Food And Boules

French And English Food

Friends Steve and Jo have just arrived back from a 3-week trip to England. They brought back a consignment of food for me.

One of the pleasures of being here in France is the good food, particularly the fruit where I am. However, there are still some English foods that reign supreme on my palate; the same goes for friend Steve, who got his fill of bitter and fish and chips while in England.

The problem with English foods here is not generally that they are unobtainable but that they are exorbitantly expensive. The only food I asked Steve and Jo to bring back that I have seen nowhere here is vegetable suet, which I use to make dumplings for a stew. The other food stuffs were much as might be expected: Marmite, kippers, baked beans, brown sauce, cans of bitter, bacon, sausages, pork pies and a gammon. Most of these are obtainable here but at 2-3 times the UK price. I think they are artificially priced up by supermarkets because the supermarkets know that British residents can often be persuaded to pay a premium for them.

English sausages are not obtainable and there really is no French equivalent. French sausages can be very good but not the same. Bacon is a similar case; some winter mornings only a bacon sandwich fits the bill for breakfast. The French “poitrine fume”, similar to smoked streaky bacon, comes close, just not close enough; and there is no equivalent to back bacon. The same goes for pork pies. The gammon is to make a ham for Christmas and I haven't found that here; the French “jambon cru” is cured to be eaten as is rather than cooked. Tea bags, even English breakfast, which should be strong, how I like it, is easily obtainable at reasonable prices but the pieces of tea leaf in the bags would seem to have been counted out individually, so around three bags at a time are needed to make a decent cuppa. The other items are all obtainable but, for instance, a very small jar of Marmite will cost the same as a very large jar in the UK.

Anyway, I am now well stocked for winter

A Boules Problem

Many fewer people play boules in winter than in summer, as might be expected, but even those hardy few have been diminished this winter. The problem is a particular player. At her worst, which is not infrequent, she apparently feels the need always to win and also to tell other players how they should play. The result is, when teams are being drawn up from the players present, she tries blatantly to create teams that are clearly unbalanced in her favour, when everybody else is trying to create balanced sides. She (a pointer) also tries to tell the shooter when to shoot. If others don't do as she says (dictates) she is immediately in a bad temper and often simply throws her boules anywhere. Several of the regular players have said that they come for a good time and don't enjoy playing if she is, so they do not come any more.

That's the problem in a nutshell. I think the answer is to refuse to accept her behaviour, to refuse the team line-ups she proposes and ignore her when she tries to dictate how one plays. That is what I do, in the expectation that she will change her behaviour if she sees it has no effect. Unfortunately, I'm the only one who does that, which makes the dispute one between her and me and I don't want that. The other players grumble but say nothing to her and to me say that it is pointless because she will never change.

So they stay away and are proposing an email list, from which she is excluded, so that teams can be pre-arranged before going to play. This strikes me as difficult, cumbersome and unnecessary but I shall probably go along with it if that is what happens.

What strikes me most is the disruption and unhappiness that can be caused if a single individual who is effectively a bully is not stood up to by the “silent majority”. That is the way dictators come to power; and I suppose that over-statement illustrates how such a minor matter can get blown out of all proportion, as seems to be happening.

The Book

As the winter weather has been creeping in I decided to get down to writing a chapter of my proposed book (see previous postings). It's fine and makes a decent-sized chapter but I've realised that I've used about a quarter of the material I had outlined for the book. In short, I can't now see enough material to make even a modest-sized book. So......it's back to the drawing board or a search for another project for the winter.