The Importance of the Pork Chop in Societal Change

I used to do my basic shopping in Sainsbury's in the 1970s...that era when the sight of a woman staggering out of the store under a load of loo rolls would have you dashing inside before they all disappeared from the shelves, only to return weeks later at double the price.

Bread and sugar were also susceptible to this 'now you see it now you don't' process, but as I had once lost a tooth in a slice of what was laughingly titled 'Mothers' Pride' and didn't have a sweet tooth among those remaining to me these shortages did not affect me to the same degree of urgency.
Even in that era, 'The News of The World' was only fit for bum fodder but having as a child experienced an aunt's economy measures  I preferred the stuff on rolls to the stuff cut into squares.

And let no one mention Bronco.

Not having had savings at that time I look back on it fondly as a time when inflation made my mortgage repayments look silly.
Any spare money not applied to the purchase of loo rolls was applied to paying off the mortgage in double quick time, which, years later, leaves me without a credit rating as I have never borrowed money since and banks now regard me as an client not susceptible to being fleeced and thus unwelcome.

When not employing jumble sale elbows in stacking my trolley with loo rolls against stiff opposition I would take a cast round the store.....picking up the basics, the own brands and looking at some of the novelties in the freezer cabinets before heading off to the cold meat counter to buy German breakfast sausage...liver with attitude.
Queueing as bacon was sliced...none of your packets then...I would be standing by the butchery counter, which did have items packed ready for sale, where something in particular always intrigued me.

Pork chops.

They were always packed in twos and one was always larger than the other.

It so intrigued me that eventually I asked the woman slicing breakfast sausage (without cleaning the blade after slicing bacon) why  these chops were always of differing sizes.

It's for families. The big chop is for the husband and the smaller one for the wife.

What about the kids?

They eat fish fingers.

Thus the typical English family in the opinion of the decision makers at Sainsburys.

Moving to France many years later, a supermarket was an easy way to skirt any language problems...a 'Bonjour' to the cashier and that was it.
Some of the Britpack have managed to spend more than ten years in France using this tactic.....

Supermarkets were pretty primitive in that period - some of them more like souks - and freezer cabinets were only just being introduced to the ones in my area, but, just as with Sainsburys, while cold meats were being cut to order, butcher meat and poultry was already being packed ready for sale.

Not for France a mere pair of pork chops...they came in packs of five, the top two loin chops neatly masking the three shoulder chops beneath.
Chicken breast fillets likewise.

Nor was this the whim of a sole supermarket butcher.
From Intermarche to Super U, from Auchan to Atac, from Champion to Carrefour and even Leclerc....five pork chops was the norm.

As always, I asked Madeleine.
Not that she bought meat or poultry in supermarkets: she had her own basse cour for ducks and chickens and a butcher well under the thumb, but in my early years in France she was one of the people I could turn to for information and advice.
She died years ago now, but I can still see her, looking up from her newspaper as I arrived at the back door and hear her deep voice exclaiming

Pardi! You'll never guess what's happened!

Without her, without Alice and Edith and Monsieur Untel, my life in France would have been much the poorer - and much less informed!

She, of course, had the answer.

Which was that the tax efficient French family is that which has two parents and three kids.
Thus the packs of five.
French children, it appears, do not eat fish fingers.

Originating in policies meant to increase the birth rate after the disasters of the First World War - women are still being awarded medals for having eight kids, would you believe - general tax revenues support the families which reflect the norm of producing one extra child per generation, while generous exemptions exclude the majority of such families from the privilege of paying for the services they consume.

A whole tranche of potential taxpayers escape the net.

I talked about it years later with my neighbours' daughter in law, a nurse.
She and her husband had two gorgeous little girls...but no third child.
So did this mean that the advantage of the third child was illusory?

No. Her husband's family were farmers and their tax regime already exempted them from a great deal of tax, so why go through another birth for an additional child they did not want.
A lot of her friends had had the third child under pressure from their husbands....to get the tax relief.
The farm had spared her that choice.

I have never objected to paying tax for education or for health services...vital supports for a civilised society.... but to incentivise people to produce more children than may necessarily be wanted in a world where it is finally being recognised that resources are scarce makes no sense at all.

When last shopping for my mother....though not in Sainsburys...I noticed that pork chops came as singletons...or as two of equal size....or as big packs destined for the freezer.
The British system of family support knows no norms.....












 

No Chateaux... no Culture...no Croissants - My France

Alone in the house, I had been able to rise early (midnight) to listen to the Test Match Special team commentate on the first day of the Test match against Pakistan in Dubai.
The dogs went out dutifully then returned to their beds, flicking the odd glance at me, huddled up in my old djellabah with a cup of tea and plate of Marmite toast alongside the computer.
Bliss.

And then England collapsed....wicket after wicket.....exciting stuff, but not the performance expected of the team rated first in Test cricket.

The light came up, and I went out onto the balcony for the part of the morning I like the best...when the sun rises over the mountain behind the house and hits Grifo Alto across the valley, making that great bluff a soft golden ball emerging from the shadowy woods below.

The solitude ended quickly. I had hardly done the watering and fed the chicks before the Man from ICE was at the door.
ICE - the electricity board - wanted to  reroute its lines along the road rather than crossing private property....fine with me....but needed my permission to cut back two branches of the huge higueron tree which stands guard over the water tank on my land.
Fine.
There was a consent form to sign, so he came in to the house and accepted a cool drink while we undertook the formalities....and I had to dig out my passport as I had forgotten my passport number.

English! He exclaimed.

I have learned by now not to complicate things by mentioning Scotland on first acquaintance so I agreed.

Big Ben! Houses of Parliament! Westminster Abbey! Trafalgar Square! Nelson!

The Man from ICE was a fan of London...big time. He wanted to go there, but...the money...

He departed and I decided to set up the lap top which I had bought in London.
I looked at it...it looked at me...and I decided to do something else.

The weeding was interrupted by American friends bringing their visitors over for a coffee....
The conversation came round to 'and how did you come to Costa Rica?' as it always does, but on hearing that I had previously lived in France, the jaws dropped, the eyes widened and out it all came!

Paris! The fashions! The croissants! Pavement cafes! Boules! Provence! The food! The wine! The culture!

Slapping down the temptation to say

All good reasons for leaving

Which would have been neither polite nor totally accurate I let them bubble on...but when the house was quiet again I started thinking about my own images of France.....if asked, what would mine be?

The true treasure was the time spent with friends...but that's universal. The sure knowledge that you'll be greeted with a smile is one of the best feelings in the world.

But as for France itself....

Driving back from the hospital in the late afternoons over the plains around Poitiers two sights would always lift me....

The first, lying back from the road, the tiny church of St.Martin at Noize, a place of worship long before St. Hilaire brought his brand of Christianity to the pagans of the area.

Closed for years because of its poor state of repair, locals got together to put it into some sort of order and it is now, once again, a place of worship.
It is a simple building dating back to the tenth and eleventh centuries, but has an atmosphere of stillness and peace sometimes lacking in more elaborate surroundings.

Then, soon after, the necropolis of Taize, the dolmens rising from the surrounding farmland....man has been here a long time which could be a comforting thought after hospital visiting.

And when feeling in the mood for a good time...nothing better than Le Trianon at Saumur...

with Monsieur Jacques in fine form...

and the fellow customers giving the only example I came across in France of the craic. Good times!

And the end of holiday river festival...le Rendez-vous de l'Erdre....the river running into the Loire at Nantes, lined with the mansions of of the merchants who had made their pile from the trade in tobacco and brandy.
This always gave a great day out....boats of all sizes and shapes, from rowing boats to a steam tug via gondolas and traditional working boats....jazz bands on the river and in every nook and cranny ashore...the muscadet flowing like the river and teenagers sniggering about 'voile et vapeur'.

Earlier in the year...and earlier in my years..I used to be invited to sail in what was then le Raid du Golfe...now much more elaborate and called  la Semaine du Golfe, up in the Morbihan....a video clip will give you a taste...

Although as far as boats are concerned, the thrill of my life was to be invited aboard a garbare at Nantes

although not La Montjeannaise shown above, and to sail down the estuary on a cold spring day which promised rain and squalls.....a promise duly fulfilled.
Hair plastered to my face, my jeans running dye over my shoes I was absolutely exhilarated as the squall filled that vast sail and a ton of wooden boat lifted her nose and planed!

Back on dry land I have good memories of the troglodyte village at Tourtenay....not least because when taking my mother on a tour of the landing sites where a Lysander would drop off and pick up British agents during the Occupation we heard an elderly man in the group comment to his mate
'She doesn't have bad legs for her age!'...

The current village stands on a limestone bluff which, since the third century has been used as a place of refuge. Part of it has been sold off as a 'police' training area, but in the part still accessible is a wonderful underground pigonnier...

I love the revolving ladder for checking the nests...and I miss the grandad in the cardigan who owned the vines on the land above.

But my most abiding memory is one which I have no photograph to illustrate....and it comes back to friendship.

Sitting under the cherry tree in Madeleine's garden with the others she'd invited to lunch, the tranny playing in the branches to deter the birds and a glass of Suze with ice cubes in hand - all talking politics!

If You Go Down to the Sales Today...

Image by Nils Geylen via Flickr

In the U.K., you had just recovered from Christmas when The Sales were upon you and if you were of the tendency that has had its eye on a particular cashmere jersey for three months but baulked at the price tag, then you would sharpen up your elbows and head for the shops.

In France, of course, these things are better regulated....well,  the French shopkeepers think they are.
You can't just have sales when you feel like it, that would be unfair competition for those who didn't feel like it, so you all have to have sales at the same time - though there are shops which get round this by frequently 'liquidating' their stock ahead of remodelling the store...i.e., moving a cash desk.

It's not worth nipping out between Christmas and New Year in search of bargains in the supermarkets either.
Those chocolates will not be reduced by fifty per cent until the last member of the family has returned to work after the break and the womens' magazines are full of post holiday diets.....
While as for the turkeys, it is amazing how a bird with a sell by date of 31/12 and present on the shelves at closing time on 30/12 can have metamorphosed into full price turkey portions with a sell by date of 07/01 by opening time on the next day instead of whole bird marked down to half price.
Just who was it who was supposed to be 'a nation of shopkeepers'?

Having moved to Costa Rica and experienced supermarket shopping here there are two things I could recommend to Mssrs. Leclerc et al. for their French operations....

One.
Armed guards on the car park who also note any damage to your car and stick a note on the windscreen as to circumstances thereof.

This would put a stop to the wild side swiping and bumper crushing so typical of French supermarket carparks, though I'm not sure that I wouldn't prefer the perpetrators to be shot rather than just identified....
Especially when they try to claim on your insurance on the lines of Old Harry's marine insurance claim...
'Stationary end of pier slot machine flying no signals carried away my jibboom...'

It would also empty the car park of 'gens de voyage' threatening to smear your car windows with filthy rags while attempting to sell you overpriced baskets made in China.

Two.
Car parks that are designed for people with large cars and larger ideas of space when it comes to parking them......

A far cry from my local French supermarkets which always seemed to be arranged in a herringbone fashion with the one way systems deliberately arranged so as to make turning into the spaces provided as difficult as possible and extricating your car an exercise in gymnastics when the two bright sparks who have parked on either side of you while you are shopping decide to huddle close to you in case of a German invasion.

I have entered my car via the hatchback more than once.....and, thanks to the brainwashing administered by my schoolmistresses, have done so by sitting on the tailgate and wriggling forward backwards, if you see what I mean, to avoid awarding passersby an unseemly view of my backside - something we were always solemnly warned  to avoid.
We used to speculate about these shibboleths as schoolgirls...but, ours not to reason why, ours just to get a slipped disc obeying the rules.

Had suggestion Two been adopted in the north of France we might not have had the incident of the 'doigt d'honneur'....the raised finger which is the French equivalent of the 'V' sign.

Two drivers, one male one female, were competing for a car parking space....and from my experience it isn't just the shortage of places which is the problem, but the awkwardness of design that makes manoevring such a nightmare.
Both became incensed and high words were exchanged.
Finally the woman managed to park and the man drove off, but not before giving her the finger.
Typical car park rage.....

But not a typical outcome.
The woman was a deputy maire in the town in which the car park was situated. After doing her shopping she complained to the police who, instead of uttering soothing words, shot off to arrest the man.
He was an immigrant. From his name one would imagine that he did not have the typical Nordic colouring.

He found himself held at the police station for forty eight hours.....the police could not do this on their own initiative, they needed the permission of the public prosecutor....the 'procureur'.

The charges? 'Outrage' to a representative of the state...to wit, a deputy maire....one of the many classes of person so protected...everything from a gendarme to the President.

The man said he did not know she was a deputy maire....the woman admitted that nothing he said indicated that he knew...the man admitted making the gesture....so...a storm in a teacup.

No.
He was brought to court and the procureur sought a sentence of five months in the jug...on the grounds that elected representatives and functionaries of the state were entitled to protection at all times, even if not in pursuance of their duties.

A dangerous doctrine.
Wives of councillors who give them a curtain lecture on the virtues of correct positioning of the loo seat risk being bundled off to the cells in their negliges....
A landowner who finds the maire illegally fishing in his lake and gives him the verbal one two might find himself wrapped in his own lines and carted away....
Carla Bruni, upbraiding the President for not getting up for the night feeds, might find herself following Marie Antoinette to la Conciergerie...so handy for the Palais de Justice...

Clearly, the judge....another whose name does not bring up associations of blond hair and blue eyes...was aware of the dangers.

He fined the man 38 Euros.
For insults...not 'outrage'.

And they worry that Le Pen might gain power.....

There will be changes.....

Image by kahunapulej via Flickr

No...I'm not yet despairing enough to brave the horrors of Wordpress, but Blogger is getting me down.

I'm having trouble with my Costa Rica blog again....the people kind enough to follow it have no idea that the latest post exists as Blogger won't tell them.

I have checked settings until I am blue in the face and I am completely fed up with it all.

Unless anyone can come up with a solution -  forget Blogger, their idea of communication is to deliver self congratulatory posts on how clever they are - I am going to amalgamate the two blogs into this one and try my best to signal the content to avoid people interested in Costa Rica finding themselves in darkest France and people interested in darkest France being stunned by mention of public transport and high speed internet that works.

Oh...and one more thing.

I do get het up about things which don't necessarily fit into either French stuff or Costa Rican stuff and will thus put up a page from time to time, as the boiling point of blood approaches.

It's on the sidebar....under the archives...

Threads in the web.

Blogger is a wonderful idea...

It would be even better if those running it could help the IT autistics among us to cope with its little ways...

A few wrinkles from the cosmetics counter....

Image by jmcknight via Flickr

A little contretemps has occurred in the quiet world of Chiottes la Gare....like a puppy crapping in a discreet corner and about as welcome when discovered.

In the well regulated Hexagon that is France, certain things are sacred...monopolies, for example.

You can't qualify as a notaire and set up where you like. This would give rise to the risk of competition to other established notaires.

I really can't see where the worry would be from the clients' viewpoint....the course of studies followed by notaires seems to include - apart from the vital art of turning pages on a document for the client to initial - an element best described as professional procrastination.
Professional as in being paid to procrastinate.

Clearly, established notaires might well object to another professional procrastinator turning up in the area...there's a risk to the annual purchase of the new car, after all....and, as in the Hexagon it is the view of the monopoly holders which counts - with only one exception - the client is thus deprived of choice.

Same thing with taxi and ambulance firms. Taxis Merdiques have got their area sewn up and will brook no competition.

But at Chiottes la Gare it is chemists' shops.

Chemists too have monopolies.
You go to the doctor for your corns, emerge with a prescription for enough stuff to start up a health service in a third world country and set off to the chemist to have it packed into the lorry you will need to carry it away.

'The' chemist...not 'a' chemist. The one with the monopoly for the area.

But this guaranteed custom was never enough for the chemist to lead la dolce vita.....there had to be lines of business other than prescription pills and potions to finance the winter ski break and the summer month in Reunion.

Waiting in line....as Madame Goupil described the nature of the symptoms that had led her to consult the doctor, with sympathetic interjections by the chemist, his assistant and the other clients ...you had the opportunity to appreciate the range of goods on offer....the 'parapharmacy' lines.

Any amount of help was available for that most French of ailments  'heavy legs' ....quite apart from shampoo, stuff for dandruff contracted by using same, herbal supplements, soap, and anti  ageing formulas whose price was guaranteed to put years on you just by looking at it.
The range could be vast.....and you had plenty of time to be tempted to buy as by now Madame Goupil would be into the genetic origins of her problems...vocally supported by those old enough to remember the indifferent health of her Aunt Leonie.

Chiottes la Gare has two supermarkets on the periphery...one over the border in the next commune as the Chiottes council of the time didn't want it setting up in town as providing competition to established businesses.
Once they had discovered that even in the next commune it was quite capable of knocking out any and every business, they decided that they had better have one on their own territory to be able to cop it for local taxes.
Thus two supermarkets, one closer than the other to the town centre.

Chiottes la Gare has more than two chemists....as, given the size of the place more have been authorised by the appropriate authorities.
It should have had one less, but the gentleman in question is the son of the man who at the time was maire of the town and senator for the department, so the protests by the existing monopoly holders went by the board.
This is the exception referred to above. String pulling by those who know where the bodies are buried.

One of the Chiottes chemists decided to close up the shop situated in the old town, stating 'economic reasons'.
These may be understood to be the enormous taxes imposed by the Chiottes council on businesses in the area over the years  together with the reluctance of even established customers to enter an area where scum from Paris snort coke and patrol the streets with their pitbulls when emerging in the late afternoon from the 'social housing' which is what the wonderful historic buildings of the centre have become.

Why not buy your corn plasters in the morning?
You might slip up on the dog turds.

So, the said chemist thought it a good idea to install the business alongside the nearer supermarket, which was  about to expand. Clients could do their shopping and pick up the pills at the same time.

But the said chemist did not think fit to discuss the idea with the supermarket franchisee...who had ideas of his own.

So the shop was built alongside the supermarket.....but could not be accessed from the supermarket car park....the franchisee alleging that this would involve danger to his customers as they would have to cross the road used by delivery lorries.
Let no one even think for one moment that he changed the proposed layout...

Parapharmacy lines were always a very profitable affair and now that minor cuts have been made to the list of snake oil cure alls previously available on the public health service, those profits are even more valuable than before, so you can imagine the reaction of the chemist to the news that part of the supermarket's expansion involved setting up a vast parapharmacy section.....
A bit more than 'Zut, alors!' I reckon...

The egg basket would have been looking a bit fragile....

The chemist defiantly states that only chemists can run parapharmacy goods....nothing to do with their monopoly, but down to the trust people have in their advice.
The chemist recalled that the other supermarket tried a parapharmacy section years ago and it only lasted a short while....so this new one is also doomed.

Up to a point, Lord Copper.

Times have changed from the days when people really believed that they had better service and quality from individual shopkeepers - though ironically that may now be the situation - and like doing all their shopping in one place.
Given the current belt tightening all round, cheaper prices are appreciated as well.
I suspect that the supermarket parapharmacy section will do well.

I don't think the chemist has too much to worry about either.

The chemist for whom an exception was made has applied to set up a satellite business....alongside the same supermarket.
Having, one supposes, kept the franchisee in the picture.
Clearly he imagines that the extra trade from the supermarket clients will outweigh the effects of their parapharmacy.

However, times have changed.

His father has now retired from politics and is occupied in manoeuvres to avoid regurgitating some of his ill gotten gains......
Son and chemist, although on the Chiottes council, is in opposition and even if his party win next time round a career politician is slated to be maire....

Thus no one in the appropriate authority can see any reason for making another exception and have told him that such a subsidiary would be too far from his current shop to qualify as a satellite.

The chemists can get on with it....I gave up on them long ago....
Ever since they stopped selling Baume de Peru and the Elixir de l'Abbe Perdrigeon....

If you go down to the woods today...

Image via Wikipedia

Look in the autumn issues of the magazines in France, and you will see pictures of mushrooms...artily arranged on the kitchen counter of a tarted up Provencal mas if it's something like 'Maison et Jardin', or barely distinguishable from the mucky hands holding them if it is more like the 'Chasseur Francais'.

You will see people emerging from woodlands...not furtively, in the nature of those who by some wild co incidence have just met a member of the opposite sex who happened to be wandering in the same woodland at the same time - probably looking for the common stinkhorn......but openly, bearing containers.

Some, the ones in smart sludge coloured 'outdoor' clothing, will be carrying  panniers...these are the eco conscious who think that this allows the spores of the mushrooms, dropping through the slats, to propagate themselves on the journey from the wood to their car - if they also want mushrooms propagating in the boot of their car as the spores fall through the slats on the journey home, well, good luck to them.

Others, wearing brightly coloured clothing bearing no distinguishable designer name anywhere about it, have buckets, or those disgusting plastic trugs sold by all self respecting French garden centres. They clearly have no wish to have mushrooms propagating themselves in their cars.
This is one occasion when the yellow baskets optimistically issued by local authorities for rubbish recycling will not be in evidence...too many holes. And anyway it would mean moving the rabbits.

You will wish to participate in this quintessential French pastime.....where to start?

By all means buy an illustrated guide to mushrooms and do a little preliminary research on what grows in which conditions and at what time of year, which will save you from looking for blewits in October.

Do not take it with you while you go mushroom hunting otherwise you will spend the time you should be using to pick them deliberating in a huddle over whether that one that Angie has just picked is a coulemelle or something nasty that will lay you low in revenge for you pulling it up.

Neither should you go to one of those mycological society exhibitions which proliferate in damp autumns all over France.
You will only frighten yourself.
I have been mushroom picking for years and they still frighten me.

You enter the salle de fetes to find that long tables have been set up with every sort of fungus the dedicated local enthusiasts could find, laid out and neatly labelled with latin names...and sinister indications of their level of toxicity.
For inducing alarming palpitations there is nothing like encountering something proudly labelled with a skull and crossbones which bears a close resemblance to what you have just eaten for lunch.

Every pharmacy will have large posters of mushrooms on display at this time of year and, in theory you can bring in your collection for identification, thus avoiding being brought in yourself for medication.
In practice, you won't learn very much as the modern pharmacist doesn't tend to be a mushroom fanatic and will just advise you to put anything that isn't obviously harmless in the dustbin...which is not the object of the exercise.
It was the stuff you weren't sure about that you wanted identified, not the stuff that was clearly edible.

Where I first lived in France, the village next door had a renowned mushroom fanatic in the pharmacy and in  the season it was a toss up whether there were more people carrying mushrooms in or more people carrying suppositories out.

One thing was clear...mushrooms had priority.

You could be in the midst of discussing whether  the Elixir of l'Abbe Perdrigeon for emotional shock was better in your particular case than Baume de Perou for the skin eruption following said shock or whether you should use both to be on the safe side except that in neither case would you be able to claim the cost back from social security... when a man with a bucket would enter and your skin eruptions would have to await the verdict on its contents.

You could learn a lot from the lecture that accompanied the spreading of the contents onto the plastic tray used out of season for weighing babies.
Gills, rings round the stems, bulbous or straight stems, colours, all had their significance and no collector got away without undergoing a brief examination in what what he had been told, so it was no wonder that there were no fatalities in that pharmacist's bailiwick.

I had picked up my mushroom lore from Gerard, who discovered the oyster mushrooms growing on the poplars at the back of my field and who believed in the value of a practical demonstration of what grew where....thus it was imprudent to pick mushrooms on the verges as they picked up lead from passing traffic no matter how edible they might be otherwise.....you could tell the false panther from the real by breaking the stem and looking for the pink threads.... which ceps were worth gathering and which were not worth bothering with.

Thanks to him I ate decidedly suspicious looking stuff with no ill effects, but there were still little quirks to learn.

If you were susceptible...and it was as well not to experiment to find out whether or not you were...eating shaggy caps and drinking wine with the same meal would have you carted away in an ambulance, so it was best to gather them just before eating them for breakfast.
Mark you, thinking of some of the gentlemen of my acquaintance, there was no guarantee that they had not drink taken at no matter what early hour of the morning, so I have to suppose that they were just not susceptible....or avoided shaggy caps on principle.

If you are looking for field mushrooms, they can easily be confused with the yellow stainer, which is unpleasant rather than toxic. The trick is to scratch through the skin and look for a yellow tinge...but if you miss it it's not a disaster. Just try cooking them and you'll have a pan of yellow liquid...sure sign to chuck them out and try another field.
Something no one locally will touch are the big horse mushrooms...distinguished from field mushrooms by the slight smell of anise on the cap. I've eaten them for years with no ill effects and benefit from local lack of enthusiasm to fill my buckets and then the freezer.
Puffballs are super when young, sliced and cooked in butter....but the best of all are the coulemelles, parasol mushrooms, growing in clusters in open woodland.

They are, for me, the queens of the mushroom family...rising pale and elegant from the autumn leaves around their base to take home for immediate consumption with butter and parsley....and to resurrect from the freezer as a garnish to chicken through the wild, cold months of winter.

I don't know who you can find to help you learn about mushrooms....some people are very careful to guard the source of their supply, particularly if it happens to be in the enclosed grounds of the chateau up the road where they have no right to be...whereas others are delighted to share their passion.
I suppose you just have to drop onto the right person.

But there is one thing I do know.

Even if you take a pannier, do not wear sludge coloured outdoor clothing.
Follow the example of the plastic bucket merchants and wear something bright, because the mushroom season coincides with that of the chasse, short sighted gentlemen who think anything that moves is one of the specially reared pheasants that their association has released the day before to provide them with 'sport'.

Even they know, however, that pheasants are not bright red or yellow and that they are forbidden to shoot at parrots and canaries, so wear something bright and your backside will be safe from a peppering of shots.....

Wear sludge and as you leave your hospital bed you may well be humming to yourself that well known French folk song

'Nous n'irons plus aux bois.....'

French, the language of diplomacy

Image via Wikipedia

Talleyrand, nineteenth century French diplomat.

There are certain myths about France.....smartly dressed women, seductive men, good food, good manners....which means that you tell someone you live in France and they go all gooey eyed and start burbling about how lucky you are to live in this earthly paradise.

A quick look round la France Profonde might disabuse them somewhat.....the local notaire's wife in the dressing gown and slippers in which she passes her morning would be a good shoo-in for Mrs. Proudie at the breakfast table in 'Framley Parsonage' while her husband's seductive powers appear to be limited to seducing the folding stuff from your wallet to his.
Good food......no, don't let me get started on andouillette and food poisoning from fruits de mer again .....here.....and as for good manners! I have never been on the receiving end of so much rudeness as I have experienced in France.

I used to like going to the big vide greniers...the ones involving a whole suburb of a big town...as for the investment of time and petrol there was more chance of finding something among over a hundred stalls than at a village one of twenty.
Accordingly, we were heading for one that had been advertised, when we ran into signs for another on our route...that had not been advertised.
Experience had told us that even if an event had been advertised, there was no guarantee that it would be held so, just in case the one we were heading for had been cancelled, we thought we'd try the one we'd found.
By this time we had passed the designated parking area and were driving into the town.
The streets were full of parked cars, but we found a spot by the river which still had space and pulled up.

As we walked away a band of young men with red and white striped tape appeared and started marking off the river bank in front of the cars.
One of them called out to us to get our car shifted....this was a no parking area. There was to be an event with boats which would be arriving in four hours' time.
My husband replied that there were other cars there, and that, when we parked, there had been no tape...neither were there any 'no parking' signs, even on the crayon on cardboard variety.
In any case, we would only be about half an hour.

Now for what follows, a little explanation is in order.
This was a group of four young men.
My husband is a pensioner and at that time had not long come out of chemotherapy...so he even looked frail.

One young man ran over to us and shouted
'Do as you're told!. The parking area is over there.' Indicating the signs we had passed on the way in.
'Can't you read? Ignorant as shit! Get out of here!'

My husband repeated that we would only be half an hour, so we wouldn't be in their way and, besides, he wasn't up to the long walk from the designated parking area.

The other young men came up and one said that if we didn't move the car they would push it into the river.
My husband said that in that case the organisers would be hearing from his insurers and turned to walk away.

At that moment they made a rush for him and jostled him, shouting abuse...until a woman on the bank called them off...and they left us alone, threatening to report us to the gendarmerie!

Well, we had come to see what was on offer, so we carried on towards the stands....somewhat shaken up...only to see the gendarmerie van pulling up at a signal from the young men, who gathered round it, pointing towards us.

We went over, to find that we were accused of attacking them after deliberately parking in a no parking area.

Now, the gendarmerie does not like trouble.
Trouble involves returning to the station and unearthing the typewriter, so on that ground alone there was no chance that they would take up the complaint.
I am not so sure that the absurdity of four young men complaining of being attacked by a couple of pensioners would have saved us...this is, after all, France.

The young men were sent about their business, we explained what had happened and the gendarmes kindly suggested that they could best solve the problem by guiding our car into a spot reserved for handicapped drivers right alongside the stands.
The which they did.

'You don't want to make a complaint, do you?' asked one, with the air of a dog who sees the prospect of being back on the lead after a wonderful run in the park, and, so as not to spoil his day, we agreed that we did not.
There would have been no point to it, as the only people who would have been inconvenienced were ourselves and the gendarmes.
The louts would have gone untouched.

That's an extreme example, but it's not an isolated one.

I've had abuse from the counter staff of France Telecom....abuse from the driver of a car who was blocking my exit from my own house....abuse from young men in kayaks on the river which runs through the garden....abuse from the hunters busy shooting my rooks on my land - I've even been abused by a notaire! Twice!
And that's just the stuff that comes to mind.

Didier complains bitterly about the lack of everyday manners.
Gone are the days of the automatic 'Bonjour' on entering a shop.....the polite recognition of other people's existence.
Gone the polite 'Bonjour' from children to adults they encounter.
'It's everyone for himself, these days,' he grumbles. 'And they don't bother to hide it.'

I just wonder about this streak of rudeness in French society....it doesn't seem to me to be just a recent phenomenon, more a manifestation of the nature of French society, where you spend your life making sure that you don't annoy anyone with influence.....and working off the resulting stress on anyone you perceive as being weaker.

It's all Carla Bruni's fault....

Image by blogcpolitic via Flickr

Now, several tax inspectors and prefects would be sleeping more easily in their offices if Carla Bruni had not accepted a bit part in a film directed by Woody Allen - what does she see in vertically challenged men, I wonder? - which seems to consist of buying a loaf of bread and getting it wrong thirty four times.

Why should this affect tax inspectors and prefects?

Because as his wife is filming in Paris, President Sarkozy has not yet been able to go on holiday, which means that the normal somnolence of July...those not already on holiday preparing to go on holiday...has been disturbed  by the Scourge of God's reaction to attacks on the police, following police attacks on the population, and to the perceived lawlessness of 'travelling people'.

Carla's consort has announced a crackdown....on foreigners.

Having tried and failed to knock out the right wing Front National with his ill fated debate on the nature of French identity, it seems he is having a second shot at the coconut following the violent reaction in Grenoble and in the Cher to the shooting of supposed malefactors by the forces of lawless order.

Let it not be supposed that the President is prejudiced against foreigners....no, indeed not. He started by sacking the prefect responsible for the Grenoble area, who was certainly not a foreigner, but, having thrown that sop to the idea of equality, he has turned his attention to scapegoats likely to be popular with the population whose votes he will be seeking in 2012.

French citizens of non-French origin will lose their French citizenship if found guilty of life threatening attacks on the police.
 That'll learn 'em.

Except that as the Conseil Constitutionnel  has just declared the current 'garde a vue' - explained here - process contrary to France's engagements under the European Convention on Human Rights the police will have quite a job  'persuading' foreign-born 'suspects' to 'help them with their enquiries' under whatever new regime is cobbled together, so it will be a race between getting the loss of citizenship legislation through and the introduction of something more compliant with human rights legislation which has to be done within twelve months.

Oh, and encampments of 'travelling people' already declared to be illegal will be closed down, while Roumanian and Bulgarian 'travelling people' will be expelled if found guilty of public order offences.

And while he's at it, a close eye will be applied to the situation of illegal immigrants in receipt of benefits. France is not obliged to welcome the misery of the whole world....to quote a previous Socialist minister...

Well, that should sort it all out, shouldn't it?
The descendants of the French who sold Joan of Arc to the British should be able to go off on their holidays secure in the knowledge that the Mighty Mekon has things under control.

So why are prefects and taxmen shivering in their shoes?

Because the President has announced that he expects to see prefects - Paris's men in the provinces who see what local government is up to and tell it to stop it - to show more energy.
Prefects should be out and about with the police, patrolling dubious areas in the hours of darkness, and if they don't they'll get the sack.

Now it is not unknown for a prefect to be sacked...or put into a cupboard in Limoges...but until Sarkozy came to power it was for understandable things, like enforcing irrigation bans against the wishes of local farmers.
SS - since Sarkozy - prefects have found that they can be sacked for other things...like not sorting out a septic tank problem for his mother in law, or letting demonstrators get within spitting distance of their master...but getting sacked for not putting themselves in danger is something else.

Because any attempt to visit an encampment of 'travelling people' is pretty guaranteed to be dangerous, which is why encampments declared to be illegal are still there, a blight on the areas surrounding them.
'Travelling people' whether French or foreign, have a certain view of life....and it doesn't include being disturbed by policemen looking for other peoples' property.

Thus the encampments are regarded - by policemen - as being no place for a policeman, although people living in their immediate area tend to think that they should be surrounded by policemen, twenty four hours a day, every day, to give people some relief from theft and intimidation and it seems that government has finally come down on the side of widely held opinion....that these 'no-go' areas have to be sorted out.

Well, that explains the unhappiness of prefects, but what has worried  the tax inspectors?

Sarkozy's sidekick, Brice Hortefeux, the Minister of the Interior who boasts the remarkable distinction of having been fined 750 Euros for making racist remarks without copping a criminal record, has finally noticed something which has been apparent to anyone travelling the roads of France.

'Travelling people' do their travelling in spanking new, enormous caravans drawn by spanking new enormous four wheel drive vehicles.

Non travelling people, watching these convoys pass unchallenged by the gendarmerie who are busy checking the papers of a couple of local pensioners, have a pretty good idea  how much these cars and caravans cost and suspect that the purchasing power which enables 'travelling people' to buy these toys is not reflected in what is declared on their tax returns.

Thus the terror of the tax inspectors.
Unless they are saved by the intervention of the their boss, the Finance Minister, they are going to be sent into encampments to enquire into the sources of the revenues of the occupants...and while I might be at a loss to know which line of a tax return covers 'proceeds of sale of stolen property', a tax inspector should fnd it child's play.
If he survives the reaction of the unhappy 'travelling person' that is.
Given that the warden of an official local site was chased through the camp by a 'travelling person' with a chainsaw, the tax inspectors have some reason to be worried and I doubt that these worries will be assuaged by the idea that the prefect will be running for his life alongside them.

What can save them?
Only an immediate improvement in the standard of acting of Carla Bruni, which will allow Woody Allen to wrap his film so that her husband can take her away to the sanctuary of the septic tankless family home in the south of France while all this hot air blows away.

Of mattresses and men

Image via Wikipedia

When it comes to eggs and baskets, the French state likes you to leave all the former in an easily accessible model of the latter, so that it can dip in its' hand whenever it is a bit short of ingredients for the omelette.
It knows what you have in your bank account, it knows what property you own and it knows which shares a bank is charging you an arm and a leg to hold on your behalf as you are not permitted to hold such dangerous things as share certificates yourself.

Unless, that is, you happen to be extremely rich and fond of subsidising major political parties by way of the folding stuff handed over in brown manilla envelopes, which, given the amounts concerned, need to be the size of indian restaurant takeaway bags for a party of ten.
If you are in this category, you can own an island in the Seychelles 'unknown' to the authorities, can receive a thirty million euro rebate on your tax and have the wife of the finance minister to manage your money.

Among other advantages.
I am willing to bet that you never thought that investing in race horses could be classed as support to small and medium business enterprises - with the appropriate tax refund.

Now, for all the gory details of the Woerth-Bettancourt affair and what the butler heard you can go to any newspaper for better and more up to date information than you will find here....just remember, Sarkozy's days are numbered and you saw that predicted here first.

Not that the demise of the Sarkozy regime will bring any relief for the two or three taxpayers left in France once you discount those sectors of the population excused boots for being either too rich or too busy producing children.

His party, the UMP, which realised with a shock that he was intent on replacing their traditionally privileged group with his own group - the blingocracy - have abandoned him already.
If they had not, you can be sure that the lapdog French press would not be circulating stories about Sarkozy attending Madame Bettencourt in person to collect his doggy bag.
Once in command again, the UMP will carry on in the best French tradition of obliging the population to carry out the requirements of Major Dennis Bloodnok's government loyalty oath...

'Open your wallet and repeat after me...help yourself.'

Which explains why, traditionally, the French keep their money in mattresses.

The mattress does not impose charges for holding your money.
The mattress does not dish out your money to someone without your permission and shrug its' shoulders when you discover the anomaly.
The mattress is never too busy discussing its' aunt's digestive problems with another mattress to respond to your demand for access to your money.
The mattress does not close down for the week end and the holidays.
The mattress can keep its' mouth shut.

The only way of attacking the mattress is to set fire to the house - in the case of mattresses stuffed with paper money - or change the currency.
I wasn't around when de Gaulle devalued the franc, though the older people even now speak in terms of millions of centimes when discussing property values, but I was around when the euro was introduced.
The world of the mattress was shaken to its' foundations.
What to do with the money?
How to change it for euros without going near a bank?

Well, for the savvy British with francs they did not want to acknowledge, there was an easy answer. Nip over to the U.K. and change it for pounds sterling, wait for E day, nip over again and change it for euros. No passports, no formalities, and back to the warm embrace of the mattress with minimal loss.

This was not an option for the heartland of the mattress, rural France.
It did not know many savvy British and if it had it would have been convinced that putting your francs into the hands of Perfidious Albion was tantamount to lighting the fire with your banknotes, but without the accompanying warmth.

A lot of money went into the purchase of nearly new cars, where the cash transaction reflected the differing positions of buyer and seller as to ownership of mattress money.

Money was distributed around the family to be fed into the banking system, with the consequent feuds when it was returned discounted for any tax liability incurred by the family member, plus a little more for his or her 'trouble'.

Property purchase at the time was remarkable for sums of 'under the table' money changing hands while the notaire retired to wash his hands.
This again, needed detailed calculation of the relative mattress positions of buyer and seller and took a great deal of hammering out before the actual date of transfer.

Despite their best efforts, though, a lot of mattress money leaked back into the banking basket at the changeover to the euro, and was thus available to the government by way of tax.

A situation that mattressland has been trying to remedy ever since and with increased vigour now that 'austerity'  is upon us thanks to the sublime folly of banks and the governments they control. Mattressland knows that governments, when desperate, take desperate measures, and the less money you have exposed to their thieving claws the better.

I can remember an earlier government initiative to extract money from mattresses which took place when I had not long begun to live in France.
My French was not all that good at that stage, so I might well be mistaken about some of the details, but I do know that a lot of elderly people had been seduced by high interest rates on savings accounts into disembowelling their mattresses and taking the contents thereof to Credit Lyonnais, Credit Agricole and the Post Office.

All went swimmingly for a while until, locally at least, disaster struck.
As I remember it, there was a problem with payments to the MSA - the farmers' insurance firm into which you were obliged to pay if you held any land classed as agricultural in nature. Payments had been withheld and the MSA was showing its' teeth. I could be wrong about this, but that is how I remember it.

Jules, normally a quiet, slow countryman, turned up on my doorstep one morning panting in agitation.
'You've got money in the Credit Lyonnais, haven't you?'
The ability of the French to know all about your private business has never ceased to astonish me, but I answered in the affirmative.
'Then there's no time to lose! The bastards are freezing the accounts! Get your coat and come on!'

I took my coat and cheque book and joined the group packed into Jules' car which groaned and rumbled its' way into town, parking in the main square. Luckily it was not market day,when the square was taken up by stalls, as the place was packed with cars.
'Word's got out! Quick!'
We all spread to our various banks, where the queues were outside and lining the pavements. At intervals, customers emerged with handbags clutched under their armpits or small satchels hugged to the abdomen depending on sex and hurried away with their booty.
I had no idea what was going on, apart from not wanting to risk losing access to my money, so in my turn I went to the desk and drew out all except a few francs to keep the account open.

When I emerged with my handbag clutched under the armpit, I was a bit less flustered and as I looked around for Jules and party, I was able to take in the atmosphere.
For a small, quiet town, it was humming. There were the queues outside the banks and Post Office, but the streets and squares were full of people too, chatting and laughing now the worry was over...they had managed to withdraw their money and the relief was palpable.

There were, of course, those to whom the possession of actual money in the hand and the absence of their wife to control use of same went to the head.
Jean's wife telephoned him from her place of work in the town, from which vantage point she could see Papy making the tour of every bar on the square, to get him to come and collect his revered parent before he could spend the lot.
Alain was discovered by the council street cleaners draped over a bin outside the market building.
Michel came home the day afterwards. No one, including himself, had any clue as to his whereabouts in the missing hours.

It dawned on me that evening that what I had been participating in was a run on the banks....that horror of the nineteenth century when savings would be lost and families ruined as banks went down....but in this case, everyone had got their money back. What had been going on?

The postman had the answer when he called the next afternoon.
The Post Office had got wind of whatever measure was to be taken and had ordered up massive reserves of cash, then, being the fine local organisation that it was, had warned the other banks as well, so that all had managed to fill their strongrooms before the mad rush of the mattressmen began.

I compare that to my last visit to the Post Office when I wanted to withdraw two thousand euros without giving any warning of my intentions. The clerk did not turn a hair, but the new 'financial counsellor' was walking through behind the desk and asked me what I was planning to do with it.
That's something else about the French...very uninhibited in asking about your private affairs in a public place....but I digress.
I replied that I was planning to hire mercenaries to overthrow the French government - well, stupid question, stupid answer - and a voice from the queue said
'I'll do it for nothing.'

They seek him here, they seek him there, those Frenchies seek him everywhere

Image by Deerbourne via Flickr

Or, the case of the missing tourist.

No, not the one who disregarded the warning on the door of the wine cellar which read
'Descend qui veut
Remonte qui peut..'

Which translates roughly as
'Come down if you like
Get out if you can...'

I've been down there and survived to tell the tale, but to be fair, I wasn't there on the occasion when the postman turned up half way through the session and it all had to begin again....

Nor is it the case of the man with a GPS system trying to reach us in France's Bermuda Triangle...

No, regretfully, it is the general case of the missing tourist.
France has sunk to third in the world rankings, but the worrying feature for tourism professionals is that an increasing number of these tourists are just one night stands, roosting in France on their way to spend their money somewhere else.

I cannot say I am surprised.

The French national tourist effort seems to be aimed solely at drawing visitors to Paris, and Paris for the casual visitor can be a right royal rip off, complete with bad manners.
One encounter with the average Paris waiter in a tourist area is enough to change any open minded person from Francophile to Francophobe in seconds....the refusal to understand the tourist's attempts at French, the insistence on using non existent English, and the contempt with which an order is received, make me feel like taking sandwiches and a flask.
Tthe mostly non French people fronting up in cafes and hotels off the tourist beats are nice, kind and helpful (here), but the tourist isn't very likely to meet them.

I just sincerely hope that the tourist does not meet with the employee of SNCF - the national railway company - who was quite content to see me stranded overnight in the capital without money or transport rather than sort out a problem with SNCF's own system.
I still wonder what would have happened if I hadn't had enough French - and volume - to insist on calling for his supervisor. From experience, a night on Montparnasse station is not to be recommended.

What astounds me, though, is however the one night stand tourist manages to escape from Paris in order to get to wherever it is he is going.
If the Paris metro or the buses aren't on strike, then it's SNCF...and if by chance all these are back at work, then the air traffic controllers decide that they need to be at home to look after their kids because it is the school holiday period.
Considering that on average an air traffic controller only works for 96 days a years - speaking from memory - you might think they could manage to crawl into the tower for peak travel periods, but, if so, then you'd think wrong.
Strong on family values, air traffic controllers.

I am sure that if the national tourist bodies shifted the emphasis to the pleasures of the provinces, the number of tourists staying longer would increase.
Everyone knows about the Eiffel Tower, Versailles and Monet's garden....what about the Rhone Valley, what about Bordeaux, what about Alsace?

If sitting on cafe terraces watching the world go by is an important part of a visit to France, it can be done anywhere in the country and, from what I recall, it was a lot more interesting in Aix-en-Provence than in Paris.

Regional and local tourist boards could do with raising their game, as well.

A little less attention to the importance of the tourist board director's wife's company getting the contract for printing the brochures and a little more to advertising attractions which don't necessarily have the means to pay for publicity in the said brochures would work wonders for attracting tourists who would then automatically fulfill the mission of tourist boards, which is to fill hotels, guest houses and restaurants.

Every year, in the local brochure, the same vigneron is presented. By coincidence, he is the son of the woman who runs the local tourist office. Given that there are over fifty other vignerons in the near vicinity, that wine must be pretty good!

The riding stables run by the wife of a local politician feature largely, despite the existence of at least two others.

A wonderfully restored chateau offering B and B gets hardly a mention, while the place run by a British woman said to be 'close to' the regional tourist board boss has full frontal coverage. Year after year.

I did toy with the idea of putting up a website with the real attractions of the area, but given my general IT incompetence and having no idea whatsoever how, having put something together, one gets people to know that it exists, the toy went back to the toybox.

When we were running holiday cottages I liked to hear what people had found to do in the intervals between eating croissants for breakfast and downing wine in the evening and for people with kids the overwhelming attraction of the area was the local theme park....not Futuroscope, nor even the Puy du Fou, but the local Parc.....d'Attractions.

It opened officially at Easter and lurched on into the autumn, the notion being that if there were more than two people at the gate, it would be opened.

You could bring your own food and drink, though if desperate Madame could make you a sandwich and find you a can from her fridge, so it was economical.

There was a swimming pool, but nowhere to change except round the back of the house by the outside loo which doubled as the toilet block so there would occasionally be startled cries from those unwary enough not to post a lookout man, at which point Madame would appear flapping her apron as if shooing off ducks.

There were, I think, three 'attractions', one of which was a caterpillar ride and the other two varied depending on what had been cobbled together during the close season.
The caterpillar ride was very popular with teenagers, though how they thought they would be unobserved given the holes in the carapace is beyond me..but then, those are the years of the triumph of optimism over reality. If you don't have it then, you're never going to acquire it later unless you take up politics and investing in Ponzi schemes as a career choice.

As Madame's son ran the rides and as Madame only had one son , only one 'attraction' could be operated at a time, so the whole clientele would follow him like the chldren of Hamelin. His word was final when it came to which attraction to run and preference on the caterpillar was given to those who had taken the other rides, so let no one say that he was backward in marketing skills.

Every year there was an event on Sundays. At 5.00 p.m. sharp...ish.
This varied every year, depending on who could be rounded up to provide it and what material was available, so one year it would be the Foreign Legion beating up Arabs - and I still wonder where all those Gendarmerie kepis came from - another year when the local motorbike club was going strong  it was Hell's Angels terrorising people and being driven off by the gallant Gendarmerie...the kepis again..

One year, Madame having realised that foreign tourists were leavening the lump of the faithful local attendees, she decided on Joan of Arc defeating the English, as there were a number of horses available.
Which is to say that the pony rides - run by Madame's daughter - stopped while the animals were prepared for their star roles.
It says a great deal for the total insensitivity of the French that she could think this was appropriate, and a great deal for the inhibitions inculcated by British culture that no one suggested lighting a bonfire.

The most popular was the cowboy and indian event, which appeared every three years or so - as there were a number of horses available - with chaps in feathered headresses galloping among the attendees trying to drag off attractive young ladies until other chaps in hats appeared firing into the air to drive them off and rescue the said attractive young ladies.
Health and safety would have had a fit, especially as one year it was discovered that some idiot had been using live ammunition. That time the kepis were for real...gendarmes swarming all over the place..... until it was discovered that the idiot had gone to the wrong drawer in the back shed.
The incident passed off peacefully. Madame's son agreed to keep his live ammo in the house in future and the gendarmes had a ride on the caterpillar. I've seen the photograph, and it is surreal...

The guests' kids were uniformly enthusiastic....
'It's so tacky it's out of this world...' about summed up the majority view and I am sure that some of our repeat bookings were due to the Parc d'Attractions.
Others were down to the massive spider which inhabited one of the bedrooms, but that's a different story.

Now, no tourist supremo would have put the Parc into his brochure....so I was surprised to see publicity for it when I went back to the area last year but my  friend told me that Madame had sold up and a new company is runnning the place.
Everything is smartened up, there are at least four rides, and they are spending a fortune on advertising.

I would love to have the kids' verdict on it these days...but I expect that now it has lost its' rustic charm, they would prefer Futuroscope.

The French want more forks

Image via Wikipedia

In the long ago days when French supermarket car parks numbered as many tractors as cars, I had friends with a holiday house in the next commune.

It was an eighteenth century house lying back from the road in a small hamlet and it had been completely renovated, so that instead of using their holidays to get close up and personal with plumbing, they could actually relax.
Instead of looking for Monsieur Cromagnon the never-ready builder and haunting the DIY shop, my friends could go out for the day, explore the troglodyte villages, buy wine and generally do what they had bought the house in order to do...enjoy themselves.

The  hamlet was a friendly place...this was before the great wave of British permanent immigrants arrived with the comcomitant backlash...and  after a while they had acquired quite a circle of friends, both French and British.
Being rural France, the friendship was usually expressed in invitations to drinks, to dinner or to Sunday lunch.
Just like all the books about 'living the dream'.

Shortly after they had arrived one summer, Jane telephoned and invited me to lunch. The weather looked to stay fine, so she and Alex planned to eat outside as that way they could invite more people than their house could otherwise hold.
Their neighbours were coming, as were a number of British and everyone more or less knew each other, so it would be a relaxed affair...not so much high heels and champagne but espadrilles and wine from the local guys.
Most people would turn up with some bottles and either a starter or a pud, to ease the load, so all it needed was to co ordinate who was bringing what.

Articles I have read on what to expect if asked out in France give the impression that this sort of thing would be regarded as really bizarre...you can bring flowers or chocolates but not proper food and drink.
This might apply in the champagne and high heels sector, but it doesn't down in the sticks.

The brioche vendeen from Didier's friend was eagerly awaited in every household to which Dider had entree - a considerable number - as was Rolande's fish terrine, just to give the first two examples which come to mind, while no self respecting local would dream of appearing at a friend's house without a few bottles wrapped in newspaper to be placed in the cool until required.

Still, invitation happily accepted and starter determined upon, I got on with the rest of my week.
I was in the supermarket, morosely regarding the quality and price of the cauliflowers, when a bright voice exclaimed
'How lovely to see you! We haven't caught up in ages!'
It was the Incubus!

It was a good job I wasn't at the takeaway counter or I might have fallen face down into the champignons a la greque and the saumon a l'oseille.
Rather than 'catch up' with the Incubus I would have eaten andouillette...well, nearly.

Mark you, from the way in which she would usually disappear like the Cheshire Cat in a grin-free zone when encountering me in the ordinary run of things, the feeling appeared to be common to us both.
So why the change of heart?

Having just been inspecting the cauliflowers, the milk of human kindness was at a low ebb in my veins...just how French supermarkets think that by pulling off the yellower leaves they can con the customer into thinking that last week's delivery are sparkling fresh and worth last week's price is beyond me.
Well, no it isn't.
The modern French housewife will buy anything. Especially when shopping at 11.45 for lunch at 12.30.

So, in this frame of mind, instead of being all Fotherington-Thomas about it and prancing with delight at the opportunity to repair a relationship, singing
'Hello clouds! Hello sky!',
I was rather more inclined to the Molesworth view of things......if she was bothering to speak to me she must want something.
'As any fule kno.'

What this 'fule' didn't 'kno' was what it was she was likely to want.

I did my own garden, thus no need of husband's gardening services.
I was not buying a house, so no need of their joint property finding and negociation services linked to occupation of their gite.
I had some French, so no need for her translation services.
Ditto, so no need for her 'hand holding' services with French beaurocracy.

It could only be information.
Whatever could I be supposed to know that she wanted to find out about?

After a monologue about the lovely weather, and how nice it was to see old friends now the holiday crowd were coming over, she threw the right hook.
'I expect we'll see each other at Jane and Alex's 'do' on Sunday.'

Oh, my ears and whiskers! That was it!
I'd suspected she hadn't been invited, but she'd clearly got wind of it and was now putting me on the spot.
This is one of the number of reasons why I cordially disliked her. Manipulative.
Whatever I said would only confirm that there was a'do'......and that meant that there was a fair chance that she and husband would turn up. Invited or not.

What I felt like saying was
'Not if I see you first.'  But the process of civilisation has been too thorough.
To my fury, I was reduced to smiling - in a sort of lips curled back over teeth fashion - and moving off...

I am so useless in these situations. In English. All sorts of bright remarks occur to me once it is too late and
I wonder if it is that using English involves all the codes of behaviour imbibed over the years which inhibit the initial response of'
'Take firmly by the neck and squeeze'...

I can do it in French much more easily...probably because in absorbing the language I haven't absorbed all the cultural bumph that comes with it, being a late starter as it were.
Come round to my house to try to reclaim a present from the previous owner of your house - yes, this has happened - on the grounds that her daughter said that you could have it, and just see where that gets you in French. Blown backwards bow legged, that's where.

Should I ring Jane?

She rang me. Someone less inhibited had called her with the news that the Incubus had trapped them at the bakery - that'll teach them to buy croissants, I thought - and they had succumbed to interrogation.
I confessed to my sorry display, but Jane wasn't too worried.
Her first reaction had been to hold the party in the back garden...but even then the parked cars would give the game away...so she thought she would just have to put up with it.
The only hope was that there would be something more prestigious going on to act as a counter attraction.

There wasn't.
It was a very pleasant afternoon in the shade of the walnut trees...good food, good wine, good company...and the Incubus and husband duly arrived together with their latchlifters...a househunting couple who were staying in their gite.
Such a good opportunity for Dale and Alan to meet 'the locals'....

Such a good opportunity for the Incubus and husband to wolf down enough to feed a regiment, collar the most expensive of the bottles put out in the kitchen for people to help themselves, and, at the end, to ask for a doggy bag - to avoid wasting all that good food.

Such a good opportunity for drumming up custom for their various services.

Jane had been talking to her neighbours and then came over to me.
'I think there's a problem but my French isn't good enough to understand. I think they want more forks, to pick things from their plates...but that doesn't seem right.'
I hoisted myself up, put my shoes back on and wandered over.
Everyone had an elegant sufficiency of cutlery, so I said that Jane hadn't understood what they were asking her.
'Oh...we wanted to know who the pique-assiettes were, that's all.'
I told them and returned to Jane.

'They're fine for forks and plates....they were asking about the Incubus....the scrounger.....the pique-assiette.'




'

Unlicensed gambling

Image by Adam Tinworth via Flickr

So, Sarkozy has saved the day.
According to the Spanish prime minister, Germany was only won over to the Greek rescue package by Sarkozy threatening to withdraw France from the eurozone.
I bet a few mattresses round here can lie easy, then. No chance of being ripped up for the bounty in pre General de Gaulle old francs just yet.

Considering the financial chicanery which allowed Greece into the eurozone in the first place, I can't say I'm altogether surprised that it got into trouble, even though its' downfall seems to have more to do with Goldman Sachs than just the usual financial incompetence we expect from European governments.
Somehow I doubt that the European Commission's call for the right to review EU member states' budgets would have had any beneficial effect if it had been in place at the time - just look at how many times France has put up two fingers after being called to order about its' budget deficits.

So, we've had sub prime and sovereign debt so far....and our governments have been raiding the till to make sure that those responsible for the disaster can survive to go on and do it again.
This is not what I call a sound policy.
Unless you are bank, of course, in which case you just rub your hands and look for another mug to shaft, secure in the knowledge that you are too big to be taken out by any mere national government.

Political parties claim to worry about the democratic deficit, in the sense that they need the legitimacy that comes from votes cast at elections.
Perhaps it might occur to them that people would have more confidence in them if they were not seen as being hand in glove with confidence tricksters who, whatever the mess, walk away unscathed.

In France, you can't hold your own share certificates for fear that you might do a runner with them to somewhere outside French jurisdiction, so regulated are we, but, having had dealings with the local branch of Credit Agricole it comes as no surprise to learn that they are under investigation in the U.S.A. for overstating their assets. They probably had my shares in that little bundle somewhere.
Americans living abroad are having trouble maintaining their home bank accounts thanks to the operation of the Patriot Act, but the banks roll on unhindered, transferring funds from country to country at will.

Transferring money for mere mortals has become a pain in the neck. Ten thousand euros or dollars or pounds is not a lot of money these days - and getting less before our eyes - and I cannot see why I have to justify its' source while the big banks are busy knowingly operating scams in the interests of their major customers with no requirement to justify anything at all.
After all, even if they're threatened with a civil suit, they can always bribe their way out of it, as Goldman Sachs with the SEC in the States, and there's no risk at all of a criminal suit being filed.
The law is a well trained watchdog and never bites its' masters.

What has brought about this access of bile?

The triumphalism surrounding the Greek rescue package, where all of us will be paying to rescue - not Greece or the Greeks, but the banks who were caught with Greek government bonds when the solids hit the fan.

If you want to run a casino, you need a licence.

If you want to set up a bank, you need a licence.

But if you want to run your bank like a casino with a crooked roulette wheel, far from having the gendarmerie on the doorstep, you'll have democratically elected governments showering you with money that should be spent on the decencies of life...health, education and pensions.

The answer to where power lies in the modern state was discovered years ago by the IRA.
Attempts on Heathrow, pub bombings, an attack on a Cabinet meeting at Downing Street - all were unavailing in bringing about serious talks.
One hit on the City of London and they'd won.

Striking justice

Image via Wikipedia

Some time ago, friends brought their French architect and his wife over for lunch and the conversation turned to how each group, British and French, saw itself and how it thought it was seen by the other group. There were a few surprises for each party, here, but I don't think that attitudes were altered.

One of the points that the architect made was that the French, when roused to indignation, took to  the streets, conjuring up images in my irreverent mind of the Bastille being stormed by angry bus drivers led by a bare breasted woman waving a flag, while the British were seen as agreeing everything behind closed doors....oh for the days of beer and sandwiches at No, 10.

Well, like all stereotypes, it is useful for labelling a phenomenon without having to examine it. There are all sorts of assumptions lurking beneath....that the French are open about their disagreements, while the subtle British hide them under the carpets....that the French system allows and encourages public expression while its' British counterpart stifles discord....and the assumptions are as interesting as the construction of the stereotype.

A little reflection shows that the British do indeed march in the streets, mostly on matters of principle. Animal welfare, war, taxation...these bring people onto the streets  risking stand offs with the police, even though these days the politicians have tried to limit demonstrations too close to their cosy lair in Westminster.
They might be wise.....down the ages, foreign ambassadors have remarked on the propensity for violence of the English and I don't think much has changed.
One more General Election returning the same caste of boobies to power and I think that Chesterton's people might just stir from their beer. If they haven't all already emigrated.

When the French march, it is not usually a mass movement, but something organised by a group of unions with the inevitable students tagging along, the police being present to prevent kids from the immigrant suburbs doing likewise and attacking the expensive shops along the way. These kids, not being fully integrated into a society that rejects them, don't understand the nature of a demonstration or a march in France. It is not about smashing a rotten society...it is demanding a better place for oneself within that society.
1968 is a long way in the past.

The latest demonstration takes place in Paris today. A wonderful gallimaufry of prison officers, probation officers, lawyers and judges protesting at the state of justice in France - as well they might.
The prison officers and probation officers are unhappy about the proposed closure of local prisons in favour of huge institutions which might well be run by private enterprise.
Judges are fed up with having to buy their own copies of the Codes - the basis of law in France - as the budget screws tighten yet further.
Lawyers are fed up with the reductions in legal aid.

Less parochially, some lawyers and judges are against the suppression of the post of the - relatively - independent investigating magistrate in favour of an enhanced role for government lawyers in deciding whether to bring prosecutions.  here.
Defence lawyers want reforms in the practice of police custody, to allow those detained the real assistance of their lawyers which is demanded by the European Convention of Human Rights and denied by most French jurisdictions. here
There are even a few calling for the entire scrapping of the basis of the French legal system and the adoption of the 'Anglo - Saxon' model. No, not Alfred handing down justice while burning the cakes, but the sort of thing we recognise in Common Law countries....where the defence has a fair crack at the prosecution case.
They can kiss goodbye to that even before they get their shoes dirty.

What will be the outcome of this march? To show that you are allowed to demonstrate in the streets of Paris. Nothing more, and that's a pity.
Particularly at this juncture when Sarkozy is intent on making a new establishment in his own image and on eliminating the little independence there is in the French legal system to enable him to do so.

Asking French friends, they are united in their despair at their system of justice, feeling that most of it is a charade.
The well connected stay well protected, so much so that the arrest of a couple of notaires in the south of France for widescale property fraud was regarded as unbelievable.
Whose toes had they trodden on?

Personally, I always thought that property fraud was what  some notaires aspired to, though I probably misjudge them, mistaking incompetence for intent.

In the days when I had holiday cottages, I was looking for a place to convert, and saw a likely prospect in a notaire's window.
I made an appointment to view, and met the notaire's nark at the property. It was super...big gardens back and front and not overlooked by anyone - a miracle in a French hamlet.
Then the nark said that the house at right angles to it was also for sale - was I interested?

No, I wasn't. I  knew that house. A friend and her sister had rented it at one point and while it was a nice house, it only had a courtyard and to get to it you had to use a right of way past the house of a complete nutter whose walls were festooned with 'No Parking' signs and whose car was usually parked in the right of way.

Further, I only wanted one house.

I made an offer on the house I wanted, and sat back to wait.
After two weeks, I telephoned the nark.
No, the sellers weren't interested.
O.K., I'll go up by two thousand.
No point. They won't accept.

After thinking  a while, I telephoned the friend who had lived in the second house.
Yes, she knew the owners. They lived on the other side of the hamlet. A nice couple. She would ring them.
She did, and we all got together in my friend's house over coffee and cake.
Wasn't my offer enough?
What offer?

As we continued, aperitifs replaced the coffee. This was serious.
The notaire's nark had not, at any point, relayed my offer to the sellers. On the contrary, having originally estimated the house himself, he had just told them that they were asking too much and should reduce their price. They were confused and starting to be annoyed. I was annoyed and puzzled. My friend had the answer.
I'll ring the owner of the second house.

She came round to join in the aperitifs. All was revealed.
She had been told by the notaire that he had a buyer for her house, but only if it could be sold with the one at right angles - the one I wanted - in order to be able to create a new exit to the road through the back garden to avoid the nutter next door.

My sellers protested loudly...they were to be shafted to make a favourable sale for her.
Oh no....the notaire had told her that they were on board, glad to be rid of the house.

A moment of quiet broken only by the clink of bottle on glass, and my friend said
Well, what are we to do? He's lied to both of you, and while - turning to her ex landlady -, I really sympathise with you, it's not fair to you - turning to the sellers of house one.
I made it clear that I did not want both houses, nor did I want to grant a right of way for a car over the garden.

The landlady came up with the estimation for the sale of both houses which made it clear that, with the new price proposed to the sellers of house one, they were indeed being royally shafted.
Would she make an adjustment with the sellers of house one to let the project proceed more equitably?
No.

I offered to buy house one at the price I had originally proposed. The sellers accepted. The landlady left to ring the notaire.

His first reaction, caught out in sharp practice, was to attack. He tried to browbeat the sellers.
Their house was for sale with him...they were not allowed to make a deal without his involvement.
He might have got away with it if he had not telephoned five times in increasing states of fury, which prompted the sellers to check the mandate and to see that he had not been granted exclusivity.

Then he turned to me.
I had been introduced to the house by his nark, therefore I must pay him commission.
Well, under normal circumstances, I would have paid commission, but these were not normal circumstances. He had tried to shaft the sellers and he had not transmitted my offer.
He could boil his head.
He would take me to court.
Fine.

When we all went to sign the compromis with another notaire, he had clearly heard of the ruckus
Maitre Plouc will have your guts. He wants his commission.
He can want. Are you going to do this compromis or not?
He was. Fees were involved.

Maitre Plouc carried on telephoning me, but was careful not to write any letters.
I asked friends what to do and they told me to complain to the departmental office of the Order of Notaires.
I did that.
Some weeks later I had a letter from the secretary of the Order, stating that my complaint was without foundation.
Signed .....Maitre Plouc...secretary.

He didn't take me to court, as it happened, but I was banned from his office.

Which saved me from the fate of an American couple who bought a house and land through him, only to discover that they had paid for two fields which did not belong to them.

Now, is this just another little misunderstanding by a foreigner in France?
Maitre Plouc was, after all, only trying to do a deal on behalf of a client.
Yes, indeed, and neatly shafting another client in the process.
The only control on his activities?
Other notaires, who, like the Barons of Runnymede, would understand.

I can't claim that things differ too much in the U.K. in this respect ...... experience with the Solicitors' Complaints Bureau of the Law Society and their equivalent wielders of the whitewash brush at the Financial Services Authority don't exactly leave you abounding in confidence, but at least the person you're complaining about doesn't sign the letter refusing to hear your complaint!

When you are inside a system, you become accustomed to its' little ways and things pass you by. You grumble about the inadequacies of the provision for the task you are to perform, not the task itself.
As an outsider to the French justice system, I read the blog of Maitre Eolas here with great interest - and not only on Six Nations weekends.
He is an insider, the man with the white hat with his own hobby horses to ride, but close reading of the posts and the comments thereon give an illuminating picture of how the general system works.

Overworked magistrates trying to do their best, other magistrates more intent on currying favour for promotion than anything else, the prosecution trying to micro manage cases while being micro managed in their turn by the Chancellery with its' eye ever on the media. Expulsion cases being initially reviewed for rejection by law interns, proposals to bring more and more cases under the sole jurisdiction of the prosecutor...it is not a pretty picture.

Over that lunch with friends I had asked the architect how he thought foreigners categorised  the French justice system.
Brutal and incompetent, he replied.

We were all taken aback. For once, foreigners and natives shared the same vision.