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.