Love it or hate it? 24 hours on the Champs-Elysées, France's most iconic avenue

Chivalry no longer exists in young boys in France.

The  other day I was walking through a small deserted park with my 7 year old grandson when we heard some child calling out for help.

We looked around but couldn’t see any toddler in difficulty but finally noticed a young girl of about 11 or 12 up in one of those wooden contraptions they build for kids nowadays. Rope type ladders to climb up and then poles to slide down with a wooden house type thing at the top.

This girl was in a state and steadily getting worse. She was stuck out holding onto a pole but was afraid to swing onto it and couldn’t get back on to the platform. Panic had taken hold of her.

I asked her what the trouble was and she wanted her mother who wasn’t around; in fact nobody was around.

I asked my grandson what we should do. A shrug of the shoulders and a remark to the effect of leaving her stuck up there and that we should continue on our way. I don’t think he is particularly callous, probably just not interested in the fate of strange girls. After all a boy would never get himself in such an embarrassing situation.

So I had to climb up the rope lattice work, age limit 8, hoping it would not break my age being 78, and help the girl down.

Obviously in this age of equality chivalry is doubtless considered a macho characteristic and is not taught in school. 

France's election: 'The Russians are doing what they can to bring down Macron'

"Made for sharing". Another storm in a tasse de thé?

The mayor of Paris has incurred the wrath of the Académie Française for allowing English to take precedence over French in the capital's bid to host the 2024 Olympic Games.

“Made for sharing”,

Well perhaps a little strange. I’m not quite sure what we are meant to share.

If I delve into the subject I might find an explanation but that is not the idea of sharing. Certainly it’s not their cars. I have two brother’s in law here and neither has ever shared his car.

The French should be very careful how they use English. I remember years ago in Orléans a new sports goods shop opened up called if I recollect “The Athlete’s Foot”. Well every English schoolboy knew what that affliction is, maybe English school girls but as we didn’t share showers in those days I wouldn’t know. Certainly athlete’s foot was made for sharing. Rather appropriate for a sporting event.

What with football becoming “le foot” in French and jogging becoming “le footing” etc.

I don’t see why the Académie française is so offended by English. Without French the English language probably wouldn’t have existed being  a mixture of French and Low Saxon.

Of course in this age of tweeting English has become so degraded there can’t be that many people left who know how to write it correctly let alone speak it.

If Brexit comes into force before 2024 I can’t imagine the French wanting to share anything with the English though, let alone their language.

Now whatever happened to the  Entente Cordiale? Outside of academia I doubt if anyone knows what that was in any case.

Are the French the world's best lovers?

France welcomes Trump in his own words / America First - France Second

I'm not sure I agree with all the sentiments expressed here. Why is France only second?

Of course one can only hope that refers to an electoral catastrophe. The French are really going about trying to build the biggest election mess, bigger even than Brexit or Trump. 

It might be a good idea to let the Americans win that one.

Paris' Banlieues Are Burning

Europe is no place for "yesterday's men"

Next week I have to go to Paris to pick up my grandson to bring him home for a few days. I have been instructed (?) to take him to the cinema. I haven’t been to a cinema in Orléans in more than 30 years. In fact apart from taking said grandson to a film in Paris last year I just don’t go to the cinema. The film in Paris was Peter Pan. Not of course the Peter Pan of the pantomimes of my youth way back in those days of innocence in the 1940’s. Oh no. Some new version totally unsuitable for even a modern hard boiled youth. Far too much violence.

Anyway I set about finding a cinema in Orléans. All the old ones have closed down. There’s a new one near the old market on the banks of the Loire. A bus ride, a tram ride and then a walk. No problem except one will have to time things not to be either too late or early; and of course to hope it doesn’t rain.

So I do a test run and arrive at the cinema to find a mass of people but no information desk. I wish to enquire about what films are on, the hours, the prices etc. All in a calm orderly manner. Well nobody has time to deal with me. The information is posted here and there but no advice if I should buy a ticket in advance or anything that might be useful to avoid having an angry young boy on one’s hands because one got the planning wrong.

I simply loathe going to Paris anyway. I was there about 10 days ago and had to stay overnight. At the end of dinner I noticed the cat was missing. I had been warned not to let her out if I opened the front door. I remember a mother coming round to pick her son up, my grandson’s friend, and the entrance hall had been dark with the door open.

I then spent 4 hours searching for the cat to no avail and finally went to bed at midnight but couldn’t sleep. No cat meant mice and my entire fault etc.

 I heard my son get in about 2.30 and a few minutes later the cat came in my room, sniffed me and went out again. In the morning I was informed that when my grandson and friend made too much noise playing the cat would get in a huff and go and hide in a cupboard.

Now what are today’s presidential candidates doing about improving the lot of aged grandparents without whom modern families cannot function thanks to said politicians screwing up family values and who now say we can’t even spank the little blighters. Not the cat of course.

Please don’t ask what I’d like to do to the politicians.

I hear it’s even worse in the UK. Europe is no place for “yesterday’s men”.

A short happy history of France: All's well that ends well (?)

Cogito ergo sum: A good modern translation might be "I drive therefore I am"

I was getting on a bus the other day when I noticed the fine for travelling without   validating a ticket or pass had increased to €122.

Well there are many youngsters of dubious social status who quite blatantly travel without paying. From time to time hit teams of inspectors get on the bus and control all the passengers and usually pick up one or two nogooders.

Travelling by train one is confronted by the same problem although for passengers of a certain age it gets a little more confusing as there are white periods (full price) and blue periods (reduced price) which vary during holidays. Then one has to remember to carry the necessary pass (up to date as well).

All of this gets more difficult with advancing age. Does one need a medical certificate to prove one is getting absent minded or forgetful or even senile? Certainly most of the inspectors are not qualified to judge.

I am a strong believer in public transport and physical exercise. Walk when it’s possible, and then take a bus or tram or a train when necessary.

A good idea would be to ban cars but if that is not possible at least have free transport for non car owners. Good for health and pollution.

I live in France where Descartes wrote, “I think therefore I am”,

Much better is the phrase, “I breathe therefore I am”,

In practice the French believe in the phrase “I drive, therefore I am”.

A Frenchman without his car is like a horseman without his horse.

The death toll on the roads has gone down from around 16/17 thousand a year when I arrived to perhaps 3/4 thousand a year now. However with the increase in population and therefore an increase in the number of vehicles on the roads the collateral damage (death due to pollution) must be increasing.

So thanks to drivers one could now say “I breathe therefore I die”.

Now is the time for politicians to do something about it, but drivers vote and most pedestrians are too young to vote or too old for politicians  to worry about.

In any case I doubt if most politicians have used public transport since their student days. In fact it’s a pity that instead of spending hours  reading Descartes as a student more time hadn’t been spent on 20/30 mile route marches under the benevolent eye of a sergeant major but of course they are too young to know.

The French Presidential Race: Who's who?

10 Things You Didn't Know About France

The two aspects of France somehow living side by side.

I went to see my cardiologist this morning for my annual check up. I had made my appointment a year ago at the end of my last check up. Short of collapsing in the street with a heart attack one is advised to fix the date a year in advance.

A very pleasant woman, she asked if I minded an intern being present. A young girl who didn’t look much out of her teens.

I forgot about the hour and a half in the waiting room. Whilst I was there I noticed the other five people present; two other men and three women. I also noted that all of the men were wearing highly polished proper shoes. The women were also wearing good quality shoes. I’m so used to seeing people wearing “des baskets” on their feet it was a pleasant surprise. I've even seen people wearing "des baskets' to funerals. I think they used to be called ‘plimsols’ when I was at school. I doubt that anyone born after the war knows what that means. We wore them for gymnastics. I imagine there is quite a decent class of people at my cardiologists, albeit of a certain age.

In the mean time the world goes on in France. For French politics I think we may now apply an American word. MAD. Mad as in a “Mad Hatter” but also in the American sense of Mutually Assured Destruction. That's where all the parties are headed. Well perhaps one will survive and that will really mean the destruction of the 5th Republic if nothing else.

A case of police brutality at a politically sensitive time leading to the usual riots in the down and out suburban immigrant estates.

An explosion at a nuclear plant this morning, which even if not nuclear will open a whole knew kettle of fish. I woder what the English living near Hinkley Point will think about it. One shouldn't have to worry about such things in rural Somerset.

No wonder it takes so long to get an appointment with a heart specialist.

It's raining cat's and dogs

Fillon is now on the march. The Republican Party has fallen in instead of falling out. Everything is forgiven and forgotten. I can’t exactly hear the trumpets blowing or the drums beating but they are doubtless being drowned out due to the fact it’s raining cats and dogs. Perhaps Penelope could translate that into French, it’s beyond me.

Hope maybe on the way. The Russians. Well some are saying they are behind the latest rumors in the Anglo-Saxon press about Fillon’s main rival having a friend, a boy friend? I’m not familiar with the term one should use. Well so what’s new? Ah but Macron, the rival (political) in question has denied all. Well he had to or the missus would get rather uptight. Anyway  a politicians word is as good as…..

But perhaps the time has come to talk of other things;

“Of shoes--and ships--and sealing-wax--
Of cabbages--and kings--
And why the sea is boiling hot--
And whether pigs have wings."

Now that’s so much better than the politics we are being subjected to.

'It never rains but it pours' for François Fillon

EUROPEAN NATIONALITY? Now what might that be?

EUROPEAN NATIONALITY

I heard something strange on TV some years ago. It was about a legal process concerning Disney land Paris. They had been taken to court by an organization called SOS Racism which promotes equal rights.

Evidently Disneyland had put out an ad a few years ago looking for new employees. In the ad they required the candidates to be of European Nationality.

Allowing for misunderstandings in translation I hope that meant of a European nationality and not European nationality. Apart from the fact I’ve never heard of such a nationality I would not accept its existence. It would mean a European State.

Now it is quite normal that they would require candidates to be European. One would hope they do not seek to employ non Europeans inside Europe. Illegal immigrants perhaps?

Now why would that be racist? What has race got to do with nationality? I am British (Nationality). I live in France where the citizens have French nationality.

Now if the ad had stated “of a European race”, once one had been able to decipher what that was it might have showed discrimination against other races. I mean one could say Caucasian. Of course the Caucasus is not in Europe and therefore Caucasians are not of European nationality although they might be of the same race as many Europeans.

I am English, or Irish or Scots or whatever. Not Welsh though. Now are those races or nationalities. British is a nationality. It is the only word that binds all the peoples of the British Isles together. That is when they’re not fighting each other or playing rugby.

Is there a French race or is the word Gallic? I always call them a Gallic people living in France, although most seem to come from Africa these days. Maybe I’m not allowed to say that.

In any case I am not at all racist. I am sometimes nationalistic, particularly when watching rugby. I do think though it would be illegal for Disneyland to employ anyone not of a European nationality so I think SOS Racism is barking up the wrong tree. But maybe I’m not allowed to say that either. That might cast some doubt on the species of its members which might or not be considered as racism.

Population studies: France's 'ethnicity' taboo

A wet Sunday morning in France. Bonjour tristesse.

The best-laid schemes o' mice an' men
Gang aft agley,
An' lea'e us nought but grief an' pain,
For promis'd joy!

The above should be taught to French children in kindergarten.

Indeed it should be carved in marble above the entrance to the

École nationale d'administration.

One could feel sorry for the French rugby  team after a well played match at Twickenham, indeed one felt the English left a lot to be desired throughout most of the game. But all’s well that ends well as the English might say.

Politicians of course, should remeber it, thick skinned though they are. As an example I rather feel that  Blair is so thick skinned that that is all he has between both ears.

Fillon could well remember this.

Thy wee bit housie, too, in ruin!
It's silly wa's the win's are strewin!
An' naething, now, to big a new ane,

Oh well, politicians come and go and nothing really changes.

All that’s really left now is the Joker. Doubtless he’ll spring us a surprise or two before the day is done.

In the mean time, the rest of us poor mortals must figure out what to cook for the next meal, how to balance the household budget and what to do about those aches and pains that beset the rest of mankind. 

My Old Basque Beret

I first arrived in Orléans in 1976 after the fall of Saigon where I had been living. In those days there were very few foreigners here. When I went out walking, which I did a lot, people would look at me in a strange manner. Was it the way I carried my furled umbrella? Or that I wore a hat? After all how can one speak to a lady in the street if one doesn’t have a hat to raise.

When I was a young boy of about twelve or thirteen I met my mother down town one day. She was with a girl of about my own age. Probably the daughter of one of her friends. This was a place called Sutton, Surrey, in England. I was of course wearing my school blazer and cap. Shorts as well as I had not yet progressed to long trousers. I didn’t raise my cap to the girl so my mother told me to do so. I replied that she was only a girl and my mother said a gentleman always raises his hat to a lady no matter what her age.

I have always kept the habit although if I am wearing a soft cap I tend to give a salute if the lady is far away and I don’t get to say hello. I also do so for men that I meet. My old trilby is now more than fifty five years old. It still serves for funerals or if I’m wearing a suit to go to Paris.

Actually quite a lot of men wear hats in Orléans nowadays. I feel though that this is mostly related to the weather or a passing fashion. When it’s very cold or very hot the winter or summer hats come out. One can always tell a man who has seldom worn a hat. There are very few berets now. If I wear a hat to Paris I look very provincial as nobody seems to wear them there. When I take the Eurostar to London and arrive wearing a hat I must be mistaken for an Australian from the outback as absolutely nobody wears them at all there.

When I was young at school, perhaps about seventeen, I had an old basque beret which I wore on cycling holidays in France. It then followed me to the Bahamas and Vietnam. I must have lost it in Vietnam or the heat or bugs or rats got it. I was very attached to my old basque beret and rather regret not having got another when I first arrived in France in 1976. But then again people might have thought I was an Englishman pretending to be a Frenchman which would not have done at all.

The great shame of course is that the French themselves do not wear berets. There are moments when I feel they are no longer trying to be French. Of course this does not apply in moments of great joy or collective depression whilst following the fortunes of their national football team. Then nobody could mistake them for anything else.

France is much more than a collection of politicians

Fillon's Faltering Bid for the Presidency

Does white represent purity in the sense of a sporting ideal or does it represent elitism?

Does white represent purity in the sense of a sporting ideal or does it represent elitism? White is still worn at Wimbledon as it is in the more respectable matches of cricket. I always maintain that if white is not worn it’s not cricket in any case.

Roland Garros, that high court of French tennis is spoilt by the fact that white is NOT worn. In fact I find the men players for the most part look like long haired unshaven ill dressed hooligans. The women try to outdo each other in the latest top fashion.

The French have told me that white is not democratic, that it smacks of privilege, the bourgeoisie or is just too refined for them. Considering the way advertisers use the players, the cost of the rags they wear I would have said white was the opposite.

Perhaps white upsets their idea of anarchy, of rebellion, of undisciplined liberty. I often see players, male, wearing no shirts. I find it revolting. If nudists wish to frolic around knocking a ball to each other over a net with some sort of net like object at least they are put away out of sight.

I once noticed that Nadal would appear to have been allowed to wear some white garment without sleeves. It looked like some sort of underwear to me. I dislike seeing men’s bared shoulders. Perhaps it appeals to some women but it has no place on the centre court of Wimbledon.

There is such a thing as good taste. The French are really surprising. They lead the world in high fashion or Haute Couture. The women mostly have their hair always done in a most attractive manner. The men’s smart casual manner of dressing is indeed smart whereas English casual or dressing down is not fit for a barbecue let alone the office to say the least.

Why then does any form of dress code on the tennis court so offend them? One could say it is the fashion lobby getting involved. That could be true but it goes deeper than that. School children of course look like badly dressed hooligans. In Orléans one hardly ever sees a pretty well dressed girl these days. Some years ago I remarked in a lecture I was giving to visiting Americans that nowadays Orléans looked like Slobville.

A sign of the times? Perhaps. The dress code would now appear to be polluted. Scruffy is the norm. Perhaps it is a form of High Fashion. Perhaps the clothes cost a fortune. The Haute Couture of Scruffiness. Perhaps I am alone in a wilderness of scruffiness and am the only one not to see the beauty.

Women made to keep low profile in some French suburbs