samedi 21 avril 2012

Dinner And A Website

Dinner Conversation
 Daniel had a friend visiting him this week, “Nemo”, a teacher, and they came round to eat this evening. The chat ranged from politics to teaching and managed to set several of the bees in my bonnet buzzing.

 For some reason that wasn't clear the topics focussed on wars and teaching. They reminded me of a cynical joke I was once told. Make love not war; or, you can do both: get married. Nemo seemed preoccupied by trying to understand how a country such as Germany (he teaches German) could have come to elect Hitler as Chancellor. He was inclined to think that the majority of Germans must have been against the war, which I'm sure would have been true with hindsight, but doesn't explain how it happened. I suggested that the circumstances leading up to that could still occur in Europe, if significant levels of unemployment became chronic. One of the inherent weaknesses of democracy, I believe, is that its demise can be democratically be voted for. However, both Daniel and his friend discounted that possibility.

We got on to the end of the war and Daniel's friend made the point that America had profited considerably from it and he regarded the dropping of the atomic bombs as an atrocity. On the former point I had to agree with him, though I don't think that is to deny the sacrifices the Americans also made. On the latter I have to disagree. For many years I too regarded the dropping of the atomic bombs as atrocities; more recently, with what I think is a better understanding of the situation, particularly with regard to what happened in Okinawa, I think that those bombs indirectly saved probably thousands, maybe even hundreds of thousands, of Japanese (as well as American) lives. I suggested that that leaves us with a question that is still pertinent today: how do we combat fanaticism effectively? But neither Daniel nor Nemo was interested in pursuing that.

 Next, we got on to teaching and both Daniel and his friend related finding difficulty in evaluating students in the recent climate of “grammar free” assessment. I've commented before on this. I think knowledge of grammar (and spelling) is essential. In the past, the rules have been regarded as sacrosanct and to be observed by everyone, except for a few wayward geniuses who were only awarded that accolade retrospectively. That has been the problem. The rules aren't sacrosanct; the point is to know when and why you break them, in order to communicate something: a fact, an idea, a feeling or whatever.  Communication is all; why else do we speak or write? It would not be unfair to say that a lot of my life has been spent trying to find the right words to put in the right sequences at the right time.

Website
I've now almost completed the text for the website that I want to create on Mollans. I've also determined that WordPress is the software I shall use. There remains a need for some photos, some of which I already have and some of which I shall have to take. That is trivial. So also, at the moment, seems to be the question of a web address. I've written the text in English and will have that checked by friends such as Steve. Claudine Cellier has already agreed to do the French translation. I could attempt that myself but would never publish it without passing it through a native French speaker. So I'm getting tantalisingly close to my long-held goal of a decent website for Mollans. When it's done, I shall offer it gratis to the village. And then I will find out what the political obstacles are. Close as I seem to be, I suspect I'm still a few months away from finding that out.

lundi 16 avril 2012

Government Matters

A Nature Reserve
All round the outskirts of Mollans can be seen notices proclaiming « Non Au Parc ». The proposal is to have a nature reserve (parc naturel) whose boundaries would include Mollans and, as I've commented previously, many Mollanais are against it on the grounds that it would interfere with their hunting and right to sell plots of land for building. I think that is understandable but a shame. Anyway, voting in the areas of the Drôme affected is now complete and Mollans has formally rejected the idea.

The whole process is complex and takes time. Each commune in the proposed area has to vote, by region. Communes in two more regions still have to vote but are expected, on the whole, to vote in favour. When voting is completed, the regional authorities then have to try to assemble a congruent area from the communes that have voted in favour and put a proposal to the government based on the number of communes and percentage of population in favour. Mollans is on the edge of the area proposed for the nature reserve and so can quite easily be excluded without producing an embarrassing “hole”. Other communes that are against the idea may present a more signifiacnt challenge to the planners. The percentage of the population that has voted in favour so far is around 80% and, if that holds true of the regions yet to vote, any government going against the wishes of 80% of the population is surely asking for trouble. However, Sarkozy and his acolytes are against nature reserves, Hollande in favour of them, and so this is an issue that could have a bearing on the imminent elections.

The process so far has taken eight years and is likely to take another two before completion. If the reserve is established, funds become available from the EU to encourage conservation and tourism. Exactly how these are used is down to a governing committee authorised to run the reserve, drawn from representatives of the area included. This committee also makes the rules for the reserve; nothing is prescribed. So the Mollanais could have voted in favour of the reserve and then joined the governing committee to ensure that their rights were protected. I'm a bit disappointed that they didn't choose this route.

Brilliant Government Thinking
Like most of the people I know, I generally regard government intelligence as something of an oxymoron. Certainly, the examples of government stupidity that come to light far outnumber anything governments do that could be classed as intelligent. However, there are occasional flashes of brilliance that stand out like beacons in this murky record and a recent Guardian article pointed me at one of them.

Estonia, when it gained independence, was a poor country with a small ill-educated population and a distinct lack of physical infrastructure. It didn't try to repair its deficiencies piece-meal but rather decided on a genuine great leap forward. It saw the Internet as its future and made WIFI broadband access universal and, initially, free; that was 12 years ago. The result? A current population that is highy IT-literate with very saleable skills, 98% of bank transfers done electronically and a similar number of tax returns done the same way (UK, France, Gernany, etc, dream on.......).

It is a similar scale of transformation to that which occurred in Ireland in the 1980s. There, too, an essentially agrarian peasant economy that looked destined for gradual modernisation was transformed in one imaginative bound.

The other stroke of brilliance that occurred to me is rather different: national anthems. Leave aside the music; the words of every national anthem I know are bombastic, inane or even downright warlike and, in every case, an embarrassment. I suppose there is a case for retaining national anthems but they certainly need improvement. The improvement I discovered was while watching an international football match. The sight of footballers united in mouthing inanities is not uncommon but one team was silent: Spain. The Spanish national anthem apparently doesn't have words; sheer genius!

jeudi 12 avril 2012

Gardening And Elections

Gardening Time
I've now taken complete stock of the garden, replaced the casualties of winter and replanted elsewhere as necessary. Two casualties were a miniature rose in a pot in the front and my plumbago ; the latter has done well to survive thus far and I've replaced both by purple/blue solanums. I've another already in a pot in the front and if all three do as well as the one did last year they will make quite a display in the summer and into the autumn. The olive tree I planted last year has also taken a hit from the winter but dooesn't look quite dead. This is the northernmost area in which olive trees grow so they can be susceptible to the cold. I'm not sure if mine is the tanche variety, which is the hardiest. I shall just have to wait and see. There remain the annuals to be planted in the front but I shan't add them until some time in May, later this year than last so that the display continues (hopefully) further into August.

Friend Steve's 70th birthday was on Easter Monday and the the pizza crowd and I clubbed together to buy him an apple and an apricot tree. I also bought him some raspberry canes and a kiwi fruit vine. So it was over to his place on the Tuesday to dig suitable size holes and plant and stake the trees. The ground wasn't as stony as I thought it was going to be but digging the holes still took some time. And staking them well was necessary as the side of the house they are on gets the full blast of the Mistral when it decides to blow. Anyway, they have been properly planted so I hope they now do what they are supposed to.

The weather over the past fortnight has been very mixed with whole days of hot sunshine, days of rain and mostly a bit of both, with even a genuinely English grey day or two thrown in. I find that grey days depress me unduly although we get very few of them. Temperatures have dropped by several degrees since March and although quite comfortable and even ideal for gardening have had a noticeable effect on higher ground. Mont Ventoux had no snow on it after early March but is now blanketed in white again. It has been a very short season for the winter sports up there so the current extension is probably appreciated.

Elections
As the presidential elections get closer (just over a week to go) so the polls show the contest getting tighter. Sarkozy seems to be gaining ground on Hollande and, far from looking like the dead duck he did a few months ago, could even be inching into the lead. All really depends on which way the votes of the minor candidates go in the second round. I don't have the right to vote (only in mayoral and European elections) but Mana asked me what I thought one day last week when we were playing boules. I think that the result will be a negative one, either way. Sarkozy will lose if enough French people simply want to get rid of him. If Holland loses it will be because he hasn't a programme of any discernible sort and people prefer a devil (and programme) they know to one they don't. That situation strikes me as a pity but also not far off the one I perceive in the UK. Where have all the political personalities, the great statesmen, gone?

Footnote
My book has resurfaced, in Daniel's house. It has lost half its yellow dust-jacket and Daniel had been looking around his house for a yellow book. It is bound in red. I could have guessed his search would have been less than rigorous but I'm glad to have it back, even minus half its dust-jacket.