Business A La Provencale
I still find attitudes to business and customer relations here rather strange. They range from the sublime to the gor-blimey. In general, family-owned businesses give very good service but chain businesses often the opposite. The idea of excellence in service as a key corporate attribute doesn't seem to have gained much ground here.
One day last week after boules I went for a beer with two of the players to the cafe just below the boules ground. I paid for the first round and was overcharged by a couple of euros by the waitress, who knew me quite well by sight. It could have been an honest mistake but somehow I don't think so. I waited to see if the players with me would notice but, if they did, they said nothing. I said nothing because I was more interested in what was going on than the couple of euros. When the second round of drinks was ordered the waitress came out and said she'd overcharged me, handing me 20 centimes. So, an honest mistake? Could be but I had the feeling that the waitress was playing some sort of trick and covering up. Making a few extra euros out of foreigners is often considered fair game here; in that, at least, Provence is no different from any other part of the world.
Then, I went to my favourite local vineyard and, after two months, they actually had some bags in boxes and so I bought 10 litres of red. I had been in two or thee times before, without luck, so the proprietress greeted me with a thumbs up. She explained that as they had not been able to sell any bags in boxes for two months they had had to put the price up. (I wasn't surprised.) However, to thank me for my patience she charmingly insisted on charging me the old price. What did surprise me was that they had had to wait two months to get any bags in boxes. Weren't there any alternative suppliers?
Possibly not. Friend Steve gets an English newspaper each day at the local Bar du Pont. However, sometimes there are no English papers and the proprietor explained that there was only one distributor that he could use and sometimes the distributor went on strike; so no papers. I don't know if this is the reason for the sole distributorship but the French equivalent of Companies House has the right to refuse registration of any new company whose business it deems superfluous to the designated area. This could be said to give to give all new businesses a chance to succeed but it can also easily create pockets of little or no competition, virtual monopolies. As far as I know, there is no French equivalent of the English Monopolies Board.
Then, just yesterday, I was invited along with all the rest of the villagers to free aperitifs to mark the opening of a new restaurant in the village. In fact it was just a case of new ownership of a pizzeria/restaurant that had not been very successful. A good crowd gathered and I spent a very pleasant hour there. About half-way through I asked for “la carte”, to see what kind of menu the new owners proposed. I was handed a business card. When I explained that I wanted a sample menu I was told that there weren't any; they were “on the computer”. What business manager in his right mind goes to the expense of offering free aperitifs to everyone in the village and has nothing to show of what he will be selling? The idea of, say, focusing on a speciality likely to be popular, making an opening offer of, say, four meals for the price of three and, quite simply, running off a few menus to hand round simply hadn't occurred. The new chef had better be good because the business nous seems lacking already.
Friday, 22 April 2011
Wednesday, 13 April 2011
Purple And Pink
Purple And Pink (And Yellow)
There's a song from the Sound Of Music that starts something like “yellow and red and pink and blue.............(I can sing a rainbow)”. Well, that's what is going on all around here. On a drive down to Avignon today I couldn't help noticing that all the Judas trees as well as the lilac, tamarisk and wisteria are in full bloom, providing a back drop of purple and pink. To add to it, the thyme by the wayside is in (lilac coloured) bloom along with the wild irises. Normally at this time of the year the roadside will be awash with scarlet poppies also, which doesn't say a lot for Nature's s sense of colour coordination but certainly puts on a show: a kind of Las Vega show, gaudy and spectacular, lacking on taste. This year, however, the poppy crop is sparse; I'd already noticed in my back garden that whereas normally I'll have 12-15 self-seeded poppies this year I have only four or five. Can't be a good year for poppies.
Higher up, it's all yellow with the wild coronilla bushes blooming their hearts out. Some friends of friends out here on a walking trip said they kept getting whiffs of a lovely scent on their walks but couldn't place it. They came for aperitifs a couple of evenings ago, smelled the coronilla in my back garden and the mystery was solved. It really is a lovely plant. The hillsides will stay looking yellow for some time, although the scent will go, as the coronilla gives way to broom.
The poppy “phenomenon” intrigues me. I understand some of the situations which cause insect populations, for instance, to rise and fall but can't think why this should apply to plants, particularly over a wide geography. Earlier in the year I remarked to friends Steve and Jo that their hazel trees seemed overladen with catkins this year and that they should have a bumper crop of nuts in the autumn. In England visiting my mother in March I noticed the same thing in the hazel trees there. Why? We have had a mild winter and southern England a particularly hard one, so the weather conditions can't be the cause.
Book Promotion
This afternoon I went to a book “promotion” at the English library in Beaumont. It wasn't really a promotion because the author, Bill Larksworthy, had published the book himself and was never likely to sell many copies. (I was lucky with the books I wrote in that I was asked to write them and so didn't have to look for a publisher.) He's apparently led an interesting life as a doctor in various parts of the world but primarily in Saudi Arabia and was persuaded to write his “memoirs” because of his ability as a raconteur at dinner parties. Unfortunately he didn't want to give his stories away as he thought that might negatively impact sales, which he wasn't going to get anyway, so we didn't really get the benefit of his raconteur abilities. It could have been a really good afternoon but in a way it was a nonsense; however, he was interesting enough not to make it a waste of time. He had, in any case, enjoyed writing the book and that I suspect is the lesson for all the would-be authors out there. If it's worth doing for yourself, it's worth doing. Anything else is a bonus.
There's a song from the Sound Of Music that starts something like “yellow and red and pink and blue.............(I can sing a rainbow)”. Well, that's what is going on all around here. On a drive down to Avignon today I couldn't help noticing that all the Judas trees as well as the lilac, tamarisk and wisteria are in full bloom, providing a back drop of purple and pink. To add to it, the thyme by the wayside is in (lilac coloured) bloom along with the wild irises. Normally at this time of the year the roadside will be awash with scarlet poppies also, which doesn't say a lot for Nature's s sense of colour coordination but certainly puts on a show: a kind of Las Vega show, gaudy and spectacular, lacking on taste. This year, however, the poppy crop is sparse; I'd already noticed in my back garden that whereas normally I'll have 12-15 self-seeded poppies this year I have only four or five. Can't be a good year for poppies.
Higher up, it's all yellow with the wild coronilla bushes blooming their hearts out. Some friends of friends out here on a walking trip said they kept getting whiffs of a lovely scent on their walks but couldn't place it. They came for aperitifs a couple of evenings ago, smelled the coronilla in my back garden and the mystery was solved. It really is a lovely plant. The hillsides will stay looking yellow for some time, although the scent will go, as the coronilla gives way to broom.
The poppy “phenomenon” intrigues me. I understand some of the situations which cause insect populations, for instance, to rise and fall but can't think why this should apply to plants, particularly over a wide geography. Earlier in the year I remarked to friends Steve and Jo that their hazel trees seemed overladen with catkins this year and that they should have a bumper crop of nuts in the autumn. In England visiting my mother in March I noticed the same thing in the hazel trees there. Why? We have had a mild winter and southern England a particularly hard one, so the weather conditions can't be the cause.
Book Promotion
This afternoon I went to a book “promotion” at the English library in Beaumont. It wasn't really a promotion because the author, Bill Larksworthy, had published the book himself and was never likely to sell many copies. (I was lucky with the books I wrote in that I was asked to write them and so didn't have to look for a publisher.) He's apparently led an interesting life as a doctor in various parts of the world but primarily in Saudi Arabia and was persuaded to write his “memoirs” because of his ability as a raconteur at dinner parties. Unfortunately he didn't want to give his stories away as he thought that might negatively impact sales, which he wasn't going to get anyway, so we didn't really get the benefit of his raconteur abilities. It could have been a really good afternoon but in a way it was a nonsense; however, he was interesting enough not to make it a waste of time. He had, in any case, enjoyed writing the book and that I suspect is the lesson for all the would-be authors out there. If it's worth doing for yourself, it's worth doing. Anything else is a bonus.
Tuesday, 5 April 2011
Summery Points
Summer Firsts, Etc
It's felt like summer already for the last couple of weeks, with afternoon temperatures consistently in the 20s; today it was 26 degrees in the sun and tomorrow is predicted to be warmer. Now there is more evidence. Shopping at the local supermarket on Monday I found the first local asparagus and the first local strawberries. Both are quite expensive at the moment but they won't be for long and it will soon be asparagus omelettes, soup and risottos several times a week. Also, on my way to the supermarket I saw the first poppy in bloom by the wayside; the euphorbia which looks so good against poppies has already been showing for several weeks. Do people still write to The Times reporting the first cuckoo?
And it's blossom time. The almond blossom has now been supplemented by cherry, peach and plum blossom. The orchards around Beaumont de Ventoux where I went for a play reading last Sunday are a blaze of white. I took my camera and have got some reasonable shots but still can't get the “killer” picture I want. Maybe I'll drive around one day soon and see if I kind somewhere that will give me the angle and context I need.
The cross-beams in my bedroom are now all stripped of paint and stained, all 64 of them. Feels like time for a celebration! Just a little matter of stripping the ugly wallpaper off the walls and finding out what the wall surface underneath is like. I've started and the surface so far doesn't look too bad. I'll probably need a bag or two of Polyfilla but that should be all. Then, painting.............
I've been asked to help friend Michèle organise a boules tournament for the village. The idea is to get more people playing regularly via a fun tournament. The best idea I've been able to come up with so far to attract the numbers is that the mayor should play wearing just a nappy and sucking a lollipop.........; not sure how that will go down. Daniel and Michèle came round to eat this evening and we discussed the tournament. Daniel suggested a formula that would be ideal in giving everyone the maximum playing time but it's very complicated and I don't think it will be practical for that reason. Daniel thinks he can organise it all and play on the day and that looks unrealistic to me. But trying to persuade an academic that complexity is to be avoided is a losing game. Anyway, everybody enjoyed the meal and Daniel and Michèle awarded me three Michelin stars for that classic French dish, shepherd's pie.
I also got around to doing something I've been meaning to do for some time: storing goat cheeses in olive oil. The summer savoury (sarriette) in my little herb patch at the front had produced enough leaves for me to use so I got some soft goat's cheeses, pressed summer savoury leaves into them and then put them in a jar and covered them with olive oil. They should be good in a few weeks. I think I've mentioned before that summer savoury is a great herb and grows in England but I've never seen it on sale in England and don't know anybody who has grown it; Heaven knows why.
It's felt like summer already for the last couple of weeks, with afternoon temperatures consistently in the 20s; today it was 26 degrees in the sun and tomorrow is predicted to be warmer. Now there is more evidence. Shopping at the local supermarket on Monday I found the first local asparagus and the first local strawberries. Both are quite expensive at the moment but they won't be for long and it will soon be asparagus omelettes, soup and risottos several times a week. Also, on my way to the supermarket I saw the first poppy in bloom by the wayside; the euphorbia which looks so good against poppies has already been showing for several weeks. Do people still write to The Times reporting the first cuckoo?
And it's blossom time. The almond blossom has now been supplemented by cherry, peach and plum blossom. The orchards around Beaumont de Ventoux where I went for a play reading last Sunday are a blaze of white. I took my camera and have got some reasonable shots but still can't get the “killer” picture I want. Maybe I'll drive around one day soon and see if I kind somewhere that will give me the angle and context I need.
The cross-beams in my bedroom are now all stripped of paint and stained, all 64 of them. Feels like time for a celebration! Just a little matter of stripping the ugly wallpaper off the walls and finding out what the wall surface underneath is like. I've started and the surface so far doesn't look too bad. I'll probably need a bag or two of Polyfilla but that should be all. Then, painting.............
I've been asked to help friend Michèle organise a boules tournament for the village. The idea is to get more people playing regularly via a fun tournament. The best idea I've been able to come up with so far to attract the numbers is that the mayor should play wearing just a nappy and sucking a lollipop.........; not sure how that will go down. Daniel and Michèle came round to eat this evening and we discussed the tournament. Daniel suggested a formula that would be ideal in giving everyone the maximum playing time but it's very complicated and I don't think it will be practical for that reason. Daniel thinks he can organise it all and play on the day and that looks unrealistic to me. But trying to persuade an academic that complexity is to be avoided is a losing game. Anyway, everybody enjoyed the meal and Daniel and Michèle awarded me three Michelin stars for that classic French dish, shepherd's pie.
I also got around to doing something I've been meaning to do for some time: storing goat cheeses in olive oil. The summer savoury (sarriette) in my little herb patch at the front had produced enough leaves for me to use so I got some soft goat's cheeses, pressed summer savoury leaves into them and then put them in a jar and covered them with olive oil. They should be good in a few weeks. I think I've mentioned before that summer savoury is a great herb and grows in England but I've never seen it on sale in England and don't know anybody who has grown it; Heaven knows why.
Sunday, 3 April 2011
Wild Leeks And Languages
Wild Leeks
At the pizza evening last week René and Ahmelle mentioned that there were wild leeks in the hills near their home. So we arranged for Steve, Jo, Neville, Liz and I to call on them this Saturday and to go on a wild leek hunt. Steve and Jo provided croissants for breakfast at the house René and Ahmelle are having built; it's at the end of a track on the edge of Buis and nearly completed so we looked around it before setting off. René mentioned one unplanned expense. The track belongs to the commune of Buis. René was told that he could “buy” it but it would remain technically the property of the commune. If he bought it, though, the commune could guarantee that the track would remain open; otherwise........ It's a peculiarly French arrangement.
We went off into the hills above Buis to a fallow field surrounded by groves of rather neglected olive trees. Sure enough, there were literally hundreds of wild leeks there, about the size of spring onions, and we collected several bags full. Seeing them, I realised that I had quite a few in my garden. I had noticed some plants growing that clearly weren't grass and looked like some form of bulb so I had left them to see what they were. Now I know they won't be blooming I shall remove them. Afterwards I went back with Steve and Jo to their place and Jo cooked the leeks with sausages and potatoes for lunch and we ate them sitting outside on their terrace.
Apparently there is wild asparagus in the hills around Buis as well and the French are enthusiastic about collecting anything edible from the wild. I thought the local restaurateurs were missing a trick, particularly in the tourist season. Had I been a restaurateur, I think I would have collected the leeks, persuaded clients that they were a rare local delicacy with a subtle flavour much appreciated by connoisseurs and charged an arm and a leg for a serving of them. What's more, they must be organic which in itself would justify a high price these days. The trip also showed me a possible source for olives. There were still plenty on the trees in the neglected olive groves, despite the fact that the harvesting season is around the turn of the year. So if I ever feel like collecting a load (four kilos are needed to get one litre of oil at the local mill) then I know where to go.
Anyway, the weather was hot and sunny and it was a great way to spend a morning.
English/French
We English have an unenviable reputation for being lazy at learning languages. There's the joke: what do you call someone who speaks three languages? Trilingual. What do you call someone who speaks two languages? Bilingual. And what do call someone who speaks only one language? English. However, that doesn't seem to be the case here.
There aren't that many English people in the area but we nearly all speak French with some fluency, if occasionally leaving some grammatical and phonetic correctness to be desired. When I invite people of both nationalities to eat the conversation is nearly all in French. This is appreciated by the French, who frequently comment that they are very bad at languages and should learn some English. They cast themselves in the role that the English traditionally have. I noticed this several years ago when I went to a class on Occitan which was being held in nearby Malaucène. It was a while before the class realised I was English (I wasn't saying much, except in Occitan). When I was asked to say, in Occitan, where I was from, I had to confess to being English. The woman sitting next to me then said: “ I detest foreigners who speak French well; they make me feel ashamed”.
I noticed this again during the winter, when I invited French friends to view some of my DVDs with me one evening. I have a fairly large collection of films for winter viewing and prefer to watch them in company rather than alone. Those films that aren't in English generally have English subtitles as I've bought most of them in England. Yet none of my friends, even one who is a former English teacher, felt able to watch a film that wasn't in French, not even one with English subtitles.
At the pizza evening last week René and Ahmelle mentioned that there were wild leeks in the hills near their home. So we arranged for Steve, Jo, Neville, Liz and I to call on them this Saturday and to go on a wild leek hunt. Steve and Jo provided croissants for breakfast at the house René and Ahmelle are having built; it's at the end of a track on the edge of Buis and nearly completed so we looked around it before setting off. René mentioned one unplanned expense. The track belongs to the commune of Buis. René was told that he could “buy” it but it would remain technically the property of the commune. If he bought it, though, the commune could guarantee that the track would remain open; otherwise........ It's a peculiarly French arrangement.
We went off into the hills above Buis to a fallow field surrounded by groves of rather neglected olive trees. Sure enough, there were literally hundreds of wild leeks there, about the size of spring onions, and we collected several bags full. Seeing them, I realised that I had quite a few in my garden. I had noticed some plants growing that clearly weren't grass and looked like some form of bulb so I had left them to see what they were. Now I know they won't be blooming I shall remove them. Afterwards I went back with Steve and Jo to their place and Jo cooked the leeks with sausages and potatoes for lunch and we ate them sitting outside on their terrace.
Apparently there is wild asparagus in the hills around Buis as well and the French are enthusiastic about collecting anything edible from the wild. I thought the local restaurateurs were missing a trick, particularly in the tourist season. Had I been a restaurateur, I think I would have collected the leeks, persuaded clients that they were a rare local delicacy with a subtle flavour much appreciated by connoisseurs and charged an arm and a leg for a serving of them. What's more, they must be organic which in itself would justify a high price these days. The trip also showed me a possible source for olives. There were still plenty on the trees in the neglected olive groves, despite the fact that the harvesting season is around the turn of the year. So if I ever feel like collecting a load (four kilos are needed to get one litre of oil at the local mill) then I know where to go.
Anyway, the weather was hot and sunny and it was a great way to spend a morning.
English/French
We English have an unenviable reputation for being lazy at learning languages. There's the joke: what do you call someone who speaks three languages? Trilingual. What do you call someone who speaks two languages? Bilingual. And what do call someone who speaks only one language? English. However, that doesn't seem to be the case here.
There aren't that many English people in the area but we nearly all speak French with some fluency, if occasionally leaving some grammatical and phonetic correctness to be desired. When I invite people of both nationalities to eat the conversation is nearly all in French. This is appreciated by the French, who frequently comment that they are very bad at languages and should learn some English. They cast themselves in the role that the English traditionally have. I noticed this several years ago when I went to a class on Occitan which was being held in nearby Malaucène. It was a while before the class realised I was English (I wasn't saying much, except in Occitan). When I was asked to say, in Occitan, where I was from, I had to confess to being English. The woman sitting next to me then said: “ I detest foreigners who speak French well; they make me feel ashamed”.
I noticed this again during the winter, when I invited French friends to view some of my DVDs with me one evening. I have a fairly large collection of films for winter viewing and prefer to watch them in company rather than alone. Those films that aren't in English generally have English subtitles as I've bought most of them in England. Yet none of my friends, even one who is a former English teacher, felt able to watch a film that wasn't in French, not even one with English subtitles.
Monday, 28 March 2011
Politics, Religion, Race and Translation
Politics, Etc
Friends Steve, Jo, Claudine and Jacques came round to eat on Saturday evening and we all got into a marathon discussion that lasted until 11.30. The subjects were the usual: politics, religion (just a bit), race and translation.
The religious bit was just about food. Happily, Jacques and Claudine (and Steve and Jo) eat just about anything so I was free to choose what I wanted to cook; a curry, Bombay potatoes, dahl and raiti with chapatis I decided. We got to talking about Patricia, Daniel's part-time partner, and the difficulty the two of them posed since Daniel can't take cheese (lactose allergy) or spice and Patricia strictly observes the Jewish eating code: no pork, crustacea or game. None us quite understands why Patricia, who is not a strict Jewess (doesn't pray, attend synagogue), nonetheless is very strict with the eating conventions. There's nowt so queer as folk.
Then on to politics. Steve remarked that he had been told that the French think left but vote right and it seemed to be true. Despite widespread comment against Sarkozy and his right-wing policies the recent local regional elections had shown strong support for Marine Le Penn who has taken over her father's former leadership of the National Front. Jacques surprised me somewhat by showing some sympathy for the Margaret Thatcher era in the UK, saying that at least her policies were clear and she stuck to them. The reverse of this is, in effect, what most of the French who supported Sarkozy when he was elected President now hold against him. There's a kind of masochistic feeling around that he should implement the policies he was elected on even though most French people don't want them; a sort of “kick me and it'll hurt and I'll hate it (and strike!) but it will do me good” sentiment. The trouble is that Sarkozy is no Thatcher (which I can't hold against him). But he strikes me as an opportunist and narcissist, more concerned with what makes him look good than what does the country good.
Sarkozy's response to the trend to the right has been to borrow some of the National Front's ideas, particularly with regard to immigration. So are the French a racist lot? I don't think so, at least no more than any other nation as a whole can be called racist. A friend suggested to me not long ago that possibly the most racist country in the world is one where the question of race rarely occurs: Japan. He remembered being in a hopelessly overcrowded carriage on the Tokyo metro with a spare seat next to him, the only Caucasian in the carriage. There is certainly racial tension in France in the large city suburbs where ethnic ghettos abound and where support for Le Penn is strongest but elsewhere a generally liberal attitude prevails. The tension is largely economic. The situation seems to be that the French are content to see support for the far right to rise and put pressure on the government but would baulk at electing a National Front government.
So what's the alternative? Any left-centre government would have to be a coalition and there's no one at the moment who could make such a coalition work. Segolene Royale, the principal left-wing candidate, has lost all credibility with the public at large; she's regarded as a fantasist. The last person who managed to make the left and centre coalesce for any length of time was Mitterand, who is now missed, although not without reservations. I had sensed but not really understood the reservations but Jacques explained that there were echoes of the war there (still!). Mitterand had been a significant player in the Vichy government and, whilst this could now be forgiven (we all make mistakes), what was held against him was that he had shielded and promoted various other senior players in the Vichy government. As an aside, the fact that he had a publicly acknowledged mistress and bastard child for most of his reign was of no consequence. French politics for the moment consists of multiple factions waiting for a leader to emerge who can create a coherent coalition.
And so, briefly, to translation. Claudine has been translating some short stories I wrote when on a creative writing course in England so it was natural that this subject should crop up (again!). The translations Claudine had done turned out to be more difficult than those I have done. The problem, in a word, was colloquialisms. Here, above all, word for word translations won't work but it is difficult to get away entirely from the words used in the original text. The discussion crystallised something in my mind about the ideas I had been forming for the best approach to translation. The approach is essentially Wittgensteinian, as follows. Read the words in the original text and visualise the meaning: the objects, actions and attitudes. Crystallise a picture and then render that picture in the target language. This won't work with poetry or other forms of dense literary effect, which is why I won't attempt translations of these, but works in most other cases.
Friends Steve, Jo, Claudine and Jacques came round to eat on Saturday evening and we all got into a marathon discussion that lasted until 11.30. The subjects were the usual: politics, religion (just a bit), race and translation.
The religious bit was just about food. Happily, Jacques and Claudine (and Steve and Jo) eat just about anything so I was free to choose what I wanted to cook; a curry, Bombay potatoes, dahl and raiti with chapatis I decided. We got to talking about Patricia, Daniel's part-time partner, and the difficulty the two of them posed since Daniel can't take cheese (lactose allergy) or spice and Patricia strictly observes the Jewish eating code: no pork, crustacea or game. None us quite understands why Patricia, who is not a strict Jewess (doesn't pray, attend synagogue), nonetheless is very strict with the eating conventions. There's nowt so queer as folk.
Then on to politics. Steve remarked that he had been told that the French think left but vote right and it seemed to be true. Despite widespread comment against Sarkozy and his right-wing policies the recent local regional elections had shown strong support for Marine Le Penn who has taken over her father's former leadership of the National Front. Jacques surprised me somewhat by showing some sympathy for the Margaret Thatcher era in the UK, saying that at least her policies were clear and she stuck to them. The reverse of this is, in effect, what most of the French who supported Sarkozy when he was elected President now hold against him. There's a kind of masochistic feeling around that he should implement the policies he was elected on even though most French people don't want them; a sort of “kick me and it'll hurt and I'll hate it (and strike!) but it will do me good” sentiment. The trouble is that Sarkozy is no Thatcher (which I can't hold against him). But he strikes me as an opportunist and narcissist, more concerned with what makes him look good than what does the country good.
Sarkozy's response to the trend to the right has been to borrow some of the National Front's ideas, particularly with regard to immigration. So are the French a racist lot? I don't think so, at least no more than any other nation as a whole can be called racist. A friend suggested to me not long ago that possibly the most racist country in the world is one where the question of race rarely occurs: Japan. He remembered being in a hopelessly overcrowded carriage on the Tokyo metro with a spare seat next to him, the only Caucasian in the carriage. There is certainly racial tension in France in the large city suburbs where ethnic ghettos abound and where support for Le Penn is strongest but elsewhere a generally liberal attitude prevails. The tension is largely economic. The situation seems to be that the French are content to see support for the far right to rise and put pressure on the government but would baulk at electing a National Front government.
So what's the alternative? Any left-centre government would have to be a coalition and there's no one at the moment who could make such a coalition work. Segolene Royale, the principal left-wing candidate, has lost all credibility with the public at large; she's regarded as a fantasist. The last person who managed to make the left and centre coalesce for any length of time was Mitterand, who is now missed, although not without reservations. I had sensed but not really understood the reservations but Jacques explained that there were echoes of the war there (still!). Mitterand had been a significant player in the Vichy government and, whilst this could now be forgiven (we all make mistakes), what was held against him was that he had shielded and promoted various other senior players in the Vichy government. As an aside, the fact that he had a publicly acknowledged mistress and bastard child for most of his reign was of no consequence. French politics for the moment consists of multiple factions waiting for a leader to emerge who can create a coherent coalition.
And so, briefly, to translation. Claudine has been translating some short stories I wrote when on a creative writing course in England so it was natural that this subject should crop up (again!). The translations Claudine had done turned out to be more difficult than those I have done. The problem, in a word, was colloquialisms. Here, above all, word for word translations won't work but it is difficult to get away entirely from the words used in the original text. The discussion crystallised something in my mind about the ideas I had been forming for the best approach to translation. The approach is essentially Wittgensteinian, as follows. Read the words in the original text and visualise the meaning: the objects, actions and attitudes. Crystallise a picture and then render that picture in the target language. This won't work with poetry or other forms of dense literary effect, which is why I won't attempt translations of these, but works in most other cases.
Wednesday, 23 March 2011
Daffodils and Privatisation
Daffodils
I have just arrived back from a week in England to find the plants in my garden really starting to move and the coronilla in bloom already. It seems the weather has been fine while I was away. Not that it was bad in England, although with too many overcast days. I think of the spring being earlier here than in England but it isn't really; much the same plants are blooming on both sides of the channel.
One difference I noticed is the sheer quantity of daffodils blooming in England. Here there are plenty but not the great swathes of them growing round the village pond in Chiddingfold and in front of my mother's kitchen window. And |I noticed a difference between them and those remembered from when I was a child. The memory is admittedly vague but I recall daffodils always being a fairly deep shade of yellow; the flowers with white petals were narcissi, invariably with an orange centre. Looking closely at the daffodils in Chiddingfold I could see hardly any that were purely of the deep yellow shade I remember. There was a huge range of variation in the colours and shapes. Obviously, bulb growers will have indulged in hybridisation in the interim but this is the first time I had really noticed the extent of it. It's enormous.
Another point that interested me occurred on the Saturday morning when a sharp frost preceded a warm sunny day. The daffodils outside my mother's kitchen were all flat on the ground when I got up, as though somebody had stamped all over them. As the sun got to them they all gradually rose up to their former positions. I wondered why. There was no ice on the flowers to weigh them down and, if any freezing had occurred, I would have expected the opposite reaction: up, stiff when frozen and collapsed when thawed. I asked several people but the only possible explanation came from my daughter who suggested that if the frost was an air frost the flowers had moved down to escape it. I suppose that is possible but it somehow seems unlikely. It's a mystery to be unravelled sometime.
Privatisation
One thing I did while in England was to get a mobile phone. I generally hate the things (or rather the manners of a lot of their users) but realise that there are situations when one would be very useful. So I planned to get one on a pay-as-you-go basis for use in emergencies only. The problem here is that all top-ups for pay-as-you-go contracts last just a short time. A 10 euro top-up, for instance, is valid for only two weeks; if you don't use the 10 euros in that time you lose them. Effectively, it costs >250 euros a year to keep the phone running. So I got a UK contract which will cost a lot for each call when I use it here but, if as intended, I hardly ever use it, will be a lot cheaper than a French contract.
This is one result of the differences in privatisation between France and the UK. I think that privatisation of telephony in the UK has been a success (one of the few to date). In France, a grudging and primarily theoretical liberalisation has allowed France Telecom and its subsidiary Orange to create a virtual monopoly. The result is that the consumer has very little choice.
Privatisation (and foreign ownership) is even more controversial here than in England. My own view is that it can work well if genuine competition is possible and there is the means and will to enforce it. The French, on the whole, simply don't want it and often point to some disasters in England (e.g. rail) to support their views. Distribution of electricity and gas is a privatisation that may turn out to work well in England (I think the jury is currently out on that) and there is a law going through parliament in France to, theoretically, do the same. This move, known as the NOME law, is supposed to meet a Brussels directive but is really more of a twitch than a nod towards privatisation. The French are dead set against it and think it will simply fail and result in higher prices. I think they are right, because of the way the law has been drawn up. It allows for privatisation of only 25% of distribution; state-backed EDF must retain 75%. This ensures that even if just one competitor secures the full 25% available, it will never be big enough to challenge EDF. More than one competitor would simply make the alternatives even weaker. It's really a move to appease Brussels while keeping the state monopoly.
The outcry against the NOME law echoes similar protests against, for instance, a noticeable number of successful Polish plumbers and English ski instructors in France; taking French jobs, for Heaven's sake! So much for freedom of movement. The French tendency to protectionism is well know but there is a surprise in all this. I think that partial privatisation of the NHS in the UK would be a disaster but the French have one of the best healthcare systems in the world and it is all privatised and affordable; and the French would, as ever, be the last to sanction any change.
I have just arrived back from a week in England to find the plants in my garden really starting to move and the coronilla in bloom already. It seems the weather has been fine while I was away. Not that it was bad in England, although with too many overcast days. I think of the spring being earlier here than in England but it isn't really; much the same plants are blooming on both sides of the channel.
One difference I noticed is the sheer quantity of daffodils blooming in England. Here there are plenty but not the great swathes of them growing round the village pond in Chiddingfold and in front of my mother's kitchen window. And |I noticed a difference between them and those remembered from when I was a child. The memory is admittedly vague but I recall daffodils always being a fairly deep shade of yellow; the flowers with white petals were narcissi, invariably with an orange centre. Looking closely at the daffodils in Chiddingfold I could see hardly any that were purely of the deep yellow shade I remember. There was a huge range of variation in the colours and shapes. Obviously, bulb growers will have indulged in hybridisation in the interim but this is the first time I had really noticed the extent of it. It's enormous.
Another point that interested me occurred on the Saturday morning when a sharp frost preceded a warm sunny day. The daffodils outside my mother's kitchen were all flat on the ground when I got up, as though somebody had stamped all over them. As the sun got to them they all gradually rose up to their former positions. I wondered why. There was no ice on the flowers to weigh them down and, if any freezing had occurred, I would have expected the opposite reaction: up, stiff when frozen and collapsed when thawed. I asked several people but the only possible explanation came from my daughter who suggested that if the frost was an air frost the flowers had moved down to escape it. I suppose that is possible but it somehow seems unlikely. It's a mystery to be unravelled sometime.
Privatisation
One thing I did while in England was to get a mobile phone. I generally hate the things (or rather the manners of a lot of their users) but realise that there are situations when one would be very useful. So I planned to get one on a pay-as-you-go basis for use in emergencies only. The problem here is that all top-ups for pay-as-you-go contracts last just a short time. A 10 euro top-up, for instance, is valid for only two weeks; if you don't use the 10 euros in that time you lose them. Effectively, it costs >250 euros a year to keep the phone running. So I got a UK contract which will cost a lot for each call when I use it here but, if as intended, I hardly ever use it, will be a lot cheaper than a French contract.
This is one result of the differences in privatisation between France and the UK. I think that privatisation of telephony in the UK has been a success (one of the few to date). In France, a grudging and primarily theoretical liberalisation has allowed France Telecom and its subsidiary Orange to create a virtual monopoly. The result is that the consumer has very little choice.
Privatisation (and foreign ownership) is even more controversial here than in England. My own view is that it can work well if genuine competition is possible and there is the means and will to enforce it. The French, on the whole, simply don't want it and often point to some disasters in England (e.g. rail) to support their views. Distribution of electricity and gas is a privatisation that may turn out to work well in England (I think the jury is currently out on that) and there is a law going through parliament in France to, theoretically, do the same. This move, known as the NOME law, is supposed to meet a Brussels directive but is really more of a twitch than a nod towards privatisation. The French are dead set against it and think it will simply fail and result in higher prices. I think they are right, because of the way the law has been drawn up. It allows for privatisation of only 25% of distribution; state-backed EDF must retain 75%. This ensures that even if just one competitor secures the full 25% available, it will never be big enough to challenge EDF. More than one competitor would simply make the alternatives even weaker. It's really a move to appease Brussels while keeping the state monopoly.
The outcry against the NOME law echoes similar protests against, for instance, a noticeable number of successful Polish plumbers and English ski instructors in France; taking French jobs, for Heaven's sake! So much for freedom of movement. The French tendency to protectionism is well know but there is a surprise in all this. I think that partial privatisation of the NHS in the UK would be a disaster but the French have one of the best healthcare systems in the world and it is all privatised and affordable; and the French would, as ever, be the last to sanction any change.
Tuesday, 8 March 2011
Miscellaniae
Summer
We seem to have gone from winter through spring to summer in a matter of a month. The past week has seen seen midday temperatures in the mid-twenties and I've been eating out at lunch-time in shirt sleeves. Rain is forecast for next week when I shall be in England and won't care. Anyway, we need the rain; I had to water the pots out front for the third time in about ten days as they had become so dry. The narcissi are now coming into bloom and, with the all-blue pansies in full flower, the front of the house is beginning to look as I hoped it would this spring.
The World Of The Olive Tree
Somehow I'm going to have to teach Daniel version control. He has printed out the text of the film on olive trees because he decided we needed a printed copy; fine. But he has printed out the last version but one. When I hit the roof he airily said: “that's OK you can put in the corrections by hand and also any further changes we make”. And then, when we want a final, final printed version? Well, we can add in (again) all the changes we have made on paper, which will mostly be the changes I have already made to the electronic version. (And then presumably print off an earlier version again.) Tagging each saved file with a version number is apparently beyond him (a former university professor!). It's driving me bananas.
The text has however taught me a few things I didn't know about olives. To me an olive is an olive but there are over fifty named varieties of the things and it seems that those good for eating are not generally good for making oil. An exception is a variety called “la tanche” which is the one grown around here and is good for both eating and making oil. In the late 1950s the good people of Nyons, around 20km from here, decided to make a thing of their special olive and applied for an AOC label which was duly granted (the first such). In Nyons, moreover, there is an Order of The Knights of the Olive Tree and an annual festival during which the Knights dress up (in all seriousness) in olive coloured robes, stick olive tree twigs in their hair and parade around the town initiating new Knights by slapping them on the shoulders with olive branches. Only in France........
The World of the Inland Revenue
I say “only in France” but dear old HMRC seems to be trying to get in on the act. Not entirely unexpectedly, I received notice a few days ago of a £100 fine for a late tax return for fiscal 2009/10. I have written a reply stating that, firstly, I believe my original paper return was rejected in error (as I have already told them) since it conformed exactly to the instructions I received in a letter from them in July. Either that or their instructions were in error, so either way it's their fault. Secondly, I posted an online return in January which was accepted by the system. Thirdly, the lovely form on which they notified me of the fine states specifically that the fine cannot exceed the tax due and, since they have accepted my French tax residence back to September 2007 and given me a tax code of NT (not taxable), there can't be any tax due.
I'm waiting to see if, this time, they are going to try to extract interest on the tax not due. It'll be six months before they decide on that so there is a slight chance that one of my communications will get noticed by them before then. Maybe, like olive trees, there are over 50 varieties of HMRC (and Knights........though Heaven knows what they would dress up in; the mind boggles.
We seem to have gone from winter through spring to summer in a matter of a month. The past week has seen seen midday temperatures in the mid-twenties and I've been eating out at lunch-time in shirt sleeves. Rain is forecast for next week when I shall be in England and won't care. Anyway, we need the rain; I had to water the pots out front for the third time in about ten days as they had become so dry. The narcissi are now coming into bloom and, with the all-blue pansies in full flower, the front of the house is beginning to look as I hoped it would this spring.
The World Of The Olive Tree
Somehow I'm going to have to teach Daniel version control. He has printed out the text of the film on olive trees because he decided we needed a printed copy; fine. But he has printed out the last version but one. When I hit the roof he airily said: “that's OK you can put in the corrections by hand and also any further changes we make”. And then, when we want a final, final printed version? Well, we can add in (again) all the changes we have made on paper, which will mostly be the changes I have already made to the electronic version. (And then presumably print off an earlier version again.) Tagging each saved file with a version number is apparently beyond him (a former university professor!). It's driving me bananas.
The text has however taught me a few things I didn't know about olives. To me an olive is an olive but there are over fifty named varieties of the things and it seems that those good for eating are not generally good for making oil. An exception is a variety called “la tanche” which is the one grown around here and is good for both eating and making oil. In the late 1950s the good people of Nyons, around 20km from here, decided to make a thing of their special olive and applied for an AOC label which was duly granted (the first such). In Nyons, moreover, there is an Order of The Knights of the Olive Tree and an annual festival during which the Knights dress up (in all seriousness) in olive coloured robes, stick olive tree twigs in their hair and parade around the town initiating new Knights by slapping them on the shoulders with olive branches. Only in France........
The World of the Inland Revenue
I say “only in France” but dear old HMRC seems to be trying to get in on the act. Not entirely unexpectedly, I received notice a few days ago of a £100 fine for a late tax return for fiscal 2009/10. I have written a reply stating that, firstly, I believe my original paper return was rejected in error (as I have already told them) since it conformed exactly to the instructions I received in a letter from them in July. Either that or their instructions were in error, so either way it's their fault. Secondly, I posted an online return in January which was accepted by the system. Thirdly, the lovely form on which they notified me of the fine states specifically that the fine cannot exceed the tax due and, since they have accepted my French tax residence back to September 2007 and given me a tax code of NT (not taxable), there can't be any tax due.
I'm waiting to see if, this time, they are going to try to extract interest on the tax not due. It'll be six months before they decide on that so there is a slight chance that one of my communications will get noticed by them before then. Maybe, like olive trees, there are over 50 varieties of HMRC (and Knights........though Heaven knows what they would dress up in; the mind boggles.
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