The Weather And Patriotism

 

The Weather

The weather dictates a lot of what goes on here, certainly a lot of what I do. If that doesn’t seem surprising to many people it’s relatively new to me. In England I rarely knew from day to day what the weather would be, only more probably colder in winter and more probably warmer in summer, very rarely extreme. So most of the time I disregarded the weather as far as possible and decided what I was going to do anyway. Besides, most of the time I was working and my work was always indoors. Here, the weather can even dictate work.

Pedro, the man who fixed my roof, told me that when he came here at first he worked for a builder and had to be at the builder’s house each morning at 7.30 to start work. One morning Pedro arrived, knocked on the builder’s door and got no reply. It was raining, Pedro was getting wet and so he kept knocking. Eventually the builder opened the door, dressed in his pyjamas, and asked Pedro what he was doing there. Pedro answered that he was there to work. 3Work?”, exclaimed the builder, “It’s raining; we don’t work when it’s raining”.

At the moment summer seems to have arrived with day temperatures around 32-34 degrees. Temperatures are unlikely to dip significantly until mid-August at least. For me, as a gardener, that means watering, watering plants in pots around the house and the allotment. Early mornings are not my forte now so I do it mostly in the evening. It’s tiring but that means I will sleep well. All the planting is now done barring last minute replacements and filling in so watering is the main chore. Rain can be a welcome relief and if we get any it is likely to be a storm which will thoroughly soak the ground for a couple of days. Anyway, the plants around the house are looking good and so is the allotment so those are projects more or less completed for this year; they just need to be maintained.

Another effect the weather has is eating out. I don’t remember ever eating outside in England except at pubs. Here I can hardly remember eating inside at a cafe or restaurant. And I do like eating outside.

Patriotism

The European Champions’ League final between Arsenal and PSG made me reflect on patriotism. I went to watch the match at the Bar du Pont and the assembled crowd there seemed to assume I was supporting Arsenal. But I am a Chelsea supporter, from 1952, and in the previous two years Arsenal had eliminated Chelsea in the semifinals of the FA Cup. So I have an extreme dislike of Arsenal. I didn’t really care who won. So where was my patriotism?

If patriotism means being proud of one’s country I’m afraid I don’t have it. Am I proud of England? No; why should I be? It has, in my judgment, done some very good things but also some very bad ones, like almost every other country. My school education certainly encouraged me to be patriotic but that must be one of the lessons from school that didn’t stick. Do I love England? Yes, in lots of ways I do: I love the countryside, some of the customs, some of the typical dishes, the beer, the variety it displays in many respects and some of the people. Also I was born there and grew up there quite happily; but that is simply happenstance. But simply as an entity, a country, a nation, I can’t see why I should love it or be proud of it. The same applies to France.

I shall enjoy watching the World Cup in the coming weeks and hope that either England or France win it but that is as far as my nationalism goes.

Government And Straight Lines

 

Joined Up Government

I have had a number of conversation with Friend Steve on this subject. Althiugh we have differing political views we both agree that joined up government would be a good thing and that ach to problems holistic approach to problems would help.

In the UK ministerial accountability hinders this. If ministers are to be accountable for the actions of their ministries they need autonomy. Which means that a ministry can take an action to resolve one of its problems that puts another ministry in the proverbial. In theory this conflict gets resolved in Cabinet; but that is just theory.

If a holistic approach seems to be lacking in the UK it appears totally absent in France. I first encountered this when I came to the Sorbonne as a student. In England I had a student card that defined me as a student and therefore entitled me to any advantages available to a student. Access to university classes? Evidently. Discounts on entry to museums, art galleries or theatres? Obviously. Concessions on banking or other financial matters? Included also. I was, after all, a student studying at an officially recognised educational body.

Not so in France. I needed a card for access to classes at the Sorbonne but that was all that it entitled me too. Student restaurants? I needed another card. Discounts at theatres? Sorry, I needed another card. Travel? Yet another card. And so on…….I ended up with a pocket full of cards for different activitites all of which had one thing in common: the fact that I was a student. Could that commonality be used to reduce the administrative load? Of course it could. Was it? Dream on.

What astounds me today is that this practice continues, nearly 70 years later. The most forms anyone who is not already a French citizen will need are those to claim citizenship. Then, if you mislay your health card, what do you need? Many of the same forms. If you want to apply for a driver’s licence what do you need? Many of the same forms. If you want to hire a lawyer what do you need? Many of the same forms. And so it goes on……..A French official once told a Friend of mine that if the government diesn’t have a file on you you don’t exist. But I do; could I be an alien form of life or am I just an illusion?

I’m reminded of one of my favourite films, Orfeu Negro, when Orpheus searches in the underworld for Eurydice. The underworld is a building for bureaucrats and Orpheus searches through rooms full of nothing but filing cabinets. 

Joined up government? Repetitive is nearer the ark and it's the number of duplicates demanded by the French administration that is filling up all those filing cabinets in Hades.

Straight Lines

The word among gardeners on the allotment is that I have a strange way of gardening but that I get results. What is so strnge? The absence of straight lines. My defence is that in gardening we are dealing with nature; we all agree on that. So find me a straight line that isn’t man-made in a wood, in a meadow or on a roadside.

My friend Sylvie, who is helping me on the allotment this year, wanted to knowwhere I was putting the flower corner when I mentioned that I wanted to growsome sunflowers Thre is no flower corner, I said, I plant them among the vegetables. Blank incomprehension. Worse still, there is a lilac tree beside my front door through which a honeysuckle and a clematis are grwing. And the lilac tree isn’t pruned but left to find its own shape. Quelle horeur! But everyone loves the floral display. Strange but it gets results.

Signs Of Spring And Miscellany

 

Signs Of Spring

The first signs of spring are around. Intermittent days of warm sunshine are becoming more frequent, japonica bushes are in bloom as are some fruit trees, almond or wild cherry, and I have four daffodils in bloom in front of my house. The rosemary bushes are in flower too, a light shade of blue. It’s just a beginning but turns my thoughts to gardening and the prospect of asparagus and strawberries before long.

In the front there are a couple of score more daffodils and narcissi still to bloom. The irises I cut down and replanted last year have regrown robustly so I am expecting a good show from them in about a month’s time. Everything on the balcony has survived the winter and I have decided not to continue with flowers in troughs there this year, to cut down on watering later, so there is little to do there or elsewhere in the front until may. I need to lightly prune the vine that grows over the balcony but that is about all for the moment as regards the house. After friend Gérard pruned the vine heavily last year I had a bumper crop of grapes and can hope for the same this year.

I’ve been over to the allotment just to put sleeves on the leeks to increase the portion that is white and do a little weeding. Nothing much seems to have moved over the winter, probably because of the inclement weather so the leeks won’t be worth pulling for at least another month. I noticed that some cress (lamb’s lettuce) has self-seeded so I’ll have a crop of that this year. The thornless blackberry has produced some new branches so I should have a good crop of blackberries too, as last year. I’ve bought two sacks of chicken shit fertiliser ready for when I start planting, a box of seed potatoes to start sprouting and a pack of spring onion seeds which I’ve sown in a trough on my balcony. So I just need to wait about a month now, maybe doing some weeding in the meanwhile.

Miscellany

The French seem to me to have an excessive regard for intellectuals. I have a university degree and therefore am classed as an intellectual. Nothing seems to be expected of intellectuals other than lofty thoughts and just about everything is excused. “Well, he’s an intellectual; what do you expect?” just about sums it up. Nothing practical s expected, certainly no DIY, and my gardening and boules playing, the latter particularly, are a bit suspect, eccentric.

I can live with that.

Harder to live with is the taste a lot of my friends have for bland food; not badly prepared or badly cooked food but food that to my taste lacks oomph. Or maybe it is just my predilection for herbs and spices, which I rarely cook without. There is a Vietnamese restaurant in Vaison, a woman who makes Thai dishes and one and one who does creole dishes in the village. But the Thai dishes are nothing like those I ate in Thailand and the others I find rather bland. In all cases it’s the spices that are missing, either in quantity or altogether. Well it’s said that there is no accounting for taste. Nonetheless I am cooking a fish curry for friends this week and it will have noticeable chilli, ginger and cloves in it; I’ll probably have to go easy on the chilli though.

The English conversation classes are still going well and are attracting new followers, which is just as well as some of the regulars have recently dropped out for heath reasons. Last week I taught the class to play the Black Widow card game, which I thought appropriate as the rules are simple, any number can play and there is quite a bit of new vocabulary in it. However one member couldn’t get their head around the idea that you need to avoid winning tricks with hearts or the black widow in them. Anyway that puts card games on the agenda for the future. Maybe I’ll get them to teach me some French games.

Translation And Immigration

 

Lost In Translation

Lost in translation is the title of one of my favourite films but this is not about films, it’s about translation; specifically, why do the French not get translations into English checked by an English native-language speaker? I and English friends have encountered many examples of mistranslations, from the gor blimey to the hilarious to the potentially dangerous. Here are some examples.

A friend visited a restaurant that had its menu translated into English. The menu listed the usual entrées, plats, desserts and the problem was with plat, flat or dish in English. Flat in English means on the same level or apartment. So the translator had some choices to make. He or she got it wrong. The result was a flat of the day and flats to take away. Hilarious but not too difficult to fix.

Some years ago I used Avignon airport frequently to visit England. Inscribed on a very large plate glass wall in the waiting area are the words Bienvenu en Avignon, le coeur de Provence. The English translation beneath it reads Welcome in (sic) Avignon, the hearth of Provence. Avignon residents might be surprised to know they are living in a cheminée. No harm done but very expensive to fix.

The other airport local to Mollans is at Nimes. On the wall inside the airport building is a large security notice, in French and English, with the English translation garbled. OK, it’s a security notice so much of the content can be inferred but the potential for misunderstandings is large. Isn’t airport security important enough to ensure an accurate translation?

Finally I sometimes visit wine websites to look at their English translations. One such was the Chateau Du Clos, in the Bordeaux area. It claimed that one of its wines was the colour of rubies, translated as “rubish”. I emailed the owners to point out that this was suspiciously close to rubbish and asked if they really wanted to claim their wine was that colour. The result was a good bottle of wine for me and a return email stating that the owners were thinking of suing the company that had created the site and the translation. Could be expensive for someone.

In all these cases what would it have cost to ensure an accurate translation from a native English speaker? Now whenever I encounter a mistranslation into English I offer the correction as a gift.

But before we English start smugly smiling it works the other way too. When the French new wave films hit Britain in the late 1950s one of the star films was Truffaut’s Quatre Cents Coups. The English translation was literal: The 400 Blows. But the film has nothing t do with 400 blows; faire les Quatre cents coups means to make mischief. So making mischief would have been a correct if not the sexiest of titles. I’ve no idea what the distributors paid for the right to distribute the film but it will certainly have dwarfed the cost of an accurate translation.

Immigration

I got an insight into the immigration issue in a dinner party at my house the other day with friends who are not racist or particularly politically active. It was to do with the safety net. The insight was that to defuse the issue countries need to ensure that they offer their existing citizens at least as much as they do to asylum seekers and would-be immigrants. This particularly concerns housing. Asylum seekers and would be immigrants are confined, which isn’t great for them, but they are housed. In the outside world (too) many people are sleeping on the streets. Finland has avoided this discrepancy by ensuring housing for all but I know of no other country that has done this. I haven’t yet had time to think this point through but intend to do so in the coming weeks.

It's A Waiting Game

 

It’s A Waiting Game

The Mairie always provides a new year lunch for free for the old folks in the village sometime in January and, for me, that is usually the only event of significance before March. It was, as usual, a good meal with a prawn, smoked salmon, ham and salad starter followed by roast pork in a mushroom sauce, cheese, dessert and wine “à volonté”. Hats off to the Mairie and members of the village council who served it. After that………..what, until March? I’m waiting for potatoes to appear in the garden shops so that I can buy some for my allotment; they’ll need a month for sprouting before I can plant them. At the same time onions should be available for planting. So basically nothing happens until I can start work on the allotment. I could do some clearing of debris there in the interim but that depends on the weather. So passing the time reduces to reading, listening to music or watching TV. It feels like an age but really that’s not so bad, is it?

(Don’t) Contact Us

I don’t know how many people have tried to contact the organisation behind a website and found it a frustrating experience but I certainly have many times. Contact Us can generally be taken to mean Please Don’t. Forging relationships with customers? Well, if you are buying, otherwise…...(who needs customers?). It’s all part of removing staff (and cost) from the process. Customer service? That’s a term that applies only to the sales staff. I’ve tried to interest relevant magazines in the issue, particularly from the point of view of old and limited fogies like, with no success. Isn’ t there a helpline phone number? Of course there is, if you can find it, but how long can you hang on the ine before you die? And if you have a specific problem there is probably a menu that will include all options except the one you want. So, an ELSE clause, an “other” option? Dream on.

I have had a bee in my bonnet about user testing for as long as I can remember until I recently found out that UX specialists are employed (sometimes). UX specialists are trained to examine the user experience on a website. That’s great, even if they don’t measure up to my benchmark of a 90 year-old granny living in Kazakhstan who has just been given a PC for her 90^th birthday and wants to buy a present on-line for her grandchild in England. But what is the remit of these UX specialists? Are they allowed to investigate and test beyond sales? There seems little if any evidence that that is the case. So do we just have to suffer and get on with it? Well, it seems to me that there is a gap in the market there; and if there is a gap in the market there could be an opportunity for someone to exploit it. Nationwide has only recently woken up to how to exploit its position as a mutual, doing so in a manner that no other bank in the UK can copy. So there is hope, even if it is tenuous. In the meantime I’m waiting, waiting for some organisation to meet my Kazakhstan granny test.

Christmas

 

Christmas

For me Christmas is all about children, contact with friends and family and gourmet eating and drinking. Believe it or not there is room for spirituality in there, if not religion. It may sound hedonistic but, for me, it is not.

In the absence of children and family it reduced to contacts, eating and drinking. In principle all this should be good but the contacts at my time of life always has a potential sad edge. I contacted my family on Christmas morning and all were well and preparing to enjoy their Christmas lunches. But what of those from whom I have heard nothing? When, many years ago, I was working as a volunteer at the Oxfam bookshop in Reading, the manageress said that if any of the older volunteers did not turn up when expected she just assumed they had died. If that was a bit cold-blooded it was not an unreasonable assumption. I shall of course follow up on my “absentees” but with a little trepidation.

Christmas began early for me, on the 13^th of December to be precise, when I went to the Christmas dinner organised by the Amitié Mollanaise. Smoked salmon, foie gras and confit de canard were all on offer and gratefully consumed. The village was already decked out with its Christmas lights, in blue and white, colours dear to the heart of a Chelsea football club supporter (but the less said about that perhaps the better).

On Christmas eve friend Sylvie invited me to join her and her extended family for their Christmas meal, again enjoyable for her daughter is a good cook, centred on pork and with enjoyable company to boot. The evening introduced me to what may be what may be a general practice or simply a family one. The children got their presents but not the adults. The adults don’t exchange presents but add some trinket to a collection for which they “fish” the next day. I must find out how common this is.

On Christmas day itself I went to Daniel’s for lunch with assorted friends; prawns, oysters and roast lamb. So on Boxing day it was down to me. I invited seven friends which meant that for space we had to eat in the large terrace room upstairs and also meant I got some of the exercise needed to burn off the calories consumed on the previous two days, carrying dishes up and down two floors. I’d bought prawns, oysters and a cold chicken and prepared some salads. We started with champagne and one of my friends had bought a good bottle of Gigondas to which I added a Gevrey Chambertin and a Pouilly Fumée. A friend also brought the traditional Yule log. So what’s not to like?

All in all that was a somewhat hectic Christmas but definitely an epicurean and enjoyable one. I think my stomach needs a rest for a few days. As to the 31^st, nothing is yet decided. It remains for me to follow up on those from whom I have heard nothing, with a little trepidation.

I’ve no idea what the new year will bring but, for myself, little if any deterioration in my vision and hearing. For others I wish peace, comfortable survival if prosperity is not a prospect, and goodwill.

Christmas Letter And Rip-off Country

 

It’s that time of year so here is my Christmas letter to friends.

Christmas Letter

So it’s been a year of mixed fortunes but not a bad one. In fact there have been a number of positives in it, the most significant being that I’m still alive. The downside is that I can’t say the same for some good friends and relatives. That’s how life goes now.

My family are all well, happy and successfully doing the various things that they do in their lives. That is a definite and the most important positive.

The world…….. ? I think I’d better leave that to what you want to make of it. Could be better ? Certainly. Beyond that you can make up your own mind but efeating the extreme right-wing demagogues, funded by the obscenely wealthy, present in most countries seems to me a priority.

All of which reduces to me. Well…...I still think I am lucky and privileged to be where I am.

My deteriorating eyesight has meant I have had to give up driving and my hearing is on ongoing battle so I have had to make considerable use of medical services here which I have found excellent. It has also meant reduced indpendence and more reliance on friends who have similarly proved extremely helpful.

What makes me still want to get up in the morning ? As ever it is boules, gardening, football and writing. I also continue to give the free English conversation lessons in the Mairie.I haven’t done anything of note except going to see my family in the UK, a trip that was very enjoyable if not very long; they all lead busy lives that I can interrupt for only a short time and my limited mobility means that there is not much scope to stay and explore the surroundings by myself. But I found London to Avignon by train in 6 hours 10 minutes impressive.

So for most of the year it comes down to ……..

I’ll deal with football first. It may not surprise you to know that I no longer play. However I do watch, avidly on TV, especially when my team, Chelsea is playing. An aunt took me to see them play when I was 10 and that became a lifelong loyalty. I once saw a survey that found that men changed their loyalty to football teams less often than they changed their wives and so it has been with me.

On the boules front I still play regularly and most of the time quite successfully if not to the standard that helped me win tournaments in the past. I now sometimes need help knowing exactly where the cochonet is.

Gardening has been a mixed experience. The floral display in front of my house has been as successful as usual and appreciated by all in the village. The allotment was not as successful as last year, although still useful. I’m not sure why, a number of factors could contribute, but that’s how it turned out. I’ll hope to do better next year (as all gardeners do)

Which leaves writing. There I can point to one definite success. The guide for visitors to Mollans which I wrote and published, with a lot of help from friends Claudine and Jacques, has sold well and should make the hoped for 1700-1800 euros for the school here over the next couple of years. Apart from that I have been writing an autobiography, largely for my grandchild, a kind of apologia of me and my ancestors, so that she in later years may understand how life was lived in the last 80 years or so. I have also continued a project to write a response to Voltaire’s « Lettres Philosophiques » on the English from the opposite point of view. As ever Claudine, my faithful critic and nterpreter, is in tow. I’m not sure what I’ll do with these when finished, print them as a vanity exercise or just leave them in electronic form. I’ll decide that later and, anyway, the reesarch and interest are justification for me in themselves and appease my obsession to keep writing.

So that’s my year. I hope yours has been as fulfilling and happy. And let me wish you and yours a happy Christmas and new year. My Christmas won’t be with family because they all have a number of considerations and priorities with which to juggle and to which I don’t want to add ; but it will be with many good friends.

Rip-off country

Viewing a recent TV programme on Norway made clear to me some of the reasons why the UK is a mess. One thing Norway and the UK have in common is that both are outside the EU; but that is about the only thing the countries have in common. Norway stayed out to protect it’s fishing industry, integral to its economy. The UK came out because the country accepted being conned. Important to both countries economies is north sea oil. Norway has kept most of the proceeds in the hational coffers and still has them: the UK gave most of them away to private shareholders and they have disappeared into private pockets (and possibly tax shelters). The Norwegian economy also depends heavily on the export of wood which it culls from extensive forests which it is expanding whilst culling. The UK once had extensive forests but these have long disappeared. Norways train network, which is nationalised, runs through much of the most difficult terrain in the world, featuring snow, ice and mountains, with 90% punctuality. The UK train network, which is mostly privatised, faces no such challenges and struggles ti get above 80% punctuality. The Norwegian tax regime is one of the highest in the world; the UK tax regime is middling and governments strive to get it lower. Norway has abundant water, the supply is nationalised and is harnesses for hydroelectric power; the UK has has abundant water, the supply is privatised and a lot of it is lost in floods and trough leaky water pipes. So which country is moving in the better direction? And what are the lessons?