lundi 27 juillet 2015

Europe

French Character And The Common Market
I'm not sure why I keep puzzling over the French character since there is no more a stereotype that encapsulates France than there is for any other country. However, in any country there can be character traits that tend to predominate, possibly as a result of culture, education, history, institutions or whatever, and it is these that I try to flush out. I've commented before on the apparent contradiction of an impulse to bureaucracy and at the same time an impulse to anarchy. Now I'm wondering about assertiveness.

Some time ago I related how boules in the village was becoming fraught because of a woman player who basically was acting like a spoiled child. The problem has resurfaced this summer. Most of the regular players have voted with their feet to play in Buis rather than face down the problem player, despite my urging them to tell her to behave or piss off. I regard that as a lack of assertiveness on their part. Now the regular summer visitors are arriving and are frustrated, disappointed, exasperated and even angry at finding the usual boules afternoons in the village they were looking forward to don't happen any more. Why, they ask? But these are the same people who wouldn't face down the problem player before, the reason for the change. So can't the French stomach confrontation when it is required? Can't they be assertive when assertiveness is needed?

I now read in the Press that French farmers are blockading the frontiers with Spain and Germany to stop farm goods entering the country which may sell at a lower price than their local equivalents. These farmers certainly don't flinch from confrontation; they've been not only stopping but eviscerating lorries trying to enter France, and doing it with apparent impunity. In contrast to the farmers, the French police are showing no assertiveness at all in the face of what are unquestionably criminal acts. The police are washing their hands of the whole business.

I asked friend René about this situation this pizza evening and he replied that it was because of the different regulations and costs associated with farm produce between France and other European countries; they needed to be the same. But they are not and neither are they for just about any kind of product you can name. So would other countries in the EU be entitled to blockade their frontiers with the tacit connivance of the police on the basis of difference in regulation and costs of production? If so, what price the common market?

This last was admittedly a pointless question since nobody here, quite possibly nobody in Europe, believes in a common market other than we deluded Brits. And I haven't really got any further either in my investigation of assertiveness; all I can say with any certainty is that is that it definitely applies to farmers but probably not to village boules get-togethers.

A German Europe?
I read an interesting article suggesting that the relationship between Germany and Europe had shifted significantly over the Greek crisis. One of the claimed successes of the EU has been the absence of a war in Europe (pace the Balkans) in the last 60 years. What is certainly true is that major political and diplomatic initiatives were aimed at integrating Germany closely into Europe, creating a European Germany. The article I read suggested that the shift was from a European Germany to a German Europe: Germany had exerted its financial muscle over the Greek crisis, despite conciliatory suggestions from France and Italy. Friend René said he had always assumed this to be the case: that Germany was destined to be the commercial and financial engine of Europe.


Yet there is quite a strong case for arguing that Germany should take something of a financial hit. In 1953 it had all its war reparation debts written off while receiving significant financial investment from the USA via the Marshall plan. It also joined the Euro when indisputably conforming to all the financial requirements when several other countries didn't, thus placing it in a good financial position. And it was allowed to join at an exchange rate to the mark that was artificially low, strengthening its financial position further. Germany is undoubtedly the commercial and financial engine of the EU but it didn't get there entirely through its own efforts. So it owes. Whether and how much it will be willing to pay has yet to be seen.

mercredi 22 juillet 2015

From National Anthems To Flowers

La Marseillaise Et Al
At the last pizza evening I had an opportunity to ask friend Dominique privately why he had refused to stand for the singing of the Marseillaise at the July 14th celebration. He said it was because he couldn't abide the words and I had to agree that singing about slicing people up is not (fortunately) everybody's idea of a good way to start a celebration. That's the problem with national anthems; if they are not actually barbaric they are crudely nationalistic in a way that that most open-minded people have come to regard as at least distasteful. The answer, I suggested to Dominique (he didn't know) lay in the Spanish national anthem; it has no words at all. I have only one regret in this suggestion. The words of the English national anthem have been changed by the national football team's supporters to be “God save our team” and the team has not infrequently been in need of such divine intervention. If we drop the words we'll have to find another way.

Wine Festival
I went to the wine festival in the village this week really just because I had nothing better to do. There are a couple of producers within the village that produce reasonable wine but nothing that I would go out of the way for. The last time I went, about three years ago, there were only about six vineyards represented but this year I was initially pleased to see that there were 15 present. I particularly wanted to find a good white wine as there are numerous local sources of good rosé and good red wine can be had if you know where to look. I think the problem with white wine here is finding a blend from what grows well in the area. That reduces to Ugni, Grenache, Clairette, Viognier and, at a pinch, Chardonnay. The problem seems to be that Viognier doesn't seem to blend well with other grape varieties (the best Viogniers I've had have been just that) and the local Chardonnay doesn't produce as well as it does in other regions. The result is blends that tend to be characterless. Apart from Viognier, my taste is for white wines based on Sauvignon Blanc (primarily, or Chablis or Reisling) which are rarely or never grown here. In fact I think that most white wines work best with an (almost) pure single grape variety; indeed, that seems to be the case with most French white wines of repute.

Anyway, I didn't find any white wine to please my palate, so that was a slight if not unexpected disappointment. One of my favourite local vineyards (Rieu Frais, in nearby St Jalle) wasn't represented but two other vineyards I like for their red and rosé wines, Puy du Maupas and Roche Buissière were, and I found a very decent Gigondas from a source I didn't previously know, the Mas Des Collines.

Anyway, the wine festival was quite a jolly affair, with a band at one end of the Haute Terre and the smell of barbecued sausages at the other, and the opportunity to greet friends and acquaintances again in between. So I was glad I went.

Flowers

Passers-by continue to stop and take photos of my house, which is gratifying, although I think my floral display this year is disappointing. The hanging baskets have been a total failure and I have had unusual problems with several other plants. The jasmine is still blooming prolifically over my balcony and the cotyledons are doing their bit but I'm having a bit of a rethink. I'm not sure if the problems I'm having are a result of the exceptional weather or the compost or plants I'm using but I need, somehow, to change what I am doing. From the road, red shows up well on the balcony but I refuse to give in to the scarlet geranium syndrome (in the worst possible taste, according to Oscar Wilde and, anyway, I don't like them); but geraniums are reliable here so maybe I'll use deeper red or white varieties. I think I need John Innes No 3 compost but you can't get it here so I've decided to make some myself, using good local compost and some clay that friends Steve and Jo have said I can take from their garden. I've noticed that the compost that can be bought locally tends to reduce to dust after a couple of years and thus no longer retains water. I suspect also that drainage may be a play a part so I may introduce some grit into my own compost. Then it's a question of choosing the right plants. I'll experiment and see what I get next year. That's the way with gardening, I think; continual evolution.

samedi 18 juillet 2015

The Heat Is On

Lucky Me
The July 14th celebrations were a delight for me, reminding me of so many reasons why I like being where I am. I signed up for the paella on offer in the Place Banche Cour in front of the Bar du Pont and sat with the usual group of suspects, village friends who regularly attend the pizza evenings. A band was already installed when I got there (the centre of the village having been blocked off as usual) but nobody was really listening to it. It simply provided a rather noisy background as I went round saying hello to friends and acquaintances at other tables. What struck me immediately was the contrast with a previous evening, a couple of weeks before, when I had gone for moules-frites in the same square and recognised only a dozen people; the square was full of tourists. I've no idea why the tourists had chosen not to attend the July 14th celebrations but they weren't there.

The music stopped for the feeding and, after the paella, the celebrations began in earnest, starting with the inevitable Marseillaise. I got up to stand for this, out of respect for all my other friends standing (bar one; I must ask him about this). And then the music continued and the dancing began. And this is what appeal to me most; the French are known for their love of elegance but it doesn't necessarily apply to their dancing. The moppets as usual were more energy than coordination and there were one or two couples of very good dancers but the vast majority just jigged around, some looking faintly ridiculous. It didn't matter, though; that was the whole point. Everybody was enjoying themselves and that was all that really mattered. At one stage the band struck up with “By the rivers of Babylon”, which got a roar of approval from those of us who had been singing it in front of the Dauphin fountain a month earlier. We had sung it as more or less a spiritual and the band played it to a heavy rock rhythm but that didn't matter either. I meandered home at half-past midnight thinking how lucky I am to be in this place.

A Greek Tragedy
I was disappointed that the Greeks courage failed them at the last and they voted for the recessionary measures demanded by the EU. The Greeks were the first to invent great tragedies and I do unfortunately believe they are at it again. The Greek Prime Minister doesn't believe the measures can work and neither does the IMF nor most economists, it seems. If they are right then Greece is in for such a long spell of misery that it will test another of their great inventions, their democracy. Exiting the euro would undoubtedly have led to a couple of years of extreme pain but at least with a chance to re-establish their economy beyond that. In the worst case now there will be even longer misery but still leading to an eventual exit. The best option in my view, a benign, planned and perhaps temporary exit from the euro was never on the table and the EU must take the blame for that. The EU was happy enough to accept Greece into the euro on the basis of blatantly fudged accounts and is now making the Greeks pay for the EU's own folly. The pipe-dreamers in Brussels have their first victim and, given the economic state of some other euro zone countries, it may not be their last. The euro needs radical reform, urgently. If it doesn't get it it could even conceivably lead to the break-up of the EU, which would be another tragedy.

Heat Wave
We have now had temperatures in the 80s and 90s continuously for over a month. We usually have some very hot spells in July and August and had a heat wave before in 2003, but that lasted only a fortnight. I haven't experienced such continuously very hot weather before outside of Africa. It means I have been spending significant time every day watering plants and, even so, with variable success. It also makes playing boules very tiring, although I have been playing more frequently than usual as there is nothing else I feel like doing in the heat (and there is no football to watch on TV). Even my much loved late-evening Calvados on my balcony has been substituted on occasions by several glasses of cold water. Well, I came here partly for the sun and heat and now I have well and truly got it.


jeudi 9 juillet 2015

Street Party and the EU

Street Party
We had our usual street party on the first Sunday in July and, as usual, it was a jolly affair. We closed off the street simply by parking cars across the road at either end of the celebrations, with no recourse to road closed or deviation signs; oncomers simply had to find their own way round us. I love the way that the French, so often wedded to bureaucracy, can become total anarchists at the flick of a switch. We brought tables and chairs from the Mairie, food and drink and had a great evening. My house being just 10 metres from the tables and chairs, I made a pot of coffee and brought out a bottle of marc at the end of the meal.

Conversation turned perhaps inevitably to the position of Greece and its financial situation and I stated my view that I thought Greece would be better off out of the euro. I believe Greece desperately needs to revive its economy and can't see how it can do that and pay off its debts in any sensible amount of time. One neighbour suggested that my view might come from British scepticism regarding the EU and said that France, on the other hand, was totally committed: there could never be in France an in/out referendum, he said, such as David Cameron was committed to in the UK. At first I was inclined to defend the UK's commitment to Europe as I believe the EU has greatly enhanced cooperation between the countries involved and beneficially increased freedom of movement, work and residence. And it is easy to buy into the dream of a united Europe. However, when I proposed also that there were very real (and, with Greece in mind) practical problems to be resolved my interlocutor simple resorted to saying essentially that these were inevitable along the way and would be resolved in the long term.

That was the sticking point for me and, I was encouraged to find, for several other of my French friends there. One even despaired loudly at how the EU was making such a mess of a great idea. I find it interesting that an Englishman saying reforms are needed implies a lack of commitment to the EU whereas a Frenchman saying reforms are needed does not. I think that the EU has to face a number of very urgent practical problems now and shows no sign of any inclination to do so. I also think the reason for this lack of inclination derives from the fact that the EU Commission, which holds power, is not elected. It can indulge in the dream without having to answer to an electorate for the practical problems that ensue. I don't believe that an elected assembly would ever have countenanced the invitation to join the EU of the last batch of entrants; that was simply part of the dream, with unconsidered practical consequences. Worse still, these latest entrants have had to commit to embracing the euro at some stage. So the economies of, for example, Germany, France, Romania and Bulgaria must converge in the short-term? It is a fantasy that only a lotus eater could entertain.

I have no idea how the Greece situation will be resolved and the possibility of a smoke and mirrors fudge remain, at my time of writing. My earnest hope is that this will be a wake-up call for the leaders of the EU to temporarily abandon their focus on the dream and address practical issues, those that affect people day-to-day, rather than see the dream collapse in a wrangle of recrimination. Whether the Commission, isolated as it is from day-to-day concerns, is in any mood to do that is another matter.


jeudi 2 juillet 2015

Summer Time

Summer Is Here
I've just getting through the last strawberries to be had and asparagus disappeared from the shops and markets a couple of weeks ago. Now it is apricot, peach, nectarine and melon season, with all that fruit cheap and plentiful. I particularly like the flat white peaches, and the canteloupe melons of course. But if further proof were needed that summer is here we had the Feu de la St Jean celebration on the 24th. This year Roberto came to provide the sustenance (moules, frites), there was music, the traditional bonfire and fireworks. Friend Steve complained that the previous year the songs sung had all been in Spanish and hoped that they would be in French this year. I jokingly said « no chance ; they'll be in English », and sure enough they were in English sung by someone with an impeccable English accent accompanied by a guitarist. There was also a drum band which loped across the bridge followed by the children present who had each been given a paper lantern containing a candle. The Feu de la St Jean remains my favourite event of the year in the village and not simply because it heralds summer. It is truly a family event and seems to be enjoyed by all age groups.

English Conversation
Steve and I wrapped up the Eglish conversation « rencontres » for this « trimestre »the day before the Feu and Jo joined in too as we had decided that the prepared conversation section of the evening would be on clothes shopping (and the difference between French and English size denominators). The session went well as usal and, at the end, Steve and I were both presented by the participants with a card, bottles of good wine, olives and tapenade : and then we were both taken for a drink. It really was most gratifying, especially as several participants said how much they had learned when that wasn't our primary goal : fluidity and confidence in speaking English was what we aimed at, although increased vocabury was an inevitable corollary.

We discussed the restart over the drink and the concensus was definitely to start as late in September as possible, the last Tuesday in the month. We also said we would email everyone the complete set of prepared conversations so that anyone who missed a session or two can catch up if they wish. That will also provide some basis for preparation for the several people who have said they intend to start coming in September. And there may be more ; the local representative of the regional La Tribune newspaper appeared a couple of sessions ago and took photos so an article will be appearing at some stage. I think both Steve and I now feel confident that we have a proven structure for the sessions and enough ideas to carry us through the next set of 10 « rencontres », particularly as confidence levels of the particpants have improved to the point where the participants can maintain a reasonable conversation amongst themselves with minimal intervention from Steve and I. We can plan the autumn sessions at our leisure over the summer.

HTML And My Other Blog
My last posting on this blog suffered text style changes in mid-paragraph as have some previous ones. I've always assumed that HTML was neutral with respect to the content between the lines of HTML code but that is clearly not the case. A text purely in English or purely in French and declared as French will work with no problem. However a text in English which includes some French words with accents always causes problems and I haven't yet found a way to get at the HTML code blogger generates to edit it, unless I create the posting actually in the blog rather than, as I find more convenient, creating it in Libre Office and pasting it in. I assume that the same problem would occur with a French text that contained, for instance, some Spanish or other foreign words with accents not used in French. Strange but true ; HTML must have some knowledge of the content within it.

My other blog, at www.theelseclauseonline.blogspot.com, is not getting the feedback it requires to continue, despite my having done the SEO as attractively as I can. Maybe I'll have another go at the SEO or maybe I will just ditch the blog and incorporate any relevant points in this one. Anyway, one way or another I shall have to make a decision soon. Decisions, decisions ; and it's summer time.