Love, Sex, Marriage And Morals

 Here is anther of my letters on the French

Love, Sex, Marriage And Morals

Love, sex and marriage are three different words and, for the French, three separable concepts. In England the three go together, or at least they are supposed to. In France this may also happen, indeed does increasingly so in recent times, but that has been less the case than in England. A result of the more liberal view of the French is that the English tend to regard the French and France as inherently romantic and sexy. The French view of the English in such matters is much less flattering, words such as staid and inhibited that come to mind, but perhaps reliable and loyal do too. Certainly French women seem very sexy to most English eyes, the more so that their sexiness seems often to be unconscious rather than contrived.

Marriage as primarily a practical rather than romantic arrangement has been and still is prevalent in many parts of the world, particularly the muslim world but the muslim world does not concern us here. In England it has been largely contained within high society, the powerful and wealthy combining their power and wealth. Less well-off people generally didn’t have much that could be combined for economic strength so there was less basis for economic arrangements. In France the practice seems to have extended much further down among the classes, particularly among peasants with small-holdings: adjacent small-holdings could make a sizeable farm or vineyard.

In England transgression often caused scandals in high society that were relished by the lower classes but accepted as part of high society, good for headlines in scandal sheets but a matter for them, not, us. The prevailing quasi Calvinist morality made the consequences of transgression much more onerous for the middle and lower classes. George Bernard Shaw remarked that only the middle classes have morals: the rich don’t need them and the poor can’t afford them. In France a practically arranged marriage was not to be allowed to preclude a good love and sex life, so if the marriage did not provide these they could legitimately be sought elsewhere. If that meant transgression then so be it. The Catholic church in France had a role in this. With divorce not possible, there had to be a way to re-arrange a bad arrangement. Sex might be something of a problem as sex was the means by which the church sought to control people, but there was always confession. This attitude is epitomised in the French “, 5 to 7”, the hours when bourgeois French businessmen stereotypically visited their mistresses after leaving work and before returning home for dinner with the family. The French could/would not be denied be denied their “right” to enjoy life, their whole reason for living.

Family is considered important in both French and English cultures but, I think, possibly more emphatically so in France. When my children were young France was always a favourite holiday destination a child-friendly country. Children seemed to be welcomed everywhere and included in all activities. This was sometimes the case in England but not always so. And French couples, if they divorce, seem to do so less often than their English counterparts when their children are young. Providing the children with a stable and happy upbringing is considered more important than resolving marital issues, which can be left to when the children have become adults and are better able to deal with the consequences.

Within all this in France the most important watchword is discretion. Privacy laws in France are much stricter than in England. Much of the contents of English scandal sheets would immediately provoke legal action in France. Even so, and despite more liberal attitudes to marriage and sex, relationships are expected to be carried out with discretion. Mistresses are not flaunted and the French are quite as able as the English to see what is thrust under their noses. But in France relationships are rarely subjected to public investigation and speculative prudery as they can often be in England. Discretion is the word.

Prudery exists in both countries but Calvinism primarily in England. In France, if two people get together and have sex that is their affair (literally) and should not concern anybody else. In England, if the affair becomes known, it is almost certain to be subjected to moral judgements, public or private. To he English, sex is a matter of morals. To the French it is simply a fact of life and may have little moral significance..

A Special Meal

A Special Meal

I’m just back from a rather special meal, special in several ways. It is called a “repas gourmand”, organised by the Old Fogies club here, and is of very high quality. So why not a “repas gourmet”, the distinction in French being between quality and quantity: “gourmet” says quality and “gourmand” says quantity? The only answer I could get from French friends there was that the quantity was guaranteed and the quality was for the eaters to judge. In the event, this year as last in my view, both were evident.

The deal is this. Participants pay 10 euros for a multi-course meal with wine (as much as you want – and bread of course, this is France) included. Suppliers of the meal, the same delicatessen as last year (so presumably the deal works both ways) provides the meal and has the opportunity to sell its wares. The meal started with eight starter courses, one after the other, of different pâtés, terrines, dried sausages and hams, to be sampled with bread and wine. These were what the delicatessen was hoping primarily to sell. The main course was sausages and lentils, also on sale in jars, followed by cheeses, also on sale, and a small dessert. Participants are provided with a list of what they have sampled and more and their prices and invited to buy any of the offerings, although there is no obligation to do so.

The result? I had a very good and great value for money meal and bought jars of the sausages and lentils, which I thought were exceptionally good, pulled pork cooked in it’s own fat and duck à l’orange (this last for friends).

What struck me, ruminating at the end of the meal, is that since this is a formula that works it could be replicated potentially anywhere. Potentially any town or village could do the same and give all Old Fogies like me, or anybody else with a few euros to spend on good food before Christmas for that matter, a good value for money meal. So wake up somebody somewhere and do it if you haven’t already done so.

 

Another Letter On The French

 Some time ago I promised more of the letters I have been writing on the French. Below is another.

Food And Alcohol

When told the people had no bread to eat Marie Antionette is famously reputed to have said «Then let them eat cake». This has been shown to be untrue by contemporary historians. What is true is that Parisian women forced the king and his famiIy out of Paris crying “bring the baker, his wife and apprentice to Paris”. The price of bread was controlled in France by monarchs from the 14^th century and subsequently by various governments until 1987.. Thus bread has played a major rôle in the French political psychology and diet. Order what you will in any French restaurant you will always be served a basket of bread with it. For many years after Marie Antionette had her capacity eat anything rather violently removed the price of bread was controlled by the government so that the poor had at least that to eat.

Every country outside the polar regions has it’s staple «filler» in meals in some form of starch, depending on what can most easily be grown. In northern climes potatoes predominate, in Italy the filler is pasta, northern Africa has millet, the sub-Saharan countries have manioc or cassava, south America has corn and Asia has rice.

The filler is also in many cases the basis for making alcohol to wash down the food or simply to get pie-eyed. In England the standard filler is potatoes although these are more closely associated with Ireland where until recent years the most common form of cheap alcohol was a form of vodka called poteen. An Irish friend of mine once told me the following tale. He had invited his father for a meal and decided to cook something new for him: spaghetti bolognese. His father liked the meal but said afterwards: «That was good, son, but where are the spuds?»

Nowadays France has an enviable reputation for fine food but that wasn’t always the case; The English doing the grand tour of Europe in the 18^th and early 19^th centuries would sometimes criticise the poor food they had to endure in France. At the time all perishable food had to be what was available locally and, anyway, much of France was near starvation in the 18^th century The advent of trains seems to have made the difference. Prior to that the food on offer would have been restricted and possibly not always of good quality.

Although France is now famous for its «haute cuisine» my own opinion of French cuisine is that the genius lies lies in perfecting simple dishes rather than in sophisticated cooking: starters like radishes with butter and salt, carrots shredded and doused with olive oil and pepper, etc. Indeed, a custom I was acquainted with in France in the 1950s was to serve each component of the meal separately, each vegetable and fish or meat on its own, each prepared and cooked as well as the cook could manage. Thus potatoes on their own, perhaps new potatoes with butter and pepper, peas as a single dish cooked with lettuce and maybe small onions or bacon, etc. And bread with everything of course.

In contrast England has a reputation decidedly in the opposite direction, although that too has changed in the last few decades. You can now eat in England as well as anywhere in the world, although for many years that wasn’t the case. Some of my French friends of my age, who first visited England in their youth, as I did France, and haven’t been back since, have a permanent memory of bad food in England. Admittedly, in the early post-WW2 years, ingredients for meals were severely restricted; but the same was true of France when I first visited and I ate very well with a very poor family and in a student canteen.

No doubt an important factor in the difference is the attitude to food. If the French live to eat, the English eat to live, although both these assertions should perhaps be put in the past tense. That is how it has been for very many decades but is much less of a difference now than it has been. Now the main difference I find is that local restaurants in France are much less likely to be part of a national chain, less likely to rely on fast food and are generally better value for money. What a friend of mine calls the “theatre” of a meal out is also more likely to apply: the welcome and the service are not formal and stereotyped but personal and sincere and the description of the food available is not formulaic but takes account of what is seasonal and how it has been cooked. There is an openness and individuality that is relatively rare in English restaurants.

As for alcohol, considerable change has occurred there too. In both England and France. In England wine was made by the Romans and continued to be made up to the 16^th century and brandy with it. Climate change put a stop to that and beer and barley-based spirits have generally replaced them, with a temporary diversion in the 19^th century towards gin. In France, wine and fruit-based spirits have always predominated; some beer was always brewed in the north but was best left to the Belgians, who did it better. Both countries have experienced something of a revolution in the way they make their drinks. British beer started deteriorating in the 1950s and 1960s as skill in keeping beer became more costly and scarcer until a consumer-led campaign, CAMRA, forced a change towards higher quality; and the viability of micro- breweries in recent decades has reinforced this and decimated the market of big breweries looking for higher profit margins. And England has once again taken to making wine, albeit mostly white and in necessarily small quantities, making it expensive.

France also has experienced a change in quality, owing perhaps more to the skill and practices of Australian wine-makers than many French would like to admit. Poor quality wine, particularly that from north Africa, was as much in evidence in the 1950s and 1960s in France as poor quality beer was in England at the same time but there is now no market for it. Other wine- producing countries have increased both the quality and volume of their output and that has no doubt contributed to the demise of cat’s piss.

As for which country is most bibulous, both experience health problems due to alcohol consumption so readers can make up their own minds. There are no precise records of the past but the English were certainly more inventive. At the height of their empire-building the English often found themselves in countries without the materials to make beer and only those to make barely drinkable wine. Not to be deprived of the means to get pleasantly drunk, they therefore found ways to make undrinkable wine into a good drink; sherry, madeira, marsala and cognac(?) are testimony to that.

Back From Scotland

Back From Scotland

I’m back from Scotland and, greatly though I enjoyed my trip there to see my family, happy to be so. A friend here, also returning from the Uk, said familiarity can be underestimated: knowing where your hearing aid, tooth brush, change of socks, shoes is, etc. I agree. I’ve come to accept my status as an old dodderer. If I needed any further proof, my perpetual motion machine of a granddaughter provided it. The photos below are evidence of my visit, if not of the perpetual motion.

 I loved the house that my daughter and family have recently moved to, to have a garden in which granddaughter Eilidh has already grown magnificent carrots, which she adores; maybe she will continue the gardening tradition of my extended family. It’s a turn of the (last) century house, built like the proverbial brick s**thouse, with spacious rooms and solid hard wood banisters and door/window surrounds and high ceilings. It’s a style I associate with Glasgow now and wonder about the reason for the very high ceilings; how on earth did they manage to heat the rooms in the past? 

 We did nothing particular as I was happy just to be with them but seemed to find something interesting to do each day; always including some time when Eilidh could expend her excess energy. A lot of the time it rained but you have to expect that in Scotland, although the photos show that there were sunny spells too.

 

I then took the train to London to stay for a couple of days with my old friend Margaret and meet up with my son Carl. We went for lunch to Zedel, my favourite restaurant in the heart of Piccadilly, and I was able to pass on to Carl my bag of duck and sausages brought from France. And there was time for Margaret and I to have long conversations over bottles of wine before my departure from Gatwick. Friends Jacques and Claudine were at Marignane to greet me from where they had started me on my journey.

While in the UK I was struck by the kindness of strangers. When about to add to my Oyster card at Euston station a man approached me to offer a one-day travel card for which he had no further use. A young woman offered to take my case up a flight of stairs at Stockwell station. I’ve learned not to be too proud to accept these offers of generosity so accepted both gratefully. But I wonder…...now can such considerate people tolerate a government that is so overtly cruel, and for how long? When will British people see through the flag-waving government tricks, overcome their xenophobia and come to their senses?

Once back I knew I had to get down to gardening, both at my house and in my allotment. A visit to my allotment produced an abundance of tomatoes, peppers, chillis and aubergines which I quickly converted into pasta sauces or gave away. Since then I have done nothing there but watering but I have ordered a garden shredder for which I have a lot of material and which I shall put on the ground there to conserve moisture. At home I have mostly cleared the dead debris and planted pansies, cyclamen and bulbs which, I hope, will provide a little colour through the winter and a good display in the spring. I can’t disappoint the villagers who come regularly to see the flowers I have on display.

There’s a bit more clearing up to do but I feel I’m now on course to go through the winter. I will be free to catch up on reading, watching films and football and wait for the spring. A few days after my return friend Jean-Claude invited me for a curry and gave me a copy of a book he has had published on the ancient statuary of west Nepal. At Gatwick airport I bought the latest Ian McEwan book and both are lengthy tomes so I have a deal of reading to catch up on.

 

God Save The King?

 

God Save The King?

I somehow feel I should record my thoughts and feelings regarding Queen Elizabeth II’s death and funeral,which I‘m conscious are likely to be those of a minority. I’m at an age when there is little point in dissembling although I try to respect the feelings of others.

First, a little personal background. When at school and the Wimbledon tennis tournament was playing I used to go to see the matches after school. The players all had their nationality noted after their names and some were described as “stateless”. I thought this was an exotic nd enviable status, in innocent ignorance of the difficulties it must have caused the players. I think I must always have been lacking in patriotic sentiment, the only nationalist remnant of my nationalist education being unwavering support for the English football team. I like and appreciate England in many ways but do not feel patriotic about it.

I have great respect for the late queen. I think she had a lousy job, albeit with very considerable compensations, aand did it extremely well. But love? How do you love someone you have never spoken to, never seen in the flesh, never met and know only through what has been written about them, much by sycophants? Her death left me sad for her family, as would the death of any other person I didn’t know,, but otherwise unmoved.

I watched part of the funeral on television and was impressed by the display of pomp and circumstance and the brilliant feat of organisation behind it. One thing you can rely on from the military is to carry out a ceremony impeccably, and Britain loves pomp. However I found parts of the BBC commentary cloying. I do not think the ceremony showed that Britain is great, as was stated. Neither do I think, as was also stated, that this will have a great, changing effect on people’s personal lives; the impact of the cost of living crisis will undoubtedly be greater.

When Charles is crowned king I suspect my thoughts and feelings will be similar. He will probably find the job difficult, in part because he will no longer be able to state publicly the views that impinged on politics that he has in the past. However, for me and my personal life the election of the French president must inevitably have more significance than who sits on the English throne.

FRench At Last

 

French At Last

I have just been informed that my application for French nationality has been accepted. As long as I retain my Britsh nationality as well I am therefore officially half frog and half roast beef, a strange creature indeed but I rather like the idea. Also it means I can now throw brickbats at Macron as well as Johnson and whoever succeeds him. It’s taken five years and mountains of documentation and…...it seems the documentation is not over. With the official acceptance I also received a whole list of instructions to download various documents, fill in forms and…..Boy, do the French love documentation! Where do they keep it all?

I’ve sent the news to some friends and suggested that any of themwith an artistic bent should try to visualise a creature who is half frog and half roast beef and received one response; I am obviously a John Bullfrog. I think that is brilliantly inventive.

To mark the occasion, or not quite, the local tourist office has taken a photo of the front of my house and made a jigsaw out of it which it sells to tourists here. My mother would have been proud but it seems I cannot claim any royalties as the front of my house is not copyrightable. Damn! It seems that they should have sought my permission but I am not repared to quibble about that. Anyway I bought the jigsaw puzzle to give to my granddaughter.

The allotment continues to produce and I now have enough ratatouille as well as aubergines to feed an army in the freezer and jars of pickled cucumbers and courgettes despite having given a lot away. Some of the plants are giving early signs of giving up and I won’t mind now when they do. It’s been fun doing the allotment and I’ve met a new group of people. On Friday evenings, since not all of us are retired, we have a ritual aperitif together on the tables and benches by the allotments.

This winter, though, promises to be hard work to improve the soil. I’ll need a lot of anything that retains water and I can foresee a lot of digging. I’ve bought some cauliflower, brussel sprouts, cabbage and kale seedlings, will get some radish and spinach beet seeds and will plant some garlic in November. . We don’t normally have a significant frost until December, but who knows this year? Anyway, I’ll take it from there.

Writing

 Writing

I have been writing all my life, four books and hundreds of articles published in magazines and newspapers. Since retiring, though, I have written only this blog; some pages for websites and a few translations. But I have a new projet: to write about my impressions of France and the French in the manner of Voltaire's Lettres Sur Les Anglais, akind of 21st century response to 18th century observations from the opposite point of view. A bit late, I know, but I do live in Provence. I am already well into the project and, the material is good for animated discussions with French friends. Topics range through government and administraton, business, love life and food and drink., They may be published elsewhere but, if not, I shall publish them here. Below is the Introduction.

Introduction To Letters About The French

The title “Letters About The French was suggested to me by Voltaire’s “Lettres ssur Les Anglais”, which he wrote while in England, and the objective is similar: to inform one nation of the idiosyncrasies of another., mostly gently, often humously but with some underlying insight; I avoided the title “French Letters” for reasons that will be obvious to any English person if not to every French person. My situation is like that of Babouc, one of Voltaire’s characters observing the way of life of others, though in my case not sent by an angel and I cannot claim to have a remit to report back to Heaven.

My circumstances, admittedly, ar are quite different to those of Voltaire; I did not come to France as Voltaire did to England for reasons of personal safety, to avoid getting beaten up for what he wrote. I came to France through a life-long feeling of kindred spirit with the country and its inhabitants and an appreciation of the beauty of many areas. Much as I will happily criticise the English establishment I am not of sufficient significance to warrant the former prime minister organising a beating-up for me, even if he was not beyond such measures. Our motivations in writing must be a bit different then. While mine are to entertain and inform they do not have the edge of revenge that Voltaire’s did. Although I am sad at the state of England I have no reason for resentment.

Major Thompson, the archetypal English character created by Daninos, should also probably be included in this general sweep of Anglo-French (mis) understanding. However, national service was abolished in England before I reached the age when I might have to endure it so I never became even a private, let alone a major. And my friends and others who know me, whatever they may call me from time to time, would never call me typically English. So my perceptions are unlikely to be anything like those of Major Thompson.

My experience of living in France over the past 15 years has been above all in the north of Provence so some observations may be truer of Provence than of France as a whole. The village in which I live, Mollans sur Ouvèze, was known in the 18^th century and before as the village of those with ňholes in the elbows of garments, caused by long spells spent leaning on the Bridge that dissects the village and gazing at the river Ouvèze below and thinking or dreaming of who knows what. I have not observed a prevalence of holes in the elbows of garments worn by the villagers but the attitude suggested by that is certainly evident. A local joke is that a Spaniard came to the village wanting to learn Provençal and asked what was the equivalent in that language of “manana” (I can’t get the “enye”) He was told that no equivalent of such great urgency existed in Provençal.

It may also be noted that , four centuries on, my world is vastly different to that of Voltaire. The technological advances are obvious but have not been matched by political maturity, although human nature probably remains much the same. Nowadays all is certainly not for the best in the best of all possible worlds so fewer misunderstandings can only help.

That is the background to these letters.