Village Update, Language And Politics

Village Update
The last two scorching days, 29 degrees in the sun, have demonstrated that summer is really here. It always strikes me as slightly ironic that when the sun really gets going, the reason that many of us are here, we immediately try to avoid it: shutters or curtains closed, long siestas, etc. Certainly no one who doesn't have to will do physically hard work in the hot sun but I feel that there should be more elegant ways of avoiding the excess heat but still be enjoying the sun. Fortunately, my kitchen and living room remain relatively cool, protected by thick walls and the lime trees opposite.

The next round of fruit is now in full flood. Strawberries and cherries are past their best but are replaced by melons, nectarines, peaches and apricots. I especially love the apricots both for their colour and flavour. I've heard it said that the small apricots are really the best but I love the large ones, the size of small apples, coloured red and orange, that are full of juice.

This week is the beginning of the summer festivities here. I called in at the Mairie the other day to ask for the calendar of events for the year and, in typical provencal fashion, they haven't got around to producing it yet. Half of the events will be over before it comes out. However, the “feu de la St Jean” is on Friday, officially for some reason the first day of summer here, and will provide a general village get-together and knees-up outside the Bar du Pont. Then will come the fête votive, the 14th of July, painters in the streets and so on, week after week until the end of the month. August is grand-children month, when everyone of about my age who has grand-children gets to look after them for a while.

Next Sunday will see the boules tournament I have been helping to organise take place. I'm meeting Michèle tomorrow to decide on some of the finer details and have worked out the apparently complicated scoring system that Daniel proposed. He insisted on describing it as democratic, which gave me no insight as to its real purpose, which I now understand is to help ensure that no two people will end up with the same number of points. Once I had understood that the rest was easy.

Language And Politics
An Australian friend, Ian Mackay, has been commenting on my blog particularly with respect to language and has contrasted Canadian French with French French. His knowledge of Canadian French is considerably better than mine. In doing so he has raised some interesting points. We both agree that the verb “relooker”, which I commented on earlier, must be about the ugliest word invented in any language. The question is: how does it arise? Ian states that there is a Québecois equivalent to the French Academy that is faster on its feet, quicker to produce a proper French equivalent to new phenomena, and thus avoids the introduction of bastardised English words. He also makes the point that differences in the approach to language in anglophone and francophone countries appear to reflect political differences. The anglophone approach is much more free market: new words come and go, needed or not, and nobody cares very much. The francophone approach is much more state-controlled, at least in intention.

This last insight turned my thoughts to the Common Market and it immediately occurred to me that there was a fundamental difference here also between the British and French approaches. The EU was conceived as both a political and economic body. However, the French are interested almost solely with the former aspect and the British with the latter. Although the French have had to open their borders to EU labour generally they make it as difficult as possible for any foreign qualifications to be accepted. And they have no intention at all of allowing other EU countries to compete with their industries if they can avoid it, whatever Brussels decrees. The British, on the other hand, naively open their industries to competition from other EU countries and fret about admittedly useless EU political appointments such as a President, Foreign Minister, etc, which cause no problem at all to the French. The big insight for me, although I can't understand why I didn't realise it before, is that for the French the Common Market is a non-starter.