Recipe
I previously mentioned the BELL cookbook and that has turned my mind to recipes. Here is one I didn't submit (can't think why) but would like to share. It is simple to cook and has stood the test of time since the Middle Ages. The dish was in fact mentioned in one of Shakespeare's plays although it originates from several centuries before. It is a stew, often known at the time as a brew. You just boil up all the ingredients together and the resulting dish is truly bewitching. Make it to warm your friends this winter!
In contrast to the simplicity of cooking, some of the ingredients will be difficult to obtain nowadays. It hardly needs pointing out that much has changed in the intervening centuries and so some ingredients are simply not obtainable in shops nowadays, others present a challenge to the squeamish and yet others are of dubious legality now. However, I have annotated them below to suggest modern alternatives where necessary.
Ingredients
1.1 Toad
2.Poisoned entrails
3.Fillet of fenny snake
4.1 Newt's eye
5.1 Frog's toe
6.Bat's wool
7.1 Dog's tongue
8.Tongues of adder and slow worm (one of each)
9.1 Lizard's leg
10.1 Owl wing
11.1 Dragon's scale
12.1 Wolf's tooth
13.1 Shark's head
14.1 Hemlock root
15.1 Jew's liver
16.1 Goat's gall bladder
17.Yew twigs
18.1 Baby's finger
19.Tiger's entrails
20.Baboon's blood
Notes
It's probably not advisable just to present this list to your favourite local butcher; he is unlikely to have many of the ingredients anyway. I've simplified the ingredients slightly, omitting some that I deemed unnecessary, but the list remains challenging. Items 1,4,5,6,7,8,9,14, and 17 present few problems, other than that of hunting the creatures and gathering. A good Sunday afternoon walk in the countryside should secure many of them. Actually, several healthy Sunday walks may be required. So much the better! However do be careful when collecting item 7; a very strong (and thick) pair of gloves is recommended to avoid a severely bitten hand.
For item 2 we can allow for the fancifulness of the times; focus on the flavour and assume simply that the offal should be rotted a little. For item 3 it is reasonable to assume that most available snakes will taste much the same so any common snake may be substituted. Similarly, for the rather fanciful dragon's scale (sign of the times!) probably any animal scale would do, although fish scales should be avoided. There may be scaled lizards near where you live or a neighbour's tortoise pet may not miss a piece of it's shell (it has rather a lot). Again, for item 12 a dog's tooth would probably do just as well as a wolf's (but do remember those gloves!) and for item 16 we could substitute a sheep's gall bladder, if there are no goats near you, without compromising the integrity of our dish.
Items 10,13,15, 18,19 and 20 do present rather more intractable problems in so far as owls, sharks, tigers, baboons, jews and babies are all to some degree protected species. And you can't blame all of that on the EU. Not all sharks are protected though and the recipe doesn't specify any particular type of shark. (Once again, watch those hands!) For the owl's wing you may be lucky on your Sunday walk and find a dead one or, if you have a cat you may get lucky. Failing that, I suggest you substitute the wing of any fully fledged bird. A cat my be the solution to item 19 too, a tiger being simply a larger species of cat. You may need the entrails of more than one cat, though, to make up the quantity.
Item 20 allows for an easy substitution. As those of you up on your vampirology will know, most red-bloodied mammals' blood tastes similar and so any such mammal can be substituted. No specific quantity is prescribed but I suggest you use the blood as nowadays we would use a good red wine.
Items 15 and 18 may prove the most difficult. It's not obvious why the liver of a jew is specified or why the finger has to be that of a baby, except that it may be assumed to be more tender and the bone more gelatinous. We can discount jewishness but, even so, a human liver will be difficult to obtain. (I keep my eye on the news so know that there is a waiting list for transplants). You may have to substitute sheep's or pig's liver. Similarly, oxtail could be substituted for the baby's finger but will not have the same gelatinous quality. Perhaps a rodent's tail (minus any hair) would do.
Unfortunately, apart from the above substitutions I have little to suggest. If there is an accident black spot near where you live............but perhaps we won't elaborate on that.
There are some specifics in the original recipe that I have discarded as fanciful. For instance, the baby's finger should have been cut from a baby born to a prostitute in a ditch and strangled at birth. Whilst these details were no doubt easy to meet in former times I cannot see how they would affect the flavour and so have discarded them.
Anyway, good luck with collecting the ingredients. Just give them a good rolling boil when you have them all and Bon Appétit.
PS I find this dish goes down particularly well at Halloween party
Friday, 14 January 2011
Wednesday, 12 January 2011
The Bean and The War
The Bean
I've now consumed numerous pieces of the galette des rois which I mentioned previously and understand it better in its various forms. What I had had before was one of two versions, as it turns out. This year I noticed what looked like rather appetising meat pies in the local bakery. These turned out to be an alternative version of the galette, stuffed with a sweet almond-flavoured filling rather than meat. And the crown that I mentioned can in fact be anything, often ceramic; I found one that was a ceramic face of a circa 18th century nobleman/woman. Whatever it's form, it is referred to as “la fève”,which is a bean, specifically a broad bean. I presume that in former times, when dried beans would have been a staple part of the winter diet, a dried bean was always to hand; though why it should be specifically a broad bean I have no idea. Maybe I'll ask Daniel if he knows.
The War
Montserrat, my neighbour who invited me to lunch just after my operation, invited me again today, with Mana. I think I mentioned then that she had been a refugee from Franco's Spain, her father having been on the republican side in the civil war. Anyway, we got talking about those times again after I asked her how she had felt having escaped from Spain only to find herself confronted by the Nazi invasion of France. She said that the Nazis had never been domiciled in the village but came up occasionally from Orange and Le Barroux searching for maquisards. There's a plaque just north of here in St Auban commemorating some that were caught and shot by the Nazis and, of course, there was the massacre in the Vercors, also just north of here, late in the war. The Nazis had their local headquarters in the chateau at Le Barroux, just south of Malaucène, and blew up the chateau on their departure. It's now been restored to its original state.
Apparently there was a good bush telegraph in operation during the war and, whenever the Nazis came up through the village everybody knew well in advance. When that happened, Montaserrat said she and her parents took a blanket and headed for the woods; had they been discovered, they would have been returned to the tender mercies of Franco or else sent to a concentration camp. Montserrat also said that there were several Nazi sympathisers in the village and one she knew of had had a contract on his head. However, when the maquisards went for the “hit” he was surrounded by a group of neighbours so the hit was called off and other factors prevented it from being planned again. She said that whenever she saw him in the village after that she wondered whether he knew how lucky he was to have survived to die of natural causes. It must have been strange to encounter a “dead man walking” like that.
I also asked Monterrat whether she considered herself to be primarily Catalan (which she is) or Spanish. To my surprise, given her background and friendship with Mana (whose politics are some way to the left of Mao Tse Tung) she replied that she considered herself to be Spanish. She did not agree with the eternal Spanish tendency towards separatism (even the Romans referred to the Spains rather than to Spain).
Monserrat, incidentally, is one of the few neighbours (Elise is another) who still use the wash-house across the road from me, to do some of her washing.
I've now consumed numerous pieces of the galette des rois which I mentioned previously and understand it better in its various forms. What I had had before was one of two versions, as it turns out. This year I noticed what looked like rather appetising meat pies in the local bakery. These turned out to be an alternative version of the galette, stuffed with a sweet almond-flavoured filling rather than meat. And the crown that I mentioned can in fact be anything, often ceramic; I found one that was a ceramic face of a circa 18th century nobleman/woman. Whatever it's form, it is referred to as “la fève”,which is a bean, specifically a broad bean. I presume that in former times, when dried beans would have been a staple part of the winter diet, a dried bean was always to hand; though why it should be specifically a broad bean I have no idea. Maybe I'll ask Daniel if he knows.
The War
Montserrat, my neighbour who invited me to lunch just after my operation, invited me again today, with Mana. I think I mentioned then that she had been a refugee from Franco's Spain, her father having been on the republican side in the civil war. Anyway, we got talking about those times again after I asked her how she had felt having escaped from Spain only to find herself confronted by the Nazi invasion of France. She said that the Nazis had never been domiciled in the village but came up occasionally from Orange and Le Barroux searching for maquisards. There's a plaque just north of here in St Auban commemorating some that were caught and shot by the Nazis and, of course, there was the massacre in the Vercors, also just north of here, late in the war. The Nazis had their local headquarters in the chateau at Le Barroux, just south of Malaucène, and blew up the chateau on their departure. It's now been restored to its original state.
Apparently there was a good bush telegraph in operation during the war and, whenever the Nazis came up through the village everybody knew well in advance. When that happened, Montaserrat said she and her parents took a blanket and headed for the woods; had they been discovered, they would have been returned to the tender mercies of Franco or else sent to a concentration camp. Montserrat also said that there were several Nazi sympathisers in the village and one she knew of had had a contract on his head. However, when the maquisards went for the “hit” he was surrounded by a group of neighbours so the hit was called off and other factors prevented it from being planned again. She said that whenever she saw him in the village after that she wondered whether he knew how lucky he was to have survived to die of natural causes. It must have been strange to encounter a “dead man walking” like that.
I also asked Monterrat whether she considered herself to be primarily Catalan (which she is) or Spanish. To my surprise, given her background and friendship with Mana (whose politics are some way to the left of Mao Tse Tung) she replied that she considered herself to be Spanish. She did not agree with the eternal Spanish tendency towards separatism (even the Romans referred to the Spains rather than to Spain).
Monserrat, incidentally, is one of the few neighbours (Elise is another) who still use the wash-house across the road from me, to do some of her washing.
Monday, 3 January 2011
Food And Religion
Back From England
I managed, albeit with some difficulty, to get to England for Christmas to see my mother and “kids”. Chiddingfold village looked very pretty in the snow but driving around was hazardous and I thought the TV programmes on offer over the holiday period particularly uninteresting this year. So I spent a lot of time reading Nathaniel's Nutmeg and learning about the origins of the East India Company, keeping my mother's bird feeders stocked up and acting as general cook and bottle-washer. The carers who came in twice a day to see my mother were cheerful and helpful and so the holiday period passed quietly and uneventfully. My mother is very frail now as her heart is failing bit by bit and I think that may be her last Christmas; I'm glad she enjoyed it.
When I return to England I find that my eating habits tend to revert (but with some ideas for meals culled from France). I start off the first day or two with just a couple of slices of toast for breakfast but then the lure of a kipper or bacon and tomatoes proves too much. As a visiting French professor once said to me, the English breakfast is not a meal, it is an institution. Anyway, that's my excuse. Now, though, an English breakfast lasts me right through until the evening. And in the evening I revert to the all-on-one-plate type of meal. That, in fact, is becoming the norm in France. When I went to the wedding of my late French friend Claude in 1964, the wedding breakfast consisted of 10 courses, but potatoes and peas, for example, were served as separate courses (each cooked and dressed to perfection). That custom has almost disappeared, although vegetables are normally served in separate platters at the same time as the meat.
I brought back with me some pheasant's breasts wrapped in bacon which I shall cook as a belated Christmas dinner (the same as I cooked in Chiddingfold) for Steve, Jo and Mana tomorrow evening. Pheasant is unobtainable here except as pâté, although there must be plenty elsewhere in France. And I must invite Daniel and Patricia to eat later in the week. Creating a meal for Daniel and Patricia involves overcoming a few constraints. Daniel has an allergy to all milk products and especially cheese. Patricia is a jewess who observes the dietary restrictions of her faith; so no pork or shellfish. However, a lot is possible within these constraints.
Thinking about this led me to reflect on the dietary restrictions imposed by various religions. I have been told that the Anglican faith is the only major religion that imposes no such restrictions, although I've no idea whether that is true; it could well be. Most such restrictions strike me as having had a reasonable foundation in the past which simply does not apply today and so I wonder why some intelligent people choose still to adhere to them. Patricia, obviously, does but yet another jewess and summer visitor to the village, Hallie, completely ignores them (although she says she offers up a silent apology to her long-deceased grandmother when she transgresses).
All this reminds me of a good Malian friend, Vincent, whom I knew when I was in Senegal. Vincent had been educated in France through the helpful intervention of a French consul and returned to his village after passing his baccalaureate. His father welcomed him as the prospective future chief of the village and had thoughtfully arranged a good marriage for him in his absence, to a 10-year old girl. Vincent had declined and gone off to seek his fortune in Dakar. While I was sitting drinking a beer with him one day, Vincent explained that his father had written to him saying that he would refrain from cutting Vincent off completely from his family, village and inheritance if Vincent would observe the dietary restrictions of Islam for a year; and that Vincent had agreed to do. Hearing this, I pointed out to Vincent that we were drinking beer. Vincent replied asking whether I had noticed him put a finger into his beer and shaking the beer off his finger before drinking. I hadn't. “Ah”, said Vincent, “the Koran states that just one drop of alcohol will damn you to eternal perdition so I always take out that drop before drinking the rest.”
I managed, albeit with some difficulty, to get to England for Christmas to see my mother and “kids”. Chiddingfold village looked very pretty in the snow but driving around was hazardous and I thought the TV programmes on offer over the holiday period particularly uninteresting this year. So I spent a lot of time reading Nathaniel's Nutmeg and learning about the origins of the East India Company, keeping my mother's bird feeders stocked up and acting as general cook and bottle-washer. The carers who came in twice a day to see my mother were cheerful and helpful and so the holiday period passed quietly and uneventfully. My mother is very frail now as her heart is failing bit by bit and I think that may be her last Christmas; I'm glad she enjoyed it.
When I return to England I find that my eating habits tend to revert (but with some ideas for meals culled from France). I start off the first day or two with just a couple of slices of toast for breakfast but then the lure of a kipper or bacon and tomatoes proves too much. As a visiting French professor once said to me, the English breakfast is not a meal, it is an institution. Anyway, that's my excuse. Now, though, an English breakfast lasts me right through until the evening. And in the evening I revert to the all-on-one-plate type of meal. That, in fact, is becoming the norm in France. When I went to the wedding of my late French friend Claude in 1964, the wedding breakfast consisted of 10 courses, but potatoes and peas, for example, were served as separate courses (each cooked and dressed to perfection). That custom has almost disappeared, although vegetables are normally served in separate platters at the same time as the meat.
I brought back with me some pheasant's breasts wrapped in bacon which I shall cook as a belated Christmas dinner (the same as I cooked in Chiddingfold) for Steve, Jo and Mana tomorrow evening. Pheasant is unobtainable here except as pâté, although there must be plenty elsewhere in France. And I must invite Daniel and Patricia to eat later in the week. Creating a meal for Daniel and Patricia involves overcoming a few constraints. Daniel has an allergy to all milk products and especially cheese. Patricia is a jewess who observes the dietary restrictions of her faith; so no pork or shellfish. However, a lot is possible within these constraints.
Thinking about this led me to reflect on the dietary restrictions imposed by various religions. I have been told that the Anglican faith is the only major religion that imposes no such restrictions, although I've no idea whether that is true; it could well be. Most such restrictions strike me as having had a reasonable foundation in the past which simply does not apply today and so I wonder why some intelligent people choose still to adhere to them. Patricia, obviously, does but yet another jewess and summer visitor to the village, Hallie, completely ignores them (although she says she offers up a silent apology to her long-deceased grandmother when she transgresses).
All this reminds me of a good Malian friend, Vincent, whom I knew when I was in Senegal. Vincent had been educated in France through the helpful intervention of a French consul and returned to his village after passing his baccalaureate. His father welcomed him as the prospective future chief of the village and had thoughtfully arranged a good marriage for him in his absence, to a 10-year old girl. Vincent had declined and gone off to seek his fortune in Dakar. While I was sitting drinking a beer with him one day, Vincent explained that his father had written to him saying that he would refrain from cutting Vincent off completely from his family, village and inheritance if Vincent would observe the dietary restrictions of Islam for a year; and that Vincent had agreed to do. Hearing this, I pointed out to Vincent that we were drinking beer. Vincent replied asking whether I had noticed him put a finger into his beer and shaking the beer off his finger before drinking. I hadn't. “Ah”, said Vincent, “the Koran states that just one drop of alcohol will damn you to eternal perdition so I always take out that drop before drinking the rest.”
Wednesday, 15 December 2010
Christmas And Food
Christmas And Food
The French traditionally do much as we do as far as Christmas fare goes, with the exception of Christmas pudding. The French don't have mince pies either although the German stöllen is plentiful in the shops. I find it rather strange that even though preserving fruit is a local speciality there appears to be no kind of local fruitcake. Even more strange, in an area covered in grape vines, grapes (raisins) don't seem to be among the preserved fruits. These latter are apples, pears, strawberries, apricots, melon and figs, plus the pineapples and papaya that come from La Reunion or Mauritius. The preserved strawberries are especially delicious.
A fowl of some sort is the favourite meat and foie gras is the prescribed starter. The shops are full of whole foie gras. The French do have Christmas cake but it is rather different from ours. Theirs is a “galette des rois” (after the three kings) and consists of a light brioche-type cake with large pieces of candied fruit on top and a small crown hidden somewhere within it. The person who gets the piece of cake with the crown in it is king for the moment and is supposed to be treated specially.
Chocolates, I assume, are also consumed in quantity since the supermarket displays of these cover at least six times more shelf-space than they normally do.
Another tradition here in Provence is the 13 desserts, the number signifying Christ and the 12 apostles. The exact nature of the 13 desserts varies considerably but must always include local produce and the colours black, brown and white. The colours represent the those of the robes of the monastic orders that prevail locally (I'm not sure what the orders are and can't be bothered to research them). Anyway, the brown is usually nuts, typically almonds in this area, and the black and white are typically nougat. The colour black can also be provided by olives. Brown, of a lighter hue, is also the colour of the fougasse, which must be included. Fougasse is a type of pastry rather like choux pastry and is available throughout the year in bakeries, usually with olives in it. At Christmas it tends to be served plain. Some preserved fruit, typically figs, is also included.
Last Sunday, the English library in Beaumont de Ventoux (BELL) had its annual Christmas get-together and launched a new version of its cookbook. The previous one had been compiled in 1995. It's one of those things that such organisations, particularly an essentially ex-pat one, do but which struck me as slightly unnecessary, particularly since publishing it works out to be relatively expensive. There are plenty of extensive and inexpensive cookbooks on English and French cooking. In the event I was pleasantly surprised. What I had overlooked was that most of the ex-pat community had travelled widely during their lives and so the recipes in the cookbook originated from all over the world. So it was a worthwhile exercise after all.
I usually take a few things back to England with me at Christmas but, at this time of the year, the possibilities are rather limited. The best of what is produced here is mainly fresh local fruit and vegetables. Honey in jars doesn't travel well in a suitcase, so it's a question of soaps (olive-oil based), flower essences and of course the local donkey sausage, which both of my kids love. Donkeys were used extensively round here up to half a century ago to bring produce from the fields into the village, which posed the question of what you do with an old and knackered donkey that is no longer fit for work. If you're English, you probably make it into a family pet; if you're French, you make it into sausages. I'm also taking back a tin of confit de canard, which is probably available in England but which I haven't noticed in any of my mother's local supermarkets. If I can find any, I may also pack some pâté de coing (quince paste) which isn't in the shops but is made by many people locally and is delicious.
The French traditionally do much as we do as far as Christmas fare goes, with the exception of Christmas pudding. The French don't have mince pies either although the German stöllen is plentiful in the shops. I find it rather strange that even though preserving fruit is a local speciality there appears to be no kind of local fruitcake. Even more strange, in an area covered in grape vines, grapes (raisins) don't seem to be among the preserved fruits. These latter are apples, pears, strawberries, apricots, melon and figs, plus the pineapples and papaya that come from La Reunion or Mauritius. The preserved strawberries are especially delicious.
A fowl of some sort is the favourite meat and foie gras is the prescribed starter. The shops are full of whole foie gras. The French do have Christmas cake but it is rather different from ours. Theirs is a “galette des rois” (after the three kings) and consists of a light brioche-type cake with large pieces of candied fruit on top and a small crown hidden somewhere within it. The person who gets the piece of cake with the crown in it is king for the moment and is supposed to be treated specially.
Chocolates, I assume, are also consumed in quantity since the supermarket displays of these cover at least six times more shelf-space than they normally do.
Another tradition here in Provence is the 13 desserts, the number signifying Christ and the 12 apostles. The exact nature of the 13 desserts varies considerably but must always include local produce and the colours black, brown and white. The colours represent the those of the robes of the monastic orders that prevail locally (I'm not sure what the orders are and can't be bothered to research them). Anyway, the brown is usually nuts, typically almonds in this area, and the black and white are typically nougat. The colour black can also be provided by olives. Brown, of a lighter hue, is also the colour of the fougasse, which must be included. Fougasse is a type of pastry rather like choux pastry and is available throughout the year in bakeries, usually with olives in it. At Christmas it tends to be served plain. Some preserved fruit, typically figs, is also included.
Last Sunday, the English library in Beaumont de Ventoux (BELL) had its annual Christmas get-together and launched a new version of its cookbook. The previous one had been compiled in 1995. It's one of those things that such organisations, particularly an essentially ex-pat one, do but which struck me as slightly unnecessary, particularly since publishing it works out to be relatively expensive. There are plenty of extensive and inexpensive cookbooks on English and French cooking. In the event I was pleasantly surprised. What I had overlooked was that most of the ex-pat community had travelled widely during their lives and so the recipes in the cookbook originated from all over the world. So it was a worthwhile exercise after all.
I usually take a few things back to England with me at Christmas but, at this time of the year, the possibilities are rather limited. The best of what is produced here is mainly fresh local fruit and vegetables. Honey in jars doesn't travel well in a suitcase, so it's a question of soaps (olive-oil based), flower essences and of course the local donkey sausage, which both of my kids love. Donkeys were used extensively round here up to half a century ago to bring produce from the fields into the village, which posed the question of what you do with an old and knackered donkey that is no longer fit for work. If you're English, you probably make it into a family pet; if you're French, you make it into sausages. I'm also taking back a tin of confit de canard, which is probably available in England but which I haven't noticed in any of my mother's local supermarkets. If I can find any, I may also pack some pâté de coing (quince paste) which isn't in the shops but is made by many people locally and is delicious.
Tuesday, 7 December 2010
How The Other Half Lives
Weather
In contrast to the reports coming on of snowy chaos in England, our weather has continued to be rather cloudy and wet and temperatures have been on the up, to 15 degrees today. On benefit of this has been the scenery, with cloud descending at times to below 1000ft. Since two of the three ways out of the village involve climbing to 1000ft, I've had the experience of driving through cloud. That only happened to me once before, when on a holiday in Tenerife. I find driving into cloud, above it into the light and then descending into it a striking experience. The cloud tends to gather in layers, at various levels against the hills, which also has some striking effects on the view. The strips of hills visible lower down are grey/brown, the strips in the middle sprinkled with snow and those at the top all white. It sometimes takes an effort of the imagination to link the three as the same hill.
Shopping
My cleaning lady, Patricia, asked me if I would take her into Vaison for some shopping. She has no car and the suppression of the midday bus run means leaving the village at around 7.30 in the morning and not being able to return by bus until after 5.00. I was happy to agree and we were back in the village in just over an hour; but I wondered how she managed generally. She said she shopped for a month at a time and, certainly, her shopping filled the car, with three 20-litre containers of diesel fuel for her heating amongst it. Coming into the village I wondered aloud how we were going to get all her shopping to her house, as she lives in the old mediaeval part and there was no way I could get the car to her house. “Don't worry”, she said, “I'll get my son”. So I parked as near as I could get and she went off, duly reappearing with her son who was pulling a hand cart the size of porters' trolleys on stations in England. We loaded it up and off they went. That was clearly her standard procedure.
Language (Again)
Two neighbours of friend Daniel have been very helpful polishing a translation I did of a short story that I wrote when doing a creative writing course just after I retired. (I did creative writing, chaos theory and conversational French). I hadn't expected to need much help but didn't appreciate the amount of idioms and double meanings I had used. Anyway, during the course of discussion a very interesting point about the past emerged. The neighbours, Jacques and Claudine, hail from Brittany and still have a house there. I was mentioning the longevity of dialects in France and Jacques agreed. He said his grandfather, who lived all his life in Roscoff, spoke two languages: breton and English! He didn't speak a word of French. I was amazed and Jacques explained that his grandfather would go over to England frequently on a boat loaded with fish to sell and then stay on selling onions and garlic. I remember French onion-sellers in Bristol when I was a student in the 1960s but have never seen them since.
In contrast to the reports coming on of snowy chaos in England, our weather has continued to be rather cloudy and wet and temperatures have been on the up, to 15 degrees today. On benefit of this has been the scenery, with cloud descending at times to below 1000ft. Since two of the three ways out of the village involve climbing to 1000ft, I've had the experience of driving through cloud. That only happened to me once before, when on a holiday in Tenerife. I find driving into cloud, above it into the light and then descending into it a striking experience. The cloud tends to gather in layers, at various levels against the hills, which also has some striking effects on the view. The strips of hills visible lower down are grey/brown, the strips in the middle sprinkled with snow and those at the top all white. It sometimes takes an effort of the imagination to link the three as the same hill.
Shopping
My cleaning lady, Patricia, asked me if I would take her into Vaison for some shopping. She has no car and the suppression of the midday bus run means leaving the village at around 7.30 in the morning and not being able to return by bus until after 5.00. I was happy to agree and we were back in the village in just over an hour; but I wondered how she managed generally. She said she shopped for a month at a time and, certainly, her shopping filled the car, with three 20-litre containers of diesel fuel for her heating amongst it. Coming into the village I wondered aloud how we were going to get all her shopping to her house, as she lives in the old mediaeval part and there was no way I could get the car to her house. “Don't worry”, she said, “I'll get my son”. So I parked as near as I could get and she went off, duly reappearing with her son who was pulling a hand cart the size of porters' trolleys on stations in England. We loaded it up and off they went. That was clearly her standard procedure.
Language (Again)
Two neighbours of friend Daniel have been very helpful polishing a translation I did of a short story that I wrote when doing a creative writing course just after I retired. (I did creative writing, chaos theory and conversational French). I hadn't expected to need much help but didn't appreciate the amount of idioms and double meanings I had used. Anyway, during the course of discussion a very interesting point about the past emerged. The neighbours, Jacques and Claudine, hail from Brittany and still have a house there. I was mentioning the longevity of dialects in France and Jacques agreed. He said his grandfather, who lived all his life in Roscoff, spoke two languages: breton and English! He didn't speak a word of French. I was amazed and Jacques explained that his grandfather would go over to England frequently on a boat loaded with fish to sell and then stay on selling onions and garlic. I remember French onion-sellers in Bristol when I was a student in the 1960s but have never seen them since.
Monday, 29 November 2010
The Inland Revenue
The Inland Revenue, Again
I seem to have a cursed relationship with the Inland Revenue in the UK. When I was working other people would tell me that the Inland Revenue were OK but to watch out for the hard men working on VAT. My experience was totally the contrary; I found the VAT people helpful and the Inland Revenue at times impossible to deal with. Now I'm trying to file my tax return for last year.........
It all started in the late 1980s when the Inland Revenue decided to stick me with a demand for £7000 for tax on “director's emoluments” which I had never taken/received. They had no evidence for the demand but they can do that and it was my job to prove them wrong (prove a negative? .....never mind). As it happened, I had always been in favour of the Inland Revenue having draconian powers provided they could be relied upon to use them sensibly, e.g. to get at money laundering, etc. But can you ever trust a government department to act sensibly? Clearly, they were after all the money I was making from gun and drug running, prostitution, etc, despite the fact that the sums involved were pocket money in their terms.
After over a year of replying to requests for information and piles of correspondence they sent bailiffs to my house to collect their dues. I, with the help of my accountant, appealed to my local MP. He extracted from the Inland Revenue a letter which closely resembled the type of signed confession extracted by tyrannical regimes before they stuck someone against a wall and shot them: “failure to carry out instruction, failure of internal communication,” apologies, etc. All this went on of course with the Inspector of Taxes. I then received a letter from the Collector of Taxes demanding payment of interest on the tax that was now agreed never to have been due in the first place. I pointed out that the tax had never been due and the Collector replied that he operated independently of the Inspector of taxes (as he does) and was entitled to collect the interest he demanded. At this point my accountant stepped in as I could not be relied upon to reply coherently or without uttering threats and simply said that if the Collector of taxes persisted then the matter would again be referred to the MP and, if necessary, the Ombudsman; and he asked for written confirmation that the Collector would cease to pursue the matter. The Collector did cease to pursue the matter but I never got the letter of confirmation.
I applied for tax residence status in France when I left England, completing and signing a form P85 which is supposed to do the job. Dream on. There is much more documentation to be supplied, including an intriguing form R85. This my bank asked me to sign in order to receive (pitiful) interest gross. It's obviously intended for the job but states specifically that it cannot be accepted from anyone resident outside the UK. Catch 22? Anyway, this year (two and a half years later) I had my French resident status for tax purposes accepted by (now) HMRC in a letter which said specifically to fill in on my next tax return only the tax paid on my private pension. Which I duly did, returned the form and duly had it rejected on the grounds that I had filled in only the tax paid on my private pension. I notice that the rejected return had been stamped “SA Stockton Group”. So I'm assuming at the moment that this is a case of outsourcing with, in time honoured government tradition, little or no communication between government and outsourcer(er). If not, here we go again................
I seem to have a cursed relationship with the Inland Revenue in the UK. When I was working other people would tell me that the Inland Revenue were OK but to watch out for the hard men working on VAT. My experience was totally the contrary; I found the VAT people helpful and the Inland Revenue at times impossible to deal with. Now I'm trying to file my tax return for last year.........
It all started in the late 1980s when the Inland Revenue decided to stick me with a demand for £7000 for tax on “director's emoluments” which I had never taken/received. They had no evidence for the demand but they can do that and it was my job to prove them wrong (prove a negative? .....never mind). As it happened, I had always been in favour of the Inland Revenue having draconian powers provided they could be relied upon to use them sensibly, e.g. to get at money laundering, etc. But can you ever trust a government department to act sensibly? Clearly, they were after all the money I was making from gun and drug running, prostitution, etc, despite the fact that the sums involved were pocket money in their terms.
After over a year of replying to requests for information and piles of correspondence they sent bailiffs to my house to collect their dues. I, with the help of my accountant, appealed to my local MP. He extracted from the Inland Revenue a letter which closely resembled the type of signed confession extracted by tyrannical regimes before they stuck someone against a wall and shot them: “failure to carry out instruction, failure of internal communication,” apologies, etc. All this went on of course with the Inspector of Taxes. I then received a letter from the Collector of Taxes demanding payment of interest on the tax that was now agreed never to have been due in the first place. I pointed out that the tax had never been due and the Collector replied that he operated independently of the Inspector of taxes (as he does) and was entitled to collect the interest he demanded. At this point my accountant stepped in as I could not be relied upon to reply coherently or without uttering threats and simply said that if the Collector of taxes persisted then the matter would again be referred to the MP and, if necessary, the Ombudsman; and he asked for written confirmation that the Collector would cease to pursue the matter. The Collector did cease to pursue the matter but I never got the letter of confirmation.
I applied for tax residence status in France when I left England, completing and signing a form P85 which is supposed to do the job. Dream on. There is much more documentation to be supplied, including an intriguing form R85. This my bank asked me to sign in order to receive (pitiful) interest gross. It's obviously intended for the job but states specifically that it cannot be accepted from anyone resident outside the UK. Catch 22? Anyway, this year (two and a half years later) I had my French resident status for tax purposes accepted by (now) HMRC in a letter which said specifically to fill in on my next tax return only the tax paid on my private pension. Which I duly did, returned the form and duly had it rejected on the grounds that I had filled in only the tax paid on my private pension. I notice that the rejected return had been stamped “SA Stockton Group”. So I'm assuming at the moment that this is a case of outsourcing with, in time honoured government tradition, little or no communication between government and outsourcer(er). If not, here we go again................
Intimations Of Winter
Intimations Of Winter
We've started having serious frosts. They've pole-axed the begonias and french marigolds that were the last vestiges of colour in the front of the house and brought down the leaves that were providing an autumn display. The top of Mt Ventoux has had its white winter bonnet for 3-4 weeks but now the snow has descended to around 1500 ft, spreading across Mt Bluye and the hills behind Buis. That's still 1000 ft above the village but here the weather has been overcast for longer periods than usual and it has drizzled with rain quite frequently. In principle, this part of the world doesn't do overcast and drizzle other than for an occasional couple of days but this year has been an exception.
So, no boules for a week now. At the same time, the local cinemas have produced some very uninspiring programmes so social life has been limited to conversation while eating and drinking. One such occasion last week gave me the opportunity to try six people altogether in my kitchen, which actually worked quite well. I didn't think that many would fit in comfortably but they did. On another occasion last week I got to know Robin and Jill rather better. Robin (Marlar) is an ex-Sussex and England cricketer and former president of the MCC and was one of the earliest of the English contingent here. He owns a patch of land on the other side of the river that he'd hoped might become a cricket pitch but there's not a lot of cricket potential around here. I'd said to the boules team at the national tournament that if we won they would have to learn cricket (since I'd learned boules) but there was never much danger of either of those things happening. Robin and Jill had been coming out for just a couple of months in the summer but are now spending much more time here, which is good news as, apart from their both being excellent company, Robin is a fund of information on happenings in the village over the last twenty years or so.
And I received my first Christmas card. The French don't really do Christmas (or birthday) cards: the variety is limited, the quality poor and they are very expensive. So I now rely more on email and do any Christmas posting when I arrive in England before Christmas. I plan to spend two weeks there this year as my mother is increasingly fragile. That will also give me more time to get around and see friends while I am over. And I shall fly rather than drive this year, hiring a car at the other end; a 2500 km round trip on winter roads definitely lacks appeal and I shall have nothing that won't fit in a suitcase to bring back.
And today the Christmas street decorations went up in the village. QED.
We've started having serious frosts. They've pole-axed the begonias and french marigolds that were the last vestiges of colour in the front of the house and brought down the leaves that were providing an autumn display. The top of Mt Ventoux has had its white winter bonnet for 3-4 weeks but now the snow has descended to around 1500 ft, spreading across Mt Bluye and the hills behind Buis. That's still 1000 ft above the village but here the weather has been overcast for longer periods than usual and it has drizzled with rain quite frequently. In principle, this part of the world doesn't do overcast and drizzle other than for an occasional couple of days but this year has been an exception.
So, no boules for a week now. At the same time, the local cinemas have produced some very uninspiring programmes so social life has been limited to conversation while eating and drinking. One such occasion last week gave me the opportunity to try six people altogether in my kitchen, which actually worked quite well. I didn't think that many would fit in comfortably but they did. On another occasion last week I got to know Robin and Jill rather better. Robin (Marlar) is an ex-Sussex and England cricketer and former president of the MCC and was one of the earliest of the English contingent here. He owns a patch of land on the other side of the river that he'd hoped might become a cricket pitch but there's not a lot of cricket potential around here. I'd said to the boules team at the national tournament that if we won they would have to learn cricket (since I'd learned boules) but there was never much danger of either of those things happening. Robin and Jill had been coming out for just a couple of months in the summer but are now spending much more time here, which is good news as, apart from their both being excellent company, Robin is a fund of information on happenings in the village over the last twenty years or so.
And I received my first Christmas card. The French don't really do Christmas (or birthday) cards: the variety is limited, the quality poor and they are very expensive. So I now rely more on email and do any Christmas posting when I arrive in England before Christmas. I plan to spend two weeks there this year as my mother is increasingly fragile. That will also give me more time to get around and see friends while I am over. And I shall fly rather than drive this year, hiring a car at the other end; a 2500 km round trip on winter roads definitely lacks appeal and I shall have nothing that won't fit in a suitcase to bring back.
And today the Christmas street decorations went up in the village. QED.
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