likes of MF Global to take place, the City is a vital British interest, so it was easy to trap Cameron into vetoing a treaty.

So where are we now?

The French prime minister announces that there will be no more austerity measures...until he sees where he is after the first financial quarter next year.
Election year, so no surprise there, then.
The French public have enough worries with SNCF changing the train times without receiving further nasty shocks before deciding which head of the political hydra gets their vote.

Private investors don't get a haircut...i.e. banks get off scot free.
So that's secured the consultancy when political life is over, then...

And, best of all, there's no need to do anything about balancing the French books because there's no way the necessary measures will get the required majority, now that the Senate is in the hands of the PS (socialist party). They won't hear of it.

So, Sarkozy is in seventh heaven echoing the prayer of Augustine....
Make me (financially) chaste, but not yet......

If ever....

Non!

2011-12-05T22:17:00.000+01:00

Image via Wikipedia

Watching the Merkozy Dance of Economic Death during this round of the Euro crisis made it clear that European political leaders leave a lot to be desired, running like headless chickens at the behest of 'the market' (which turns out to be a few banks) and attacking the interests of their own people.

Wondering how long it will be before we are trotting along to the Post Office (if not closed by 'austerity' measures) pushing wheelbarrows in which to take home the worthless paper in which our pensions will be paid, I see no one of the stature of Hjalmar Schacht on the horizon, to pull us out of the mess as he did for Germany in the twenties and thirties.
Let no one suggest Dominique Strauss-Kahn.....

Wishing that we hadn't let power fall into the hands of self perpetuating oligarchies who exclude all talent not under their control, I see nowhere in Europe anyone capable of putting life back into the real economies upon which, in the end, we depend.

The myth of the strong man is one to be resisted as a solution...there have been enough Stalins, Hiters, Maos in our lifetime....but there are temptations.....

What we need now is a remake of ....General de Gaulle.

Image via Wikipedia

A man who declared that you could bounce on your chair shouting Europe! Europe! Europe! for all you liked.....but that it meant nothing.
Forget slogans (for which read soundbites)....you had to see things as they were.

A man who devalued a currency to get an economy back on its feet.....not that my elderly neighbours in France took much notice, they were still thinking in 'old' francs fifty years after the event.
Just as they were still thinking in pounds and gallons two hundred years after the Revolution.

A man who declared that national policies did not depend on the state of the stock market.

A man who made America pay in gold, not in paper dollars, for the purchase of French assets.

A man who saw the morass into which France had staggered in Algeria....and got out.

A man who was honest with public money....if his family came to dinner at the Elysee, he paid what it cost to feed them.

A man with that forgotten virtue...courage. Walking unmoved down the nave of Notre Dame while Vichy sympathisers shot at him and his entourage dived for cover.

A man whose 'Non!' kept Britain out of Europe....if only the politicians of the time had taken heed!

The General in his pomp was quite something...and for those who remember those years here is a little song about him...in no way could it be described as a tribute....by Flanders and Swann...when they also were in their pomp.

Scrapple

2011-12-03T22:26:00.000+01:00

Image by cheflovesbeer via Flickr

I made scrapple yesterday, for the first time in years.
We had had for breakfast a new brand of oatmeal for porage which had been..to say the least..not up to sample.

Chuck it. Give it to the chickens.

I was going to do so when I thought of scrapple, that stalwart of the Scottish farmhouse table.

I had defrosted pork for a stew, so it was no problem to cut off a portion and simmer it, then shred the meat, add a finely diced onion and add oatmeal to simmer down with the cooking liquor, meat, salt and pepper.
Once cooled and set, egg and breadcrumbed and fried, it is the perfect accompaniment to a duck egg fried in butter.
Or mashed potatoes..
Or salad if you're feeling arterially encumbered.

Scrapple making coincided with an e mail from Gerard telling me, among other snippets, that his nephew had recently been 'enthroned' at the annual ceremony of the local wine confrerie.
These groups abound in France, promoting local products whether it be goat cheese

ordinary cheese

wine

or dried beans....

Not to speak of sardines and andouillettes. And when they all get together they look like this...

Not the Knights of the Garter, as you might be led to suppose,but a photograph of one of the assemblies of different confreries which mark the year in rural France.

They all seemed to go for medieval civic dress, just as comites des fetes always go for medieval fairs with people dressed up.

It's a pity that some of them also go in for old medieval practices such as charging a toll to get into the town for the event, which, at Chinon at least, used to lead to people swimming the river from the camp site, their bathing costumes blending nattily with the robes and wimples.

Still, returning to the confreries.

Every year, 'personalities' are enthroned...with usually a few local or national celebrities to leaven the lump of local politicians who need to be enthroned if next year's subsidy for the activities of the confrerie is to be forthcoming.

Gerard's nephew has the tourism brief in the nearby town.......

I don't know what the ceremonies are like in the dried bean confreries...and don't even want to know what they're like for the andouillette brigade....but I know what happens in the wine sector.

Or what used to happen.

The date would be set.

The officers of the confrerie would decide whom to enthrone.

The menu for the feast to follow the enthronement would be set, with much thumbing through Rabelais for the appropriate terms in which to describe the food under the guidance of the usual caterer who had the terms backwards by heart.

Other confreries would be invited.

The day would dawn.

Robes and hats would have been cleaned up and brushed down.

The officers would lead a procession of confreries through the town or village, each preceded by its banner, to the site of the ceremonies.

Some would be lucky, having vaulted wine cellars at their disposal...others had to make do with the salle des fetes - the village hall.

Audience seated, the chief officer, his colleagues around him, would welcome those present and then introduce, one by one, the candidates.

It was explained to them that they had to take an oath of fidelity to the confrerie and follow the instructions exactly...otherwise.there would be a forfeit.

The oath, Rabelaisien in character. was made up of double entendres, the hoary chestnuts being greeted with roars of laughter by the audience, after which the candidates, usually red in the face by that time, proceeded to the next stage of the enthronement.

It was explained to them that, having sworn an oath to defend the wine promoted by the confrerie, they must show that they fully appreciated its qualities.

They must toast the confrerie in a glass of its wine...and no heel taps.

Down in one.

The candidates lined up and the glasses were brought forward, to more roars from the audience as the candidates saw what awaited them...

A glass like a small bucket on a stand which held a half litre of wine. Down in one. No heel taps.

Generally they would meet the challenge...rumour had it that some of them had been practising.

To others it came naturally, especially among the ranks of the local politicians...but if there was a splutter, a pause...out came the forfeit.

Another small bucket on a stand with another half litre of wine...

And then it was on to the meal....thirteen courses the norm, each with its accompanying local wine and each announced in the language of Rabelais.

Toasts to the candidates.

Toasts to the visiting confreries.

Toasts returned to the host confrerie.

A toast to the caterer.

Reading the above you will see why these events always took place on a Saturday evening.

You needed the Sunday to replace your brain in your cranium.

Gerard says that times have changed.....and not for the better as far as he is concerned.

In these days of political correctness there's no more Rabelaisien 'do as you will'.....examples have to be set and conformed to.

The oath has been bowdlerised.

The toast is given in an ordinary tasting glass, only half full.

The dinner ends at eleven o'clock.

It seems a far cry from the likes of the old days of the Entonneurs Rabelaisiens de Chinon.....

More like the confrerie of the Solitary Scrappler of San Jose.

Mind your step.....

2011-11-25T19:30:00.000+01:00

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Something that struck me when I was first in France...before it faded into the background of normality...was the popularity of dancing.
There was always the bal populaire on July 13th after the fireworks where the activity would keep going until the small hours....the couscous supper and dancing organised by the PTA (well, parents d'eleves to be precise)...and the bacchanalia of the annual fire brigade ball.
Even the Croix d'Or (sort of Alcoholics Anonymous) had a dance, which confirmed my view that it was not just the alcohol consumption which made the feet fly faster as the night went on.
It was an intoxication of another sort...that of sheer pleasure.

The revival of traditional dancing took place while I was there...rondes, schottisches, two steps, to the point at which it is no longer something that figures as a curiosity at local fetes but has regular evening sessions where you are warned that the only respite will be mulled wine and a brioche at midnight!
Age is no barrier.
Most of those circling the room are well over fifty, while the perennial success of the 'the dansants' of the old age pensioners' clubs keep many a village hall in business.
They have a lot of energy, these French pensioners.

But dancing can have its hazards.....and not the ones you might expect seeing tidal waves of people advancing and retreating in the Argentinean Tango having, usually, drink taken.

Recently, at an OAPs' dance, there was an altercation which ended up in court.
A gentleman in his sixties was supposed to have shoved a lady of 70 not once but twice when she was visiting the ladies loo. The second time she collided with a table, fracturing her wrist.

She claims to have had to undergo treatment not only for the wrist but also for anxiety and depression and would like 2000 Euros in damages.
The prosecution wants the judges to award the gentleman four months in prison as well.

Oddly enough, in a previous case, the prosecution only sought a three months spell in jug for a drunken driver who has a death by drunk driving in his previous, so there might be something in the claim made by the defense lawyer that the gentleman is being discriminated against as being an immigrant.

The part which interests me is that between shoves one and two, the lady in question took off her shoe and counter attacked. The gentleman appeared in court with scars to his head and arms. Apparently, at 70, the lady still wears high heels.

The gentleman claims legitimate self defence and points out that the lady has previous on the dance floor...in an earlier encounter, some months previously, two couples bumped into each other while dancing.
Lady with her partner, gentleman with his.
The lady expressed her displeasure by giving the gentleman's partner two hearty clips round the ear.

The judges will give their verdict in January and goodness only knows what the outcome will be but what fascinates me is firstly that the lady in question still dances in high heels at 70 and secondly that she was still lithe enough to take off one shoe, balance on the other foot and give a good account of herself at the same time!

Who needs Kung Fu!

They call it sport....

2011-11-24T20:40:00.000+01:00

Image via Wikipedia

We are in November, when la chasse starts killing your cats, the shot rattles against your windows and longer established British expats tell you that this is all part of French tradition and is to be respected.
What they mean is that they are frightened of the buggers, the gendarmerie are frightened of the buggers and they reckon that you should be frightened of the buggers too.

I've had chasseurs send their dogs into my poultry runs, fire towards the house at close range from the vineyard beside it, and shoot rooks nests out of the trees while the young are still unable to leave the nest...coming onto my land to do so. Not to speak of the insults and threatening telephone calls.

In my own experience, I have known of one man (British) meeting a mysterious death after several run ins with la chasse, a (British) holiday house burnt out - problems with la chasse for years before - and a (British) family forced to give up their B and B business - after problems with la chasse.

Not to speak of the cats, lost, injured or killed, two people shot at while on public roads (one French one British) and a man killed while walking his dog (French). There might be more, but this is just what comes to mind.

Not all associations are the same...some are well organised and observe the law, others are simply bullies in camouflage jackets, whose chasse membership allows them possession of firearms, which in turn gives them effective immunity from the attentions of the gendarmerie.

Still, for the Pollyannas in our midst, help in maintaining the idea of the chasse as just a traditional rural pursuit is at hand.

In the month of November, many local churches celebrate a mass of St. Hubert...a nobleman of the Merovingian court who was so addicted to hunting that he even ventured forth on Good Friday.
As he became a saint, you will have already divined that Something Happened to him on that day and indeed it did.

Having brought a stag to bay he saw a cross shining between its antlers, and heard a voice asking him if he thought hunting more important than his salvation.
Taking the hint. he became a monk and eventually Bishop of Liege.
Given the vision you would think he would be the patron saint of the anti blood sports league, but since hunters pre-dated them they got to him first, thus all the adverts for 'la messe de St. Hubert' - not only in rural France, but in posh churches in Paris.

The main feature of a St. Hubert's mass is the presence of the 'trompes de chasse' in the church, playing at appropriate moments of the service.

You will notice that the musicians have their backs to the congregation so that the bells of the instruments face them, just as the hunt servants on horseback are heard by the field behind them when they signal the points and events of the hunt.
You will also note that they wear livery, again, just like the hunt servants.

The point of this is that the musicians, and the St. Hubert's mass, have very little to do with the armed followers of 'la chasse' and everything to do with the moneyed followers of the 'chasse a courre, a cri et a cor'....French hunting proper.

Hunting on horseback.
Main occupation of French monarchs until later ones took a lesson from Louis XVI who was more interested in hunting than in finding out what was going on among the revolutionaries and lost his head.

Don't be thinking Jorrocks' Jaunts and Jollities, here...this is France.

No jumping, for a start. Might fall off...though this used to be a technique for ladies to attract the royal attention in the days of the monarchy. A glimpse of white flesh and the chateau was yours...

No taking your own line either. This is, as I say, France.
You follow your leader, down the long rides through the trees leading to a sort of roundabout where the rides converge....take a look when you're driving past the remains of the old royal forests and you'll see the that the layout remains to this day.

I've put up a link to a video of la chasse a courre here, so that those who wish can look at it without upsetting others who don't.

But if you don't approve of hunting, or you loathe the behaviour of la chasse near you, you don't have to sit down and do nothing, as the wiseacres always tell you.
You can do as the French do...you know...integrate. What you're always being told to do but no one tells you that it's more than exchanging 'bonjours' in the bakery.

You could look into joining the roc association which tries to dialogue with the hunting fraternity on a way in which all can enjoy the countryside.
Or you could join abolition chasse which has a more formal name which currently escapes me.

A good website to check whether your local band of terrorists are within or outwith the protection of the law is that of the Office National de la chasse et la faune sauvage, and the person to contact is not the man on the desk at the local gendarmerie (they are under 'suggestion' to keep any complaints about anything under wraps in an election run up) but the garde chasse, who is employed by the ONCFS.

In my experience (considerable) these gentlemen know their patch, know the chasseurs and know what's what. They won't stretch a point to help you, but they will administer the law.

Our guy laid an ambush for those shooting the rooks' nests...not that rooks are protected, but the nests are, as offering nesting capacity to raptors.
He arrived before dawn, hid his van and lay in wait with a thermos of coffee until the band arrived and started activity. Then he cut off their retreat and copped the lot of them.

Upshot? They were fined 200 Euros each.

Some days later, I had a phone call from the wife of one of them.

My husband's been fined 200 euros.

I know.

I'll be round to collect it today.

From whom?

You. If you hadn't reported it he wouldn't have been fined.

Ah, yes, France...the land of reason...

To my sister in law

2011-11-20T18:06:00.000+01:00

When putting up a blog, I was aware that it is in some sense a public document, open to the scrutiny of all, so why do I find myself disturbed when I see your co ordinates in the statistic logger?

I went to comment moderation in reaction to the hurtful comments of one person about my husband's health...I don't put up comments from Anonymous because it's either advertising or someone without the courage of their convictions....and I am aware that there are a lot of people who are kind enough to read the blog but who do not comment.
All this is fairly normal.
So why does your presence in the stats log bother me?

After your treatment of my husband in the period leading up to and the aftermath of the death of his mother you have become mute as far as e mails are concerned, no communication whatsoever....so why check out my blog? What do you hope to find there? I don't write much about family, except in passing.

I think what disturbs me is a sense of intrusion....I feel that most blog readers dip in and out, find blogs they like or just want to read occasionally, or read blogs on a subject of interest to them, but whatever the reason for the visits there is a sense of complicity among bloggers.
We are all participating in the same process.

With you, I believe it to be otherwise.

You don't participate...you use.

You look for scraps to feed the image you have of yourself and your situation, to feed your sense of injustice that people are not on your side in your new life, to feed your jealousy of happiness.

I would rather you were happy in the choices you have made and that you did not feel the need to rummage for scraps, but if rummage you must I would rather you rummaged elsewhere.
If you want news, communication, opinions ...be open, send an e mail - a good sight more effective than looking for augeries in the entrails of my posts.

You follow the paths of what you call spirituality....shamans, crystals, Mayan prophecies....but the fruits appear to be bitter.
I would be delighted to hear from you that you had discovered the other fruits....those of

Love, joy, peace, long suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith.

Integrate! Assimilate! Tailgate!

2011-11-17T21:06:00.000+01:00

Claude Gueant, Interior Minister and Dalek substitute, has been addressing the question of immigration....or rather, the conduct expected of immigrants.

Essentially his message is this....if you come to France, you don't bring your old habits with you. You become like the French.

While he was speaking in the context of Muslim immigration, it would be interesting to see the consequences for the British expat colonies out in the sticks were his ideas to be enforced among them.

No more breaking the curfew, for a start. You are to be behind your hermetically closed shutters by 7.00 pm at the latest, so that French villages preserve their traditional character - that of cemeteries with rather large tombs.
This will also fool the Germans if they bring down the Euro and take over Europe again.

You are to open no door except that of a restaurant between noon and 2.00pm, but you may open your shutters the better to see the serving of fressure, andouillette or tete de veau on your plate.

No more of the insubordinate 'jardin anglais', different coloured plants flopping all over the place.
You will plant everything in strictly aligned rows and eradicate any plant not conforming to the norms with herbicide.

Driving behaviour will alter.
You will drive at five kilometres an hour on a narrow road and park directly outside the baker's shop on a roundabout.
Without signalling.
You will tailgate.
You will give the 'coup de poisson' to any foreign registered car.
You will not give any version of the 'V' sign, but will raise one finger instead. The gendarme will arrest you in either case but it will tell in your favour in court that you have used a French method of outrage to a public official.
When you run over a dog on the road you will not seek out the owner to apologise and offer to take the dog to the vet, you will seek out the owner in order to make him pay for the dent in your bumper.

No more 'white vans'. No more 'English shelves'. No more smuggling golden syrup across the border.
You will happily opt for frozen frogs' legs from Thailand, Label Rouge poultry raised in a patch of mud alongside the battery cages and biftek - the latter strictly from ancient Prim' Holstein cows.

You will learn to speak French.
Do not be discouraged.
In time your knowledge will extend beyond the mastery of the essential everyday phrases

'cons', 'connards', and 'merde'

and achieve fluency

'casse-toi', 'fous-moi le camp'.and 'putain de merde'.

The more you meet with and talk to your French neighbours, the more your vocabulary will be enriched.
Especially if they only speak patois.

You will observe the dress codes....flat cap and Charentaise slippers for the men, salmon pink corsets hidden under flowered crossover pinnies for the women.
No fascinators.
No panama hats.

Adultery will only be committed at the permitted hours...between 5.00 pm and 7.00 pm so that you are home in time for the curfew.
No more of this disorganised activity as and when convenient.
Adultery is a serious matter.

You will recognise the importance of sport in the life of the nation.
You will sing La Marseillaise in French at the start of the match, not the English version starting with
' A Frenchman went into the lavatory...'
You will support 'les Bleus'....whether it's rugby, football, tennis ...or twirling.
And remember...French teams do not play dirty...they merely anticipate their retaliation.

Your children will attend French schools where they will learn the skills to enable them to make their way in France.
They will quickly become adept at learning by rote, ticking boxes and carrying several kilos of books around every day which will fit them for the sort of jobs generally open to immigrants....stacking boxes in the chicken abattoir.

It may seem terribly complicated, but when it comes down to it all you really have to do to successfully integrate is to remember one phrase.....

French is best.
Sod the rest.

Wine that maketh glad the heart of man....

2011-11-15T13:00:00.000+01:00

Particularly the British expat in France, some of whom bear out the view of Dr.Johnson that few possess the intellectual resources to allow themselves to forego the pleasures of wine as otherwise they would be at a loss to know how to pass the interval between lunch and supper.

Still, at least they are relaxed about wine...they know what they like and enjoy what they know.

Chez the producers, however, it is a different ball game.

In theory the quality of French wine is maintained by strict regulation, controls and inspections, reflected in the price of the finished product.
The major guarantee is that of the A.O.C. ...the Apellation d'Origine Controllee... which links a product to a geographical area.
The best known example among wines is Champagne....whose producers throw legions of well paid lawyers at any sparkling wine that indicates it is made in the same fashion by using the word 'champagne' on its label.
Thus the labels proclaiming 'Methode Traditionelle'.
The wine that dares not speak its name.

How far the theory stands up in practice is open to question. The wine is blind tasted...but that's before it's bottled and there's many a slip between cup and lip, not to speak of the possibilities of the impossibility of refusing old Jean-Paul's wine as he is your wife's cousin, not to speak of his membership of the ruling party's local branch and his son being the local senator's gopher.

Now, when we think of wine we tend, thanks to tradition and publicity, to think of something that is the product of man's intelligent use of natural resources.
Deep soils are best suited to grain, so shallow, stony, poor soils can be given over to other uses...such as growing vines.
The wines produced from some of these soils can be magnificent...depending on the grape variety and the exposure to warmth.
They can also be total rubbish...

They are all the more likely to be rubbish when a particular A.O.C. becomes fashionable and pressure mounts for land originally outside the A.O.C. limits to be included.
The fate of Chablis and Sancerre, not to speak of Chinon, speaks for the results.

Recently, the growth of interest in 'bio' wines has provided a further complication.
These producers refuse to use the chemical treatments imposed by those running their local A.O.C. committees...worse, they refuse to cough up their contributions to the regional syndicats which take their money and promote the produce of the big firms.
Those who delight in the little ways of France will be entranced to hear that these contributions are described as voluntary and obligatory.
They prefer to sell their wine as 'vin de table'...the lowest rating above industrial alcohol.

Now in my time in France I had come to learn that vin de table could be decidedly drinkable.
In the age of the wine lake - before the European Union gave grants to turn it all into vinegar instead - surplus wine was supposed to be 'stripped' of its character and sold as table wine.
As you can imagine, producers and middlemen did nothing of the sort, so batches of 'vin de table' would arrive on the shelves from all over the place - in my area mostly from Italy via bottlers in the Maine et Loire - distinctly unstripped of their character.

The idea was then that you, spotting a new consignment, would buy a bottle, take it to the car park and taste it...a process made easy by the plastic stopper on the bottle.
If you decided that it was a wine to your taste - and there used to be unmistakable Barolos in these bottles - you would grab a trolley and load up, being careful to check the batch numbers to avoid the possibility of an unlooked for encounter with something sulphurous from Sicily.

I remember fondly another vin de table...this time a legit one from Languedoc...whose label showed a gnarled vine root, which on closer inspection after sampling the contents revealed itself to be a vegetative clenched fist...a true Red wine!

In my last few years in France, younger vignerons were experimenting with grapes unauthorised for A.O.C. rating in their area.....my local man had a plot of Pinot Blanc which made a superb white wine. It never made it to bottling stage as his customers were clamouring for it from the moment it finished fermenting and he could command a good price - so much for the A.O.C.

It is well said that good wine needs no bush.
These independent minded producers can sell their vin de table with ease. They have waiting lists of customers in some cases, both in France and abroad, and this does not go down well with the authorities.
This being France, boxes have to be ticked and beaurocrats employed.
Systems have to be respected.

So one vigneron in particular has found himself in deep doodoo.

Olivier Cousin of Martigne-Briand in the Maine et Loire.

Carrying on the family tradition of natural production methods and refusing to stay in the box provided he has had nothing but problems with the authorities for years.
For not paying his contributions he has been effectively bankrupted by the state...his accounts frozen.
Forbidden to indicate the geographical origin of his wine he has flirted with ways of giving a hint....he has labelled some wine 'Pur Breton'...Breton being the local name for the Cabernet Franc grape...he has given the name of his village...and, in one last cocking of snooks, he has labelled his wine boxes...not the bottles...

Anjou Olivier Cousin

A.O.C.

He faces a fine of over 30,000 Euros.
To be paid, one supposes from the accounts the authorities have already blocked.

From the bathtub...

2011-11-10T14:43:00.000+01:00

I am indebted to the wonderful Sapristi Balthazar blog for the above video.

Yes, it's in French...but with subtitles in English, so there's no excuse for not understanding the message.

You always knew the banks were the problem, but I'm willing to bet you didn't know to what extent.

Versatile, eh?

2011-11-03T00:22:00.000+01:00

Ayak at Ayak's Turkish Delight has kindly passed me 'TheVersatile Blogger' award, for which many thanks, Ayak.

If you don't yet know her blog it is one of the best around...sincere, caring and funny. Get yourselves over there and enjoy meeting her.

But there is no free lunch. I have to tell you five 'quirky' things about myself and dob five more bloggers in it.

So, to divert attention from my revelations, I'll reverse the usual order and tell you about the bloggers to whom I would like to pass this award.

John Gray at Going Gently has a multifaceted blog...his work, his family, his animals,.his life in a Welsh village. It's a blog followed by many people, but if it hasn't crossed your bows yet, do take a look.

Genius Loci takes you on journeys with the author..journeys to work, journeys to go fishing, journeys to see family...journeys to the local park....and you'll want to journey with him on a blog I find so well written and rich in language.

Delana at du jour tells you just why a fifty year old woman CAN pack up and move to France. You've got it all here...super photographs and descriptions, and even cupcakes...whatever they may be.

A blog I enjoy very much is Chez Charnizay where Niall and Antoinette offer their observations on the seasonal round...deceptively simple and beautifully presented.

A fairly new blog you might not have come across yet is Secretly Skint, where it's all action, from helping with animals to fighting the tax man via family counselling...I'm beginning to think it might well be subtitled 'once more unto the breach'.....!

Now, with any luck you'll have become engrossed in one or all of the talented blogs above, so I can slip in the required revelations under the radar.

After years of eschewing their dark arts, I went to a hairdresser when in London this summer and had my mane cut and coloured. Felt wonderful.
Consequence...now have to find a hairdresser to repeat operation. Not so wonderful.

Having bought a pirate music disc on the local bus for the equivalent of one pound fifty entitled English classical music (in Spanish) I discovered that it was music 'classics' from the 1980s and that I enjoyed nearly every one of the 146 tracks. Some I even recognised.

I never thought I would taste a kipper again...you can rate friendship by the willingness of visitors to pack kippers in their luggage for a long flight to a hot destination....until we found a fish called cola de bagre which when salted and smoked tastes like the real, pre Mac Fisheries thing. (Yes, we salt and smoke it ourselves.)

I have consigned my non functioning Kindle to whichever circle of the Inferno will do it most harm.
Amazon were most helpful...but The Thing had clearly detected my apprehension of it and reacted like a rabid dog. Poxy object.

I am in disfavour with the local (American) expats...now why doesn't that surprise me?

Secrets of the tomb....

2011-10-31T18:22:00.000+01:00

Image by daisee via Flickr

The eve of All Saints' was not marked by trick or treating in my area of La France Profonde, not even on the little modern housing estate on the edge of the village.
No child in its right mind would brave the wrath of the farm dogs and no parent in its right mind would risk Papy - once apprised of what was required of him - 'treating' a child to a glass of gnole at eighty per cent proof.

Not that the day was unmarked. People who normally lived a troglodyte life behind their shutters were seen at the cemetery with cleaning materials for Tante's tomb....municipal employees were tidying up the alleys and the water tap was finally repaired in preparation for the avalanche of chrysanthemums to be brought by relatives on November 1st.
I liked the feast of All Saints. One week afterwards, the municipal employees would dispose of the wilted chrysanthemums and I would visit the dump to collect the flower pots which were, at that time, both hard to find and expensive.

Normally the cemeteries were deserted.....I could wander about looking at the tombs...everything from a simple slab with lettering half obliterated by time to gothic style mausolea with wrought iron and massive locks very much in evidence.
I often used to wonder whether it was to keep someone out or to keep someone in.
Celebrating the passing of mother in law by the purchase of a very sturdy iron lock in her memory...

In one graveyard a few villages away a stroll to the edge backing on to the fields would revel a heap of earth with bones....which used to set me thinking about the habit of only being able to rent a grave these days...forget eternal rest, when your thirty or fifty years is up, out you go.

Of course, every commune would set its own rate for tomb hire, communes with old peoples' homes being particularly suspect...and that, linked to detailed study of the prices proposed by the funeral directors...the 'pompes funebres'....could give rise to unseemly incidents.

Thus the gendarmes who came across a van in a ditch before the driver could rouse a local farmer with a tractor to pull him out.
They were somewhat surprised and decidedly put out to discover a corpse neatly wrapped up in the back.
It would mean Paperwork on the grand scale.
Worse, when the driver appeared it was clear that he had been drinking.
He explained.
The corpse was his Tante Marcelle who had died at his mother's home, where she had been looked after for years.....but the price of a plot was exorbitant...and as for the price of the local undertakers!
So the family decided that she should appear to have died in her old village where she still had a house...and a plot, bought in the lifetime of her deceased husband.
And he had drawn the short straw to provide the transport.

Why didn't you just get the local undertaker to take her body there, then?
Well, have you seen what he charges!
Well, what about the undertaker in her village?
It's the same firm! They're everywhere! You should see what it costs for the refrigerated bed!
What do you want that for?
Well, it's hot, and people don't want funny smells when they're paying their respects...we can't do without the bed, but we thought if we could just economise a bit on the transport...

The gendarmes had alternatives.....one of which involved Paperwork and one which didn't.
A call to their barracks confirmed the family relationship of driver and corpse...and the van was allowed to go on its way.
And this is not back in the dark ages of Monsieur Untel...this was only a couple of years before I left France!

It's a good job the family were not thinking of economising on a cremation......in that department there is now a ban on bonfires in the garden.....all compostable items must be taken to the local recycling plant as it is euphemistically known.
How it is supposed to help the environment to use litres of fuel to drive kilometres to the gyppo headquarters...which is what these sites have become....to dump your prunings rather than burn them yourself and have the ash for your garden is beyond me, but, as usual with France, if there's a box it has to be ticked.

Being of a generation that saved its bawbees, I think I would definitely prefer to go up in a pyre of apple wood in my own garden than to form an element of a spontaneous combustion in the compost skip at the local dump, but, of course, no one will ask me.

It's That Man Again.......Dominque Strauss-Kahn demands to be heard...

2011-10-22T14:57:00.000+02:00

Image by Getty Images via @daylife

The town of Lille is renowned for

A...the annual Braderie...when stores and stand holders purvey their wares in a weekend of orgiastic shopping
and
B...a cheese.....le Petit Gris, whose aroma is so virulent that is is a contravention of the town bylaws to carry it in a taxi.

It has a Eurostar station as well, but that's by the by.

But Lille has come to the forefront of French news recently following a disagreement between various lodges of the Grand Orient observance practiced in the area.

French freemasonry has little in common with the British version where a disagreement between lodges would give rise only to solicitors jiggling with their trouser legs and Mr. Padge being refused retrospective planning permission to turn the flat above his offices into fifty kennels for immigrant workers.

In France, it is more serious and in Lille it has resulted in a number of local notables ending up being questioned by the police...who in their turn are being questioned by the internal disciplinary service of the police....about a prostitution ring.

Thanks to the Grand Orient squealers, the police have been made aware of a prostitution racket based on two of the best hotels in Lille...the surprise being that one of their narks...concierge at one of these hotels...is intimately implicated in the affair.

One understands his scruples when one learns that a senior policeman is also being investigated for involvement in the racket...a policeman who was aiding Dominique Strauss-Kahn with his election campaign as an advisor on security.

Also implicated is a businessman working for a large roadworks firm who happily admits to organising 'parties fines' - orgies might be the best translation here - involving the senior policeman and...inevitably, Dominique Strauss-Kahn.

These events took place not only in private apartments in the centre of Paris but also in the United States while Strauss-Kahn was heading up the IMF, the whores being flown out as 'secretaries'.
One wonders whether the firm for whom they supposedly 'worked' will be prosecuted by the French authorities for employing them 'on the black' but, somehow, one doubts it.

Why should a businessman see fit to act as a pimp?
Because, he explains, it was good for business to be able to drop into conversation that his firm had the ear...or some other organ...of Monsieur Strauss-Kahn.
Monsieur Strauss-Kahn, influential member of the PS (Socialist Party) who are in power in the area and, as such, control the award of roadwork contracts.

So, once again, Dominique Strauss-Kahn has been the means of exposing areas of French society that might have preferred to continue living under their gilded stones.
Not only has he exposed the phallocractic nature of gender relations in what thinks of itself as high society in France, but now he demonstrates how cheaply a politician's integrity can be bought.

One is accustomed to lumping all politicians together as crooks, capable of any base manoeuvre to get their hands into a few more tills, and the spectacle of a leading man of his party....tipped to wallop Sarkozy in the 2012 Presidential elections...willing to lend himself to such baseness just confirms the cynicism with which politicians are regarded.

Image via Wikipedia

General de Gaulle

There have always been dirty dogs sniffing around the legs of the seats of power, but can you imagine this man cavorting with prostitutes in order to allow a firm to get a contract for public works?

Image via Wikipedia

Enoch Powell

Or this man, despite his undoubted acquaintance with Suetonius' 'Lives of the Caesars'?

But these men had power...or were on their way to acquiring it.
Modern politicians have not....they are but the chorus line of 'Fiddler on the Roof' kicking up their legs to the baton of Goldman Sachs and their masters approve them holding the same standards as themselves.... frequenters of strip joints and pole dancing venues, all in the interests of business.

Thus the shamelessness of Strauss-Kahn...the standards to which he must conform are not those of the ordinary people...those who work to give their families a decent life...the electors, but the standards of those who created the virtual world of finance that the ordinary people are now paying for.
Elections are a sham. Whatever the face of the political party, its movements are controlled by the bankers who use the legitimacy of elected governments to line their own pockets.

So, returning to France after the shenanigins of New York does Strauss-Kahn creep into obscurity?
Far from it. He demands to be heard. He appears on TV, downplays his conduct.
When a young woman brings charges of attempted rape against him......he demands to be heard - as a witness, if you please!
And now he demands to be heard in the affair of the prostitutes of Lille...regarding mention of his activities as 'malevolent' in character...
He is a man in a hurry.
If the PS win the Presidential elections he wants his hand back in the till, but while scum continues to rise to the surface he has to take a back seat.
He wants it all sorted.
Now.

The affair also shows the difference between French and British society.
By now, in Britain, some rugby club would be altering the words of their version of the 'Twelve Days of Christmas'.......substituting Strauss-Kahn for Lord Montague of Beaulieu.
In France people just shake their heads. Mockery of politicians has consequences, as a few radio presenters have discovered to their cost.

But there will be an effect.
Down in the gendarmerie barracks at Partouze les Bains the adjutant is speaking to the duty officer.

We're getting more and more sex cases reported....and people want action.
As if the usual incest cases aren't enough now we have some pest exposing himself under the windows of the old peeoples' home.
What's being done about it?

Well, I'm waiting, sir.

Waiting for what?

For Dominique Strauss-Kahn to demand to be heard.

Thank you the dynamic duo....

2011-10-14T00:15:00.000+02:00

Image via Wikipedia

I had reached the stage with my Costa Rica blog that I was about to revert to my old habits...throwing heavy objects and boiling my head.
Nothing would get the brute to put up new posts....

And then the voice(s) of sanity came to my assistance....

Perpetua told me what to do....

and

Phil showed me how to do it.

So I've given it another try...and just put up a new post which, to my delight, actually appeared!

The blog is still called

Costa Rica Calling

but it's got another URL...

Aren't there some super people in the Blogosphere!

France's (frozen) Cultural Heritage

2011-10-06T22:58:00.000+02:00

Image by nedoho via Flickr

There are many facets of the French dream....chic women sipping mineral water in pavement cafes, old men in berets playing boules in sunlit southern squares, a glass of pink wine on the terrace as the sun sets over the fields of lavender behind your holiday home, quaint villages silent in the heat of noon, the wine...and the food.

Yes, the food.

UNESCO evidently shares the dream as it listed French gastronomy as part of its intangible heritage programme in 2010, together with gingerbread making in northern Croatia and the technique of making leak proof joints for Chinese junks, which makes the hype about this in the French press somewhat overblown...but,there, if it is not overblown it could not be hype.

Following the earlier jacking down of the VAT rate on restaurant meals from 19.6% to 5.5% all should have been plain sailing in the world of fruits de mer and vol au vents, but someone has thrown a (frozen?) baguette in the roues.

The National Assembly is debating a proposition to oblige restaurateurs to mark with an asterisk items on their menus which are made from fresh produce, as opposed to those using frozen or pre prepared products.

Panic in the dove cotes!

Why should this be?

After all, according to UNESCO's Paris press office one of the factors influencing the listing was
'The choice of good products, mainly rural, the assembling of dishes and wines, the decoration of the table and the gestures of smelling and tasting what has been served on the table.'

All right, you have to depend on the customers for the smelling and tasting bit...but the rest, the 'choice of good products, mainly rural' etc is under the control of the restaurateur, so where is the problem?

One does not imagine, does one, that all this stuff that comes to your table under silver domes, lifted in unison by waiters rejected by the national synchronised swimming team, is anything but the result of' 'the choice of good products, mainly rural'?

No imagination is needed.
One knows.

Madame Cuistot will be seen in Leclerc loading up with special offer charcuterie and bags of mixed salad for her lunchtime buffet menu at the local caff..

The Argel delivery van will be unloading frozen cassoulet at the back street restaurant in Chiottes la Gare...

The Brake delivery van will be doing likewise with civet of hare at the market place restaurant in Benitierville...

While Monsieur Tourne-Fric, owner of Chateau Blanchelinge, has taken his own refrigerated van to the branch of Picard in the next big town but one to avoid
A. Frozen food delivery vans being seen to drive up to his restaurant...
and
B. Being seen by any of his clients in the car park of the nearest branch.

I was not a great fan of eating out while in France...too many examples of 'le gastro' afterwards, but there is no doubt that good food is to be had...just look at Sarah Hague's evening out at La Reserve Rimbaud....it's just that it is not as prevalent as the French dream would have you believe.

I used to find that a fair clue was the length of the menu.
If it was more than a page long and promising everything from pike in yellow sauce to veal kidneys flamande then you could take a fair bet that the training of the kitchen staff owed more to smart co ordination of freezer and microwave than to co ordination between stove and table.
How would it be possible to offer so much if everything was cooked from scratch?
The waste bins would be overflowing with goodies and the night would be peopled with frugally minded British expats in balaclavas filling their carrier bags.

Good places have small menus..and that goes for the top of the range place right down to the caff, though there is a caveat with the caff....the menu is so small it might just be the 'plat du jour' and when that 'plat du jour' is andouillette it might be preferable to retire before hostilities commence.

How will you know if the 'plat du jour' is andouillette?
Because as you open the door of the caff a smell resembling the Calais sewers in an August heatwave will hit you.
That's how.

There was a brasserie in Angers which I used to like when in the area...it was big, busy and bustling and had a few staple items plus one or two specials, so the kitchen could concentrate on getting things right.
It wasn't cheap, but it was good.

Not cheap either and generally not so good used to be the 'chateau' restaurants where a lot of emphasis was laid on the decor, the gardens, the lighting...but not so much on the food which was either straight from the freezer with a bit of decor or the chef owner's interpretation of 'fusion'.
Fission might have been a better description of some of the combinations on offer.
And nuclear my reaction on seeing the prices!

We occasionally stepped into these hallowed palaces of hype when we had had visitors who would persist on wanting to take us out as a thank you....though we felt that it should have been the other way round for all the pleasure and laughter they gave us, not to speak of the shopping, the cooking and the washing up!
It would have been more than churlish to refuse, however....the ladies had packed frocks and intended to wear them.

The whole afternoon before the evening reservation, every bathroom and most of the bedrooms would be occupied by ladies undergoing titivation while the men anaesthetised themselves on the balcony with a few cold bottles, only to disappear into the garden for something or other the moment the ladies emerged, primped and preening.
By the time whippers in had been sent to gather the men, all the bathrooms and bedrooms would be occupied again by men being pushed unwillingly into something more formal than shorts and polo shirts and the whippers in re titivating themselves.
You needed a pack of collies to keep that lot under control.

The GPS would be confiscated and we would set off in convoy travelling dark country lanes which seemed to become narrower at every turning until the back end of the convoy would start flashing headlights to signal alarm and despondency.
It was fatal to stop and go back to reassure them that yes, you did know where you were...yes, you did know where the chateau was...because inevitably the driver of the last car had a concealed GPS about his person which was intent on sending him to the destination via two motorways and a grass track.
It was safer just to drive on until reaching the chateau gates, where a lighted drive led you to the car park which was usually some distance from the restaurant area so that views of the gardens could be preserved.

High heels scrunching on the gravel...and the party stops for the man who managed to evade his wife's surveillance and kept on his sandals who now has gravel under his socks and will not go a step further until it is removed.
Wife displeased and vocal.
The man holding open the doors of the restaurant puzzled.

Arriving in the bar to a sotto voce argument about sandals going on in the background, the whole farce would swing into action....aperitifs and nibbles.....ordering, requests for translation followed by disbelief...'foie gras and hibiscus jelly?!.... 35 euros for a bit of pollock?!....more aperitifs, male muttering about enough of these whiff-whaffs and where was the grub?...and we're in the dining room, all chandeliers, table linen in strange pastel colours guaranteed to clash with the food and the inevitable wonky table.

I'm not sure whether it was because it was a party of foreigners or whether the serving staff were picked on the basis of looking as though there was a bad smell under their noses but almost inevitably there was an air of condescension about the service which would degenerate into downright disapproval as one member of the party, having become disgruntled at the wine waiter's practice of keeping the table's wine at a distance and going into a trance whenever one tried to catch his eye, got up and brought the wine coolers to the table where the party served itself.

Rosbifs......no idea how to behave...

It was fun to dress up and go out, but I think I had more pleasure in some of the little places we dropped into by accident, coming back later than expected and in no mood for cooking.

One such was on the edge of a hunting property, a cottage with long tables and benches, where Madame served pate, stew and cheese.
Take it or leave it.

We took it....and so did a big party coming in shortly afterwards, led by an ex President of France.
We ate pate, stew and cheese, drank wine from the store kept by for the Ex's parties and finished the evening to a chorus of trompes de chasse playing out in the road with half the village gathered to enjoy it.

Forget the lilac table linen and the chandeliers...that was real ambience.

And that was one place that would have had no problems with the asterisks.

Good Home Wanted for a Man of Straw

2011-10-03T22:55:00.000+02:00

In the run up to the French Presidential elections in 2012 a sad case has come to light...as it comes to light at every election.

Dominique Paille.

Who?

No, not Dominique Strauss-Kahn, he can look after himself.......Dominique Paille.

This poor man only wants one thing in life to make him happy.

He wants to be a minister.

No, not a minister of religion...a French government minister.

His hand in your pocket.

He has all the qualifications....

Went to the right schools, made the right friends.....

Learned how to use his post as a hospital director to hoover up campaign funds from pharmaceutical companies when he turned to politics......

And, after a couple of misadventures in court over misunderstandings about the proper use of funds, showed that he was truly qualified to be a person in whom the trust of the people could be vested by escaping scot free from a bigger mess, leaving an unfortunate woman who served only as a channel for the transfer of monies to take the rap.

He was maire of his commune...with an accompanying allowance for expenses that qualified locally as halucinatory in its magnitude...and councillor for the department and region, as well as shoving aside the sleepy incumbent to become a deputy for his department.

He had not only his allowance as maire, but his allowances as councillor and deputy...and in those days there was no ceiling on the amount of expenses allowances one could hold, unlike now when the ceiling obliges those concerned not to give up the dosh over and above the amount allowed, good gracious me no....but to give it away...usually to their wives and children.

A pretty good CV, one would think.
Ideal for a future minister.

So what has gone wrong?

He has two fatal defects.

The first is that he has no sense of which way the wind is blowing....he has an unbeaten talent for changing his coat at the wrong moment and deserting a winning camp for that of a loser.

And the second is that he is unlikeable.

I remember him as deputy.
No occasion was free of his presence from horse trials to the award of medals to the mothers of many.....the hair plastered to the skull, the damp palm, the oily repetition of
'Paille, Deputy.'
As he shook your hand....

His arrogance....local councillors declined to attend his election meetings at their peril...their commune would be cut off from the gravy train.
He would visit communes, and instead of asking about local concerns would spend his time shut in the maire's office on the telephone to his election helpers...at the commune's expense.

The joy when he was overturned at the last election was palpable. Not quite fireworks behind the salle de fetes and a vin d'honneur, but not far off.
For once he had been following the right candidate, but his own defeat put him out of the running as a minister.

He was given a compensation prize, as one of the President's counsellors, ....then he was spokesperson for the ruling party....but the compensation was meagre...only 8,000 Euros a month.

He was put up for election as senator representing the French overseas....he failed miserably.

He was made boss of the Office for Immigration and Integration in January 2011....a safe and well paid haven. But he still wanted to be a minister.

So he changed his coat again in favour of another presidential candidate and, surprise, surprise, was sacked as boss of the Office for Immigration and Integration in August.

Times were hard.

He qualified as a lawyer....not by undergoing a course of study but under the provisions by which those 'appropriately qualified' can become lawyers without having a clue about the law, thus allowing him to accept money for advice openly as opposed to in briefcases under the table or brown envelopes under the blotter.

Still, it was worth it. Sarkozy's star was dipping toward the horizon and he was going to be a minister!

But Sarkozy's star proved to be the Death Star for Paille.

Dominque Strauss Kahn happened...the Socialist Party was in disarray.....the prime minister made a cock up of the elections to the Senate, and thus to his own hopes of seeing off Sarkozy as the candidate of the right and the Centrists...where Paille had thrown his coat in the ring...decided to back out.

Sarkozy has bounced back and Sarkozy has a mafia like memory for deceit and treachery.
Even if he gives a ministerial job to Paille's candidate, Paille will be out in the cold.
For good.

What remains for this man? Which party will give him shelter?
He's tried most of them in his time and stuck with none.

So, if you have any political contacts and think they could offer poor Monsieur Paille a good home....he'll be waiting on the end of the 'phone...
Let some one give him a home for Christmas....