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 14^th 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.

The Heat Is On

Lucky Me

The July 14^th 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 14^th 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.

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.

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 24^th. 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.

The Dauphin Fountain

The Fountain Celebration

This weekend has been a series of celebrations of the 300^th anniversary of the Dauphin fountain, the first source of water in the village other than the river. The fountain is quite famous locally, not only because of its age but because it uses a play on words to have a dolphin sculpted on it (Dauphin being both a dolphin and an heir to the throne) and because it was on the Comtat Venaissin side of the river and was supposed to be cocking a snook at the Dauphiné territory on the other side. The ten other fountains in the village date from around 1878 and piped water didn't arrive until 1964.

The celebrations have included Tahitian dancers (don't ask), a couple of clowns making merry, some lectures in the library, a file of people bringing water from a fountain on the other side of the village, an exhibition of plans of the time to bring water to the village, a photo competition and a choir singing songs about water. I was involved in the last two.

I found the 18^th century plans particularly interesting. The initial construction failed, partly because of broken ceramic pipes but also because those tasked with the construction messed up the slope required for a drop of 9 metres over a kilometre. The Roman engineers who built the Pont du Gard viaduct to Nimes had little more than that drop over some 26 kms and managed to get it right, so some engineering knowledge was clearly lost over the intervening millennium a half.

The choir, suitably dubbed the Voix De La Fontaine, was assembled and rehearsed by friend Jo and we duly sang A la claire fontaine, Au bord de la rivière, Sur le bord de la rivière, L'eau vive, La source and By the rivers of Babylon, this last thought of by Jo after the Charlie Hebdo affair, when the fountain event was being planned. We sang on Friday evening and twice on the Saturday and received an enthusiastic reception. I was particularly pleased for Jo because she had put a lot of work into the choir and we ended up not singing on the Friday where or at the time we thought we were supposed to, which had her tearing her hair. It turned out that the published programme had been written with a typically Provençal cavalier approach to times and locations. The typically Provencale corollary, of course, is that the muddle gets sorted out amicably and all's well that ends well, as they say.

The song La Source intrigued me because it recounts a story that was the subject of an Ingmar Bergman film that I remember seeing in the early 1960s entitled (in French) La Source; the English title was Virgin Spring. I wondered whether there was any connection and was told that the song originated from about 1968, when Isabelle Aubret won some kind of prize for singing it. That suggests that the song writer picked up the Bergman theme rather than vice-versa but it's a strange kind of story to write a song about and the tune is something of a dirge.

The fact that my submission to the photo competition (above) didn't win it I can put down only to blatant prejudice on the part of the judges.

French Sayings

Despite my asking all my French friends and acquaintances for current popular sayings that provide insight into times past, and some of them are scribes or literary cognoscenti themselves, I've only been told of five so far. Pleuvoir à verses is mooted as a reference to emptying chamber pots from upper floors into the street in mediaeval times; tenir le haut du pavé is most probably a reference to walking away from the centre of V-shaped roads in the same era; changer de crèmerie refers to a style of restaurant in the 19^th century; pendre la crémaillère, which I had to think of myself, refers to a style of cooking long gone; and tomber comme à Gravelotte refers to a battle with an inglorious end (for the French). It's a rather disappointing result so far, unless French really does have far fewer of such sayings than English does. I found around 50 sayings in English with origins in times long gone with no difficulty at all.

Rights And Responsibilities

FIFA

Football is not everyone's cup of tea, I know, and certainly not Prime Minister David Cameron's if he thinks there is a national Britain team. But it is mine, more like my elixir of life in fact than a plain old cup of tea. And I have been very pleased with it in recent months through my persona bias as Chelsea drove their way to the Premier League title. The recent FIFA scandal has, however, considerably darkened my mood.

Sepp Blatter, who has just been re-elected as President of FIFA despite disclaiming all responsibility for the alleged corruption of a large number of his underlings, seems to me an unmitigated megalomaniac, a view supported by some of the things he said in his acceptance speech. Whatever the corruption investigations come up with I do not believe he will ever voluntarily resign. The open question is what can be done about a person in his position. I think I have the answer but I doubt whether there is the determination necessary to remove him from his post.

There is no doubt in my mind that UEFA should resign en bloc from FIFA. The consequences would be interesting. For a start, the UEFA Nations Cup would become arguably just as important as, if not more important than, the World Cup. The flow of sponsorship money into FIFA and out into who knows whose hands would be very seriously curtailed. Indeed, since 70+ nations voted against Blatter's reappointment, UEFA could potentially mount a rival World Cup to eclipse FIFA's. There would no doubt be turmoil in world football for 2-3 years but the goal, if realised, would justify that. I see no other way of reforming an undoubtedly corrupt FIFA and removing its President. But........do the European nations collectively, and the sponsors, have the stomach for the fight? I suspect it will take unflinching determination to reform FIFA and remove Blatter.

Tax Return

I've just filled in my annual tax return and want to record how easy it was. In England, as I understand it, you don't have to fill in a tax return unless asked. In France, you automatically have to. It would have taken me a lot of pain the first time I did this in France if I had not been able to make an appointment with an official at the local tax office who kindly did the job for me. That's how I learnt. Tax forms in both countries are extensive and notes to them voluminous. My last efforts in England were plagued with difficulties through my being bounced between various tax offices, none of which seemed to read any correspondence and which certainly didn't in any way communicate with one another.

France is trying to persuade its residents to file tax returns online and, I find, making it beautifully easy to do so. The online system makes a huge but almost certainly warranted assumption that most people's sources of income don't change much from year to year; mine certainly don't. Neither at my age do my personal (family) circumstances. So the online tax system here presents me with a note of the forms I filled in in previous years and simply asks: has anything changed? That, of course, is the key question. However, if anyone is going to falsify a claim then it doesn't much matter what questions are asked. I tick the “no” box and up come not the whole forms on which I entered data but just the boxes into which I entered data. So all I have to do is enter the current data into those boxes. It really couldn't be easier. Hats off to whoever designed the French online income declaration system.

Bill Of Rights

Some time ago I knocked off a not very well thought out comment on the European Human Rights Act. My rather superficial argument was that if it didn't add the freedoms that we already had why should we worry about it? On reflection that was far too glib, a point that was brought home to me in an article that I read suggesting that, although there were obvious faults, these lay with the running of the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) rather than the Act itself. I now find the subject complex and difficult, as indeed it would seem does the Conservative Party in power, which is committed to producing a UK Bill Of Rights but apparently split over the issue.

For a start there is the question of whether the ECHR should have jurisdiction over the UK courts. My instinctive answer is no but...........UK citizens are technically not free people as we like to believe but subjects of The Crown. And, since several ministries are deemed to be part of The Crown, technically we can't sue them whatever they do to us. I currently have no intention to sue any UK ministry but I I did I'd like to be able to do that through the ECHR.

The nub of the problem seems to be blatant exploitation of the EHA by convicted criminals seeking to avoid any appropriate sentence. Surely this apparent loophole can be closed without ditching the whole EHA. However, at the back of my mind is the feeling that an Act that confers rights without any concomitant responsibilities or requirements for accountability must always be flawed. We curtail freedoms (rights), such as freedom of movement, when we put people in prison; so it seems to me reasonable that other freedoms could be curtailed when responsibilities and accountability requirements are not met, provided that these are associated with rights.

The Liverpool Echo

The newspaper The Liverpool Echo yesterday printed a blank front page, asking its readers what they thought it should contain. In an age when the purpose of the Press seems often to be to mislead, or lead in the direction it wants, rather than to inform, I thought this was a great initiative. I hope they get good ideas and follow them up.

This And That

English Conversation

The English conversation “rencontres” that friend Steve and I are conducting on Tuesday evenings continue to go well. Each Tuesday one or two of the regulars are missing (they usually email to say they can't come) and each Tuesday there are one or two newcomers, leaving us with 10-12 each week. We find this is about an ideal number, though if everyone came together we would have around 20, which might be hard work. We anticipated that different levels of competence in English might be a problem but that doesn't seem to be the case. The level of competence is within a manageable range and so far only one person has ruled herself out for the time being because of lack of understanding. Our ideas bank is beginning to run a little low, however, so we will be asking participants next time for their own suggestions. Hopefully, that plus some more brain rattling by Steve and I will carry us through to the end of June, when we will take a break until September.

Signs Of Summer

Events of one sort or another have started to happen which is always a sign that summer is nearly upon us. I went to Aigues Mortes on Monday and on Tuesday went with the boules crowd to a tournament in Sarrians, a fixture every year. A similar day at Beaumes de Venise will follow in a few weeks time, followed by celebration of the 300^th anniversary of the Dauphin fountain, the first of the 11 in the village, and then summer officially starts with the Feu de la St Jean.

Last Monday, for the third Monday in a row, we ate our pizzas outside the Bar du Pont. It's the earliest that has been possible in the years that I have been here, a reflection of the clement weather we have been having. Roses, clematis and honeysuckle are all in full bloom at the front of my house and the perfume from the honeysuckle beside my front door and at the side of my balcony is almost overwhelming. So I'm happily spending some late evenings with a Calvados on my balcony, sniffing the honeysuckle and listening to the frogs' chorus across in the river.

Aigues Mortes

I went with the village club Amitie Mollanaise on a day's excursion to Aigues Mortes, which I found a quite intriguing little walled village. It was built by King Louis the 9^th in the tenth century as a seaside fortress from which to launch crusades into the Holy Lands (a rather sensitive history in the current political climate). However, the sea has since retreated and the village now sits in an expanse of uncommonly dry land amidst the marshes of the Camargue. The village walls are truly impressive, having been maintained/restored to their former glory.

The excursion included a five-hour boat trip through the Camargue marshes along parts of canalised rivers. It was very relaxing, the more so in that the flora and fauna (birds) I observed in the first half-hour turned out to be the only ones on show for the full five hours. I suppose that is only to be expected in what are essentially homogeneous marshes. Nonetheless, it was good to see the white horses, black bulls, the pink and white flowers on the Tamarisk trees that were a virtual constant along the river banks and frequent patches of wild yellow iris. Lunch on the boat had Gardian De Taureau on the menu and I got no sensible reply to my question as to why we were eating the gardian rather than the taureau. Anyway, the meat was tender so it must have been a young gardian.

New Blog

I've had some feedback on my new blog at www.theelseclauseonline.com but only from friends and acquaintances so far, despite the first posting getting well over 200 hits. (OK, I know that is peanuts in terms of internet traffic but it certainly exceeds my coterie of close friends.) More problems are emerging from which decent rules for ease of use can be inferred and Air France is taking a bit of a pasting. I'm glad I'm not the only one who found their website seriously inadequate. I'm assembling a second posting that should be available in a few days.

A Joke

We ask participants in the English conversation “rencontres” to speak on any subject they choose for 3-4 minutes, having had the chance to prepare their talk in advance if they wish. Last week one participant decided to recount a joke, so here it is.

A man dies and goes to hell. Arriving at the gates of hell he asks the gatekeeper what happens next. The gatekeeper says the man has a choice of German or French hell. The man asks what the difference is. So the gatekeeper explains that in German hell he will be dumped in a pool of sewage with devils all around it; every time he comes up for air a devil will hit him on the head with a mallet. In French hell he will be dumped in a pool of sewage with devils all around it; every time he comes up for air a devil will hit him on the head with a mallet. The man says he can't see any difference so how can he choose? The gatekeeper replies that the man should definitely choose French hell. The man asks why. So the gatekeeper explains that in French hell half of the time the devils are on strike or they forget to fill up the pool or the mallets are broken.