Politics, Etc
Friends Steve, Jo, Claudine and Jacques came round to eat on Saturday evening and we all got into a marathon discussion that lasted until 11.30. The subjects were the usual: politics, religion (just a bit), race and translation.
The religious bit was just about food. Happily, Jacques and Claudine (and Steve and Jo) eat just about anything so I was free to choose what I wanted to cook; a curry, Bombay potatoes, dahl and raiti with chapatis I decided. We got to talking about Patricia, Daniel's part-time partner, and the difficulty the two of them posed since Daniel can't take cheese (lactose allergy) or spice and Patricia strictly observes the Jewish eating code: no pork, crustacea or game. None us quite understands why Patricia, who is not a strict Jewess (doesn't pray, attend synagogue), nonetheless is very strict with the eating conventions. There's nowt so queer as folk.
Then on to politics. Steve remarked that he had been told that the French think left but vote right and it seemed to be true. Despite widespread comment against Sarkozy and his right-wing policies the recent local regional elections had shown strong support for Marine Le Penn who has taken over her father's former leadership of the National Front. Jacques surprised me somewhat by showing some sympathy for the Margaret Thatcher era in the UK, saying that at least her policies were clear and she stuck to them. The reverse of this is, in effect, what most of the French who supported Sarkozy when he was elected President now hold against him. There's a kind of masochistic feeling around that he should implement the policies he was elected on even though most French people don't want them; a sort of “kick me and it'll hurt and I'll hate it (and strike!) but it will do me good” sentiment. The trouble is that Sarkozy is no Thatcher (which I can't hold against him). But he strikes me as an opportunist and narcissist, more concerned with what makes him look good than what does the country good.
Sarkozy's response to the trend to the right has been to borrow some of the National Front's ideas, particularly with regard to immigration. So are the French a racist lot? I don't think so, at least no more than any other nation as a whole can be called racist. A friend suggested to me not long ago that possibly the most racist country in the world is one where the question of race rarely occurs: Japan. He remembered being in a hopelessly overcrowded carriage on the Tokyo metro with a spare seat next to him, the only Caucasian in the carriage. There is certainly racial tension in France in the large city suburbs where ethnic ghettos abound and where support for Le Penn is strongest but elsewhere a generally liberal attitude prevails. The tension is largely economic. The situation seems to be that the French are content to see support for the far right to rise and put pressure on the government but would baulk at electing a National Front government.
So what's the alternative? Any left-centre government would have to be a coalition and there's no one at the moment who could make such a coalition work. Segolene Royale, the principal left-wing candidate, has lost all credibility with the public at large; she's regarded as a fantasist. The last person who managed to make the left and centre coalesce for any length of time was Mitterand, who is now missed, although not without reservations. I had sensed but not really understood the reservations but Jacques explained that there were echoes of the war there (still!). Mitterand had been a significant player in the Vichy government and, whilst this could now be forgiven (we all make mistakes), what was held against him was that he had shielded and promoted various other senior players in the Vichy government. As an aside, the fact that he had a publicly acknowledged mistress and bastard child for most of his reign was of no consequence. French politics for the moment consists of multiple factions waiting for a leader to emerge who can create a coherent coalition.
And so, briefly, to translation. Claudine has been translating some short stories I wrote when on a creative writing course in England so it was natural that this subject should crop up (again!). The translations Claudine had done turned out to be more difficult than those I have done. The problem, in a word, was colloquialisms. Here, above all, word for word translations won't work but it is difficult to get away entirely from the words used in the original text. The discussion crystallised something in my mind about the ideas I had been forming for the best approach to translation. The approach is essentially Wittgensteinian, as follows. Read the words in the original text and visualise the meaning: the objects, actions and attitudes. Crystallise a picture and then render that picture in the target language. This won't work with poetry or other forms of dense literary effect, which is why I won't attempt translations of these, but works in most other cases.
lundi 28 mars 2011
mercredi 23 mars 2011
Daffodils and Privatisation
Daffodils
I have just arrived back from a week in England to find the plants in my garden really starting to move and the coronilla in bloom already. It seems the weather has been fine while I was away. Not that it was bad in England, although with too many overcast days. I think of the spring being earlier here than in England but it isn't really; much the same plants are blooming on both sides of the channel.
One difference I noticed is the sheer quantity of daffodils blooming in England. Here there are plenty but not the great swathes of them growing round the village pond in Chiddingfold and in front of my mother's kitchen window. And |I noticed a difference between them and those remembered from when I was a child. The memory is admittedly vague but I recall daffodils always being a fairly deep shade of yellow; the flowers with white petals were narcissi, invariably with an orange centre. Looking closely at the daffodils in Chiddingfold I could see hardly any that were purely of the deep yellow shade I remember. There was a huge range of variation in the colours and shapes. Obviously, bulb growers will have indulged in hybridisation in the interim but this is the first time I had really noticed the extent of it. It's enormous.
Another point that interested me occurred on the Saturday morning when a sharp frost preceded a warm sunny day. The daffodils outside my mother's kitchen were all flat on the ground when I got up, as though somebody had stamped all over them. As the sun got to them they all gradually rose up to their former positions. I wondered why. There was no ice on the flowers to weigh them down and, if any freezing had occurred, I would have expected the opposite reaction: up, stiff when frozen and collapsed when thawed. I asked several people but the only possible explanation came from my daughter who suggested that if the frost was an air frost the flowers had moved down to escape it. I suppose that is possible but it somehow seems unlikely. It's a mystery to be unravelled sometime.
Privatisation
One thing I did while in England was to get a mobile phone. I generally hate the things (or rather the manners of a lot of their users) but realise that there are situations when one would be very useful. So I planned to get one on a pay-as-you-go basis for use in emergencies only. The problem here is that all top-ups for pay-as-you-go contracts last just a short time. A 10 euro top-up, for instance, is valid for only two weeks; if you don't use the 10 euros in that time you lose them. Effectively, it costs >250 euros a year to keep the phone running. So I got a UK contract which will cost a lot for each call when I use it here but, if as intended, I hardly ever use it, will be a lot cheaper than a French contract.
This is one result of the differences in privatisation between France and the UK. I think that privatisation of telephony in the UK has been a success (one of the few to date). In France, a grudging and primarily theoretical liberalisation has allowed France Telecom and its subsidiary Orange to create a virtual monopoly. The result is that the consumer has very little choice.
Privatisation (and foreign ownership) is even more controversial here than in England. My own view is that it can work well if genuine competition is possible and there is the means and will to enforce it. The French, on the whole, simply don't want it and often point to some disasters in England (e.g. rail) to support their views. Distribution of electricity and gas is a privatisation that may turn out to work well in England (I think the jury is currently out on that) and there is a law going through parliament in France to, theoretically, do the same. This move, known as the NOME law, is supposed to meet a Brussels directive but is really more of a twitch than a nod towards privatisation. The French are dead set against it and think it will simply fail and result in higher prices. I think they are right, because of the way the law has been drawn up. It allows for privatisation of only 25% of distribution; state-backed EDF must retain 75%. This ensures that even if just one competitor secures the full 25% available, it will never be big enough to challenge EDF. More than one competitor would simply make the alternatives even weaker. It's really a move to appease Brussels while keeping the state monopoly.
The outcry against the NOME law echoes similar protests against, for instance, a noticeable number of successful Polish plumbers and English ski instructors in France; taking French jobs, for Heaven's sake! So much for freedom of movement. The French tendency to protectionism is well know but there is a surprise in all this. I think that partial privatisation of the NHS in the UK would be a disaster but the French have one of the best healthcare systems in the world and it is all privatised and affordable; and the French would, as ever, be the last to sanction any change.
I have just arrived back from a week in England to find the plants in my garden really starting to move and the coronilla in bloom already. It seems the weather has been fine while I was away. Not that it was bad in England, although with too many overcast days. I think of the spring being earlier here than in England but it isn't really; much the same plants are blooming on both sides of the channel.
One difference I noticed is the sheer quantity of daffodils blooming in England. Here there are plenty but not the great swathes of them growing round the village pond in Chiddingfold and in front of my mother's kitchen window. And |I noticed a difference between them and those remembered from when I was a child. The memory is admittedly vague but I recall daffodils always being a fairly deep shade of yellow; the flowers with white petals were narcissi, invariably with an orange centre. Looking closely at the daffodils in Chiddingfold I could see hardly any that were purely of the deep yellow shade I remember. There was a huge range of variation in the colours and shapes. Obviously, bulb growers will have indulged in hybridisation in the interim but this is the first time I had really noticed the extent of it. It's enormous.
Another point that interested me occurred on the Saturday morning when a sharp frost preceded a warm sunny day. The daffodils outside my mother's kitchen were all flat on the ground when I got up, as though somebody had stamped all over them. As the sun got to them they all gradually rose up to their former positions. I wondered why. There was no ice on the flowers to weigh them down and, if any freezing had occurred, I would have expected the opposite reaction: up, stiff when frozen and collapsed when thawed. I asked several people but the only possible explanation came from my daughter who suggested that if the frost was an air frost the flowers had moved down to escape it. I suppose that is possible but it somehow seems unlikely. It's a mystery to be unravelled sometime.
Privatisation
One thing I did while in England was to get a mobile phone. I generally hate the things (or rather the manners of a lot of their users) but realise that there are situations when one would be very useful. So I planned to get one on a pay-as-you-go basis for use in emergencies only. The problem here is that all top-ups for pay-as-you-go contracts last just a short time. A 10 euro top-up, for instance, is valid for only two weeks; if you don't use the 10 euros in that time you lose them. Effectively, it costs >250 euros a year to keep the phone running. So I got a UK contract which will cost a lot for each call when I use it here but, if as intended, I hardly ever use it, will be a lot cheaper than a French contract.
This is one result of the differences in privatisation between France and the UK. I think that privatisation of telephony in the UK has been a success (one of the few to date). In France, a grudging and primarily theoretical liberalisation has allowed France Telecom and its subsidiary Orange to create a virtual monopoly. The result is that the consumer has very little choice.
Privatisation (and foreign ownership) is even more controversial here than in England. My own view is that it can work well if genuine competition is possible and there is the means and will to enforce it. The French, on the whole, simply don't want it and often point to some disasters in England (e.g. rail) to support their views. Distribution of electricity and gas is a privatisation that may turn out to work well in England (I think the jury is currently out on that) and there is a law going through parliament in France to, theoretically, do the same. This move, known as the NOME law, is supposed to meet a Brussels directive but is really more of a twitch than a nod towards privatisation. The French are dead set against it and think it will simply fail and result in higher prices. I think they are right, because of the way the law has been drawn up. It allows for privatisation of only 25% of distribution; state-backed EDF must retain 75%. This ensures that even if just one competitor secures the full 25% available, it will never be big enough to challenge EDF. More than one competitor would simply make the alternatives even weaker. It's really a move to appease Brussels while keeping the state monopoly.
The outcry against the NOME law echoes similar protests against, for instance, a noticeable number of successful Polish plumbers and English ski instructors in France; taking French jobs, for Heaven's sake! So much for freedom of movement. The French tendency to protectionism is well know but there is a surprise in all this. I think that partial privatisation of the NHS in the UK would be a disaster but the French have one of the best healthcare systems in the world and it is all privatised and affordable; and the French would, as ever, be the last to sanction any change.
mardi 8 mars 2011
Miscellaniae
Summer
We seem to have gone from winter through spring to summer in a matter of a month. The past week has seen seen midday temperatures in the mid-twenties and I've been eating out at lunch-time in shirt sleeves. Rain is forecast for next week when I shall be in England and won't care. Anyway, we need the rain; I had to water the pots out front for the third time in about ten days as they had become so dry. The narcissi are now coming into bloom and, with the all-blue pansies in full flower, the front of the house is beginning to look as I hoped it would this spring.
The World Of The Olive Tree
Somehow I'm going to have to teach Daniel version control. He has printed out the text of the film on olive trees because he decided we needed a printed copy; fine. But he has printed out the last version but one. When I hit the roof he airily said: “that's OK you can put in the corrections by hand and also any further changes we make”. And then, when we want a final, final printed version? Well, we can add in (again) all the changes we have made on paper, which will mostly be the changes I have already made to the electronic version. (And then presumably print off an earlier version again.) Tagging each saved file with a version number is apparently beyond him (a former university professor!). It's driving me bananas.
The text has however taught me a few things I didn't know about olives. To me an olive is an olive but there are over fifty named varieties of the things and it seems that those good for eating are not generally good for making oil. An exception is a variety called “la tanche” which is the one grown around here and is good for both eating and making oil. In the late 1950s the good people of Nyons, around 20km from here, decided to make a thing of their special olive and applied for an AOC label which was duly granted (the first such). In Nyons, moreover, there is an Order of The Knights of the Olive Tree and an annual festival during which the Knights dress up (in all seriousness) in olive coloured robes, stick olive tree twigs in their hair and parade around the town initiating new Knights by slapping them on the shoulders with olive branches. Only in France........
The World of the Inland Revenue
I say “only in France” but dear old HMRC seems to be trying to get in on the act. Not entirely unexpectedly, I received notice a few days ago of a £100 fine for a late tax return for fiscal 2009/10. I have written a reply stating that, firstly, I believe my original paper return was rejected in error (as I have already told them) since it conformed exactly to the instructions I received in a letter from them in July. Either that or their instructions were in error, so either way it's their fault. Secondly, I posted an online return in January which was accepted by the system. Thirdly, the lovely form on which they notified me of the fine states specifically that the fine cannot exceed the tax due and, since they have accepted my French tax residence back to September 2007 and given me a tax code of NT (not taxable), there can't be any tax due.
I'm waiting to see if, this time, they are going to try to extract interest on the tax not due. It'll be six months before they decide on that so there is a slight chance that one of my communications will get noticed by them before then. Maybe, like olive trees, there are over 50 varieties of HMRC (and Knights........though Heaven knows what they would dress up in; the mind boggles.
We seem to have gone from winter through spring to summer in a matter of a month. The past week has seen seen midday temperatures in the mid-twenties and I've been eating out at lunch-time in shirt sleeves. Rain is forecast for next week when I shall be in England and won't care. Anyway, we need the rain; I had to water the pots out front for the third time in about ten days as they had become so dry. The narcissi are now coming into bloom and, with the all-blue pansies in full flower, the front of the house is beginning to look as I hoped it would this spring.
The World Of The Olive Tree
Somehow I'm going to have to teach Daniel version control. He has printed out the text of the film on olive trees because he decided we needed a printed copy; fine. But he has printed out the last version but one. When I hit the roof he airily said: “that's OK you can put in the corrections by hand and also any further changes we make”. And then, when we want a final, final printed version? Well, we can add in (again) all the changes we have made on paper, which will mostly be the changes I have already made to the electronic version. (And then presumably print off an earlier version again.) Tagging each saved file with a version number is apparently beyond him (a former university professor!). It's driving me bananas.
The text has however taught me a few things I didn't know about olives. To me an olive is an olive but there are over fifty named varieties of the things and it seems that those good for eating are not generally good for making oil. An exception is a variety called “la tanche” which is the one grown around here and is good for both eating and making oil. In the late 1950s the good people of Nyons, around 20km from here, decided to make a thing of their special olive and applied for an AOC label which was duly granted (the first such). In Nyons, moreover, there is an Order of The Knights of the Olive Tree and an annual festival during which the Knights dress up (in all seriousness) in olive coloured robes, stick olive tree twigs in their hair and parade around the town initiating new Knights by slapping them on the shoulders with olive branches. Only in France........
The World of the Inland Revenue
I say “only in France” but dear old HMRC seems to be trying to get in on the act. Not entirely unexpectedly, I received notice a few days ago of a £100 fine for a late tax return for fiscal 2009/10. I have written a reply stating that, firstly, I believe my original paper return was rejected in error (as I have already told them) since it conformed exactly to the instructions I received in a letter from them in July. Either that or their instructions were in error, so either way it's their fault. Secondly, I posted an online return in January which was accepted by the system. Thirdly, the lovely form on which they notified me of the fine states specifically that the fine cannot exceed the tax due and, since they have accepted my French tax residence back to September 2007 and given me a tax code of NT (not taxable), there can't be any tax due.
I'm waiting to see if, this time, they are going to try to extract interest on the tax not due. It'll be six months before they decide on that so there is a slight chance that one of my communications will get noticed by them before then. Maybe, like olive trees, there are over 50 varieties of HMRC (and Knights........though Heaven knows what they would dress up in; the mind boggles.
Miscellaniae
Summer
We seem to have gone from winter through spring to summer in a matter of a month. The past week has seen seen midday temperatures in the mid-twenties and I've been eating out at lunch-time in shirt sleeves. Rain is forecast for next week when I shall be in England and won't care. Anyway, we need the rain; I had to water the pots out front for the third time in about ten days as they had become so dry. The narcissi are now coming into bloom and, with the all-blue pansies in full flower, the front of the house is beginning to look as I hoped it would this spring.
The World Of The Olive Tree
Somehow I'm going to have to teach Daniel version control. He has printed out the text of the film on olive trees because he decided we needed a printed copy; fine. But he has printed out the last version but one. When I hit the roof he airily said: “that's OK you can put in the corrections by hand and also any further changes we make”. And then, when we want a final, final printed version? Well, we can add in (again) all the changes we have made on paper, which will mostly be the changes I have already made to the electronic version. (And then presumably print off an earlier version again.) Tagging each saved file with a version number is apparently beyond him (a former university professor!). It's driving me bananas.
The text has however taught me a few things I didn't know about olives. To me an olive is an olive but there are over fifty named varieties of the things and it seems that those good for eating are not generally good for making oil. An exception is a variety called “la tanche” which is the one grown around here and is good for both eating and making oil. In the late 1950s the good people of Nyons, around 20km from here, decided to make a thing of their special olive and applied for an AOC label which was duly granted (the first such). In Nyons, moreover, there is an Order of The Knights of the Olive Tree and an annual festival during which the Knights dress up (in all seriousness) in olive coloured robes, stick olive tree twigs in their hair and parade around the town initiating new Knights by slapping them on the shoulders with olive branches. Only in France........
The World of the Inland Revenue
I say “only in France” but dear old HMRC seems to be trying to get in on the act. Not entirely unexpectedly, I received notice a few days ago of a £100 fine for a late tax return for fiscal 2009/10. I have written a reply stating that, firstly, I believe my original paper return was rejected in error (as I have already told them) since it conformed exactly to the instructions I received in a letter from them in July. Either that or their instructions were in error, so either way it's their fault. Secondly, I posted an online return in January which was accepted by the system. Thirdly, the lovely form on which they notified me of the fine states specifically that the fine cannot exceed the tax due and, since they have accepted my French tax residence back to September 2007 and given me a tax code of NT (not taxable), there can't be any tax due.
I'm waiting to see if, this time, they are going to try to extract interest on the tax not due. It'll be six months before they decide on that so there is a slight chance that one of my communications will get noticed by them before then. Maybe, like olive trees, there are over 50 varieties of HMRC (and Knights........though Heaven knows what they would dress up in; the mind boggles.
We seem to have gone from winter through spring to summer in a matter of a month. The past week has seen seen midday temperatures in the mid-twenties and I've been eating out at lunch-time in shirt sleeves. Rain is forecast for next week when I shall be in England and won't care. Anyway, we need the rain; I had to water the pots out front for the third time in about ten days as they had become so dry. The narcissi are now coming into bloom and, with the all-blue pansies in full flower, the front of the house is beginning to look as I hoped it would this spring.
The World Of The Olive Tree
Somehow I'm going to have to teach Daniel version control. He has printed out the text of the film on olive trees because he decided we needed a printed copy; fine. But he has printed out the last version but one. When I hit the roof he airily said: “that's OK you can put in the corrections by hand and also any further changes we make”. And then, when we want a final, final printed version? Well, we can add in (again) all the changes we have made on paper, which will mostly be the changes I have already made to the electronic version. (And then presumably print off an earlier version again.) Tagging each saved file with a version number is apparently beyond him (a former university professor!). It's driving me bananas.
The text has however taught me a few things I didn't know about olives. To me an olive is an olive but there are over fifty named varieties of the things and it seems that those good for eating are not generally good for making oil. An exception is a variety called “la tanche” which is the one grown around here and is good for both eating and making oil. In the late 1950s the good people of Nyons, around 20km from here, decided to make a thing of their special olive and applied for an AOC label which was duly granted (the first such). In Nyons, moreover, there is an Order of The Knights of the Olive Tree and an annual festival during which the Knights dress up (in all seriousness) in olive coloured robes, stick olive tree twigs in their hair and parade around the town initiating new Knights by slapping them on the shoulders with olive branches. Only in France........
The World of the Inland Revenue
I say “only in France” but dear old HMRC seems to be trying to get in on the act. Not entirely unexpectedly, I received notice a few days ago of a £100 fine for a late tax return for fiscal 2009/10. I have written a reply stating that, firstly, I believe my original paper return was rejected in error (as I have already told them) since it conformed exactly to the instructions I received in a letter from them in July. Either that or their instructions were in error, so either way it's their fault. Secondly, I posted an online return in January which was accepted by the system. Thirdly, the lovely form on which they notified me of the fine states specifically that the fine cannot exceed the tax due and, since they have accepted my French tax residence back to September 2007 and given me a tax code of NT (not taxable), there can't be any tax due.
I'm waiting to see if, this time, they are going to try to extract interest on the tax not due. It'll be six months before they decide on that so there is a slight chance that one of my communications will get noticed by them before then. Maybe, like olive trees, there are over 50 varieties of HMRC (and Knights........though Heaven knows what they would dress up in; the mind boggles.
jeudi 3 mars 2011
Rugby, Fountains and Politics
Rugby
Last Saturday evening friend Steve and I went to the Bar du Pont to ensure that “les Rosbifs” were represented at the screening of the France – England game. The game itself was a scrappy affair I thought, with both sides treating the ball as it it were too hot to handle. However, the result went in our favour. I couldn't be triumphant about it because the locals in the bar were so congratulatory, as they had been indeed since the start of the match. They didn't think much of the French side; true gentlemen they were.
It reminded me of something Robin Marlar had said when I remarked to him that I couldn't understand rugby fans complaining about footballers' behaviour when just about anything other than outright murder seemed to be accepted as part of the game of rugby. At times I had fully expected someone's head rather than the ball to come out of a ruck and get kicked around. Football has always been my passion in sport. Robin commented that rugby was a game for gentlemen played by louts whereas football was a game for louts played by gentlemen; cricket, of course, was a game for gentlemen played by gentlemen.
Fountains
On Tuesday I went off with Daniel and Martine to get some shots of Mt Ventoux and also see some fountains in nearby villages for the film they are making on fountains in the area. We duly toured the east side of Mt Ventoux going up from Buis through Brantes and Savoillans to Montbrun. Mt Ventoux was looking splendid with its snow-capped peak in the sun, which still had a surprising amount of heat in it at over 2000ft. Wild almond trees were in full bloom and there was a stone wall covered in aubretia in flower. Mimosa and japonica are also in bloom here now.
A surprise for me was the position of the fountain and wash-house in Brantes. Brantes is a picturesque little village, slapped onto a near-vertical hillside, which I've visited a number of times. It's a good place to get a variety of types of honey: acacia, lavender, chestnut, etc. However I had never noticed before that there is no fountain actually in the village; the fountain and wash-house are only about 200 yards outside it but that is 200 yards almost vertically down. The village won't have had piped water until relatively recently (probably in the last 50 years) and getting enough water for the day must have involved several tortuous climbs with buckets. I wondered how the villagers had managed. Now there is a small pumping/purification station opposite the wash-house where the spring is intercepted and that presumably is the current source of piped water in the village.
Rough Politics
Politics in France tends to be rougher than in the UK, except as regards sexual affairs which the French simply dismiss with a shrug. Such headlines in Britain would be of little interest here. Sarkozy has however been responding to his critics in some unusually crude terms even by French standards, telling them effectively to go f*** themselves. That seems to have encouraged similarly outrageous responses, which even the press are finding exceptional. Posters have been printed with Sarkozy's photo on them carrying the words “son of a prostitute”. And a priest in Lille has exhorted his flock to pray that Sarkozy has a heart attack. It's rather reminiscent of the scurrilous political lampoons that were the rage in Britain in the 19th century. Maybe this too is a question of louts, gentlemen and the game that is being played.
Curiously, the French Left has stopped criticisng Sakozy for his policies and instead criticises him now for not delivering on them: the policies that they, the Left, didn't want in the first place. I feel they should instead be congratulating him (or themselves) on his failure. But it is most certainly failure to deliver something (anything?) that is at the heart of Sarkozy's current problems.
I still struggle to understand French politics and the actions of the populace. I remember being in Paris in 1961 at the time of the generals' revolt in Algeria when the generals were threatening to send paratroops into Paris. The train workers' union decided on a show of support for De Gaulle against the generals by organising a large demonstration and paralyzing the city with no trains running. Just as well the paras were never dropped.
Last Saturday evening friend Steve and I went to the Bar du Pont to ensure that “les Rosbifs” were represented at the screening of the France – England game. The game itself was a scrappy affair I thought, with both sides treating the ball as it it were too hot to handle. However, the result went in our favour. I couldn't be triumphant about it because the locals in the bar were so congratulatory, as they had been indeed since the start of the match. They didn't think much of the French side; true gentlemen they were.
It reminded me of something Robin Marlar had said when I remarked to him that I couldn't understand rugby fans complaining about footballers' behaviour when just about anything other than outright murder seemed to be accepted as part of the game of rugby. At times I had fully expected someone's head rather than the ball to come out of a ruck and get kicked around. Football has always been my passion in sport. Robin commented that rugby was a game for gentlemen played by louts whereas football was a game for louts played by gentlemen; cricket, of course, was a game for gentlemen played by gentlemen.
Fountains
On Tuesday I went off with Daniel and Martine to get some shots of Mt Ventoux and also see some fountains in nearby villages for the film they are making on fountains in the area. We duly toured the east side of Mt Ventoux going up from Buis through Brantes and Savoillans to Montbrun. Mt Ventoux was looking splendid with its snow-capped peak in the sun, which still had a surprising amount of heat in it at over 2000ft. Wild almond trees were in full bloom and there was a stone wall covered in aubretia in flower. Mimosa and japonica are also in bloom here now.
A surprise for me was the position of the fountain and wash-house in Brantes. Brantes is a picturesque little village, slapped onto a near-vertical hillside, which I've visited a number of times. It's a good place to get a variety of types of honey: acacia, lavender, chestnut, etc. However I had never noticed before that there is no fountain actually in the village; the fountain and wash-house are only about 200 yards outside it but that is 200 yards almost vertically down. The village won't have had piped water until relatively recently (probably in the last 50 years) and getting enough water for the day must have involved several tortuous climbs with buckets. I wondered how the villagers had managed. Now there is a small pumping/purification station opposite the wash-house where the spring is intercepted and that presumably is the current source of piped water in the village.
Rough Politics
Politics in France tends to be rougher than in the UK, except as regards sexual affairs which the French simply dismiss with a shrug. Such headlines in Britain would be of little interest here. Sarkozy has however been responding to his critics in some unusually crude terms even by French standards, telling them effectively to go f*** themselves. That seems to have encouraged similarly outrageous responses, which even the press are finding exceptional. Posters have been printed with Sarkozy's photo on them carrying the words “son of a prostitute”. And a priest in Lille has exhorted his flock to pray that Sarkozy has a heart attack. It's rather reminiscent of the scurrilous political lampoons that were the rage in Britain in the 19th century. Maybe this too is a question of louts, gentlemen and the game that is being played.
Curiously, the French Left has stopped criticisng Sakozy for his policies and instead criticises him now for not delivering on them: the policies that they, the Left, didn't want in the first place. I feel they should instead be congratulating him (or themselves) on his failure. But it is most certainly failure to deliver something (anything?) that is at the heart of Sarkozy's current problems.
I still struggle to understand French politics and the actions of the populace. I remember being in Paris in 1961 at the time of the generals' revolt in Algeria when the generals were threatening to send paratroops into Paris. The train workers' union decided on a show of support for De Gaulle against the generals by organising a large demonstration and paralyzing the city with no trains running. Just as well the paras were never dropped.
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