The most beautiful and charming baby in the world, but a baby nonetheless, with all of the challenges and hopeless despair that go with it.
Bug (Eleanor, but I call her Bug, or her Bugship) is nearly five and a half months old and it's been quite a ride so far but things are beginning to slot into place. Food, sleep, play, development, what I didn't realise is that everything needs to be learnt (by the baby and you). There's no plonking the baby down and assuming she will sleep, at least not after the first couple of weeks. Food can be scorned (rarely by mine) or more frighteningly absorbed with unsatiable gusto (growth spurt? starvation?). I breastfeed and do so exclusively and it can turn into a real marathonic nightmare. Babies do not amuse themselves, want constant cuddling and cannot fall asleep alone. All the clichés of the sobbing exhausted parents are true.
So how are we doing? Better now than at the beginning...
Food. So I breastfeed, thanks to the patience of the midwives at the maternity who time after time showed me how to do it. It's not particularly easy at first but it's been worth it and is now the easiest and most natural thing in the world.
I've been doing it on demand till quite recently and have found that as well as feed Bug, it comforts her and has from day one been a way of calming her down and sending her to sleep. The difficulties have been the fact that for the first three months there are extreme growth spurts and feeding on demand becomes living without a t-shirt, stuck in sitting position with a guzzling baby always crying for more.
I remember the three and six week ones with real horror. Thankfully I didn't cave in and switch to formula as the constant sucking is actually what makes the breasts produce more food as the baby grows. Bug is now a fat and healthy baby who breastfeeds at day and has a bottled of expressed milk in the evening as part of her bedtime routine (more about the pump later...). In the last week or so I've added a combo rice/corn/tapioca cereal to her evening bottle, and she has a bit of mashed veg at lunch (carrot and courgette so far) which she loves. I'm lucky that this baby has no food issues apart from wanting to feed all the time, which i am slowly cutting down by having stricter meal times (yeah right). This means:
7AM Breakfast - Breastmilk at source
10.30 Mid-morning snack - Ditto
1PM Lunch - Breastmilk at source and a few teaspoons of mashed veg
4.00 Afternoon tea - Breastmilk at source
6.30 Evening snack - Ditto
8.30-9PM Supper - Bottle of breastmilk with cereal.
OK, I realise this is way too much, she should be on four meals a day but she desn't eat so much at each meal except the night bottle, because...
Sleep. This has been ,and still is to a certain extent, our big challenge. What I didn't realise was how often babies need to sleep. Every couple of hours when they're six months old and more than that when they're smaller (mine should be at about 1h45 at the moment!). For weeks, months, Bug was, unbeknownst to us, exhausted and would just scream and scream for hours driving me insane and all of us desperate. One way of calming her and getting her to sleep was to "titty her up". Let me explain.
For the first four and half months, except for rare occasions in the pushchair or baby-carrier, Bug would only fall asleep mid-feed, on her maternity cushion, on my lap, with a mouth full of nipple which I was sometimes able to slide out without causing her to wake up. And then, if I wanted her to sleep, I was stuck. For day naps I just sat there for an hour or so until my muscles spasmed and she'd wake up, but at night things were complicated. She would fall asleep lying on the cushion which is a long curved thing that wraps around my waist. Once knocked out (code MC - milky coma), I would gently recline and let Gorgeous Chook slide his hands under her, and start to lift her away from me.
Then performing incredible silent acrobatics in slow motion, holding her in exactly the same position she had fallen asleep in, we would glide across the flat to lay the sleeping beauty GENTLY into her cot. Nine times out of ten she would wake up at some point during this delicate procedure and we would be back to square one, having to "titty her up" to get her back to sleep. After a few months of this I decided it was easier to feed her in bed and sleep in sitting position in my own bed, sometimes waking Chook at ungodly hours to settle her (still in silent acrobat style) in her cot next to us. This worked better because she was in super-deep sleep, but not always.
Apart from being uncomfortable and back-deforming (I'm now a hunchback with chronic shoulder pain) it was also incredibly dangerous. SIDS, hellooo? I would wake up in the night, with Eleanor's feet sticking out of the crook in my elbow, her head buried somewhere between my tummy and the cushion. Or disppeared down the side of the cushion. Too much was too much and we decided to try sleep training.
Now, it's important to know that out there online there are websites and forums and blogs and everything dedicated to getting baby to sleep so I have no intention of trying to imitate what is already very well done. If you're really interested try this : how to successfully teach a baby to sleep. It's wonderful. Welcome to the world of CIO, PUPD, NF, BW and all of it.
Basically there are a million ways of getting baby to sleep: from let them cry it out (CIO) alone till they fall asleep, to hugging and cradling and whispering them to sleep, and anything in between.
We went for Ferber which was tough but wonderfully efficient. Ferber was the guy and this was his method: after a bedtime routine full of love and tenderness, checking that baby is fed, dry, tired and loved one leaves the baby to cry to sleep, though with frequent checks that become more few and far between.
We started when Bug was 4 and a half months old, on June 1st. It's not recommended for babies under 4-5 months and we had tried once before but very quickly aborted mission.So after a lovely bedtime routine of bath, change, story, feed, cuddle and night-night, we lay her down and shut the door.
You shut the door and let the baby cry to sleep with only brief checks
every so often to reassure her that she's not being left to the wolves.
It is absolutely awful as it can take up to an hour so Chook and I
would just sit in the other room in silence, nursing triple whiskys and
occasionnally whispering hoarsley "is it time to check on her yet?" (no,
it's been three minutes). Horrible but efficient. She now conks out
after five or ten minutes of slightly high-pitched whingeing. And sleeps till 6.30 usually.
Naps have been less successful; she is resisting and can scream up to an hour so I usually put her down for one nap like that and have another with the old "titty up method" on our bed. Still not ideal but at least nights are free, and one can blog again...
mardi 25 juin 2013
So here we are introducing Eleanor
Wow! So half a year has passed since the Pacs and my last post. I was very pregnant at the time and thankfully haven't been for a while. Since January 16th in fact, the due date, when my beautiful daughter Eleanor was born. She's just turned 5 months and I am completely besotted, and this blog may quickly become an online altar to her glory and education. Oh well.
Having had a nightmare pregnancy it only seemed fair that the birth should go well but that was alas not the case. Of course you want the nitty-gritty so allow me.
The contractions started on the evening of the 15th and I had a sleepless night of shifting and rolling, while Chook filled up empty plastic bottles with hot water for literal if not authentic hot water bottles. The previous few days I had tottered around, climbing stairs and doing the sales but it seems I have a punctual baby and around half past six on the 16th we called my dear friend Jaj who had offered to drive us to the maternity.
Once there, about 7AM, I saw a midwife who was just nearing the end of her shift and who hesitated about sending me home. I didn't want to, so suggested they plunge me into a hot bath instead which they did. Lovely and I dozed a bit. in my labour room I sat on the big bouncy ball a bit, walked around, even went for hot chocolate in the cafetria,crippled by contractions every few minutes.
At 12, having casually shrugged it off earlier, I started yelling for epidural, which I got with many subsequent top-ups; very nice and I actually snoozed stonedily most of the afternoon.All this time my contractions were regular (though no longer painful thanks to the wonders of medecine) and strong, and all my and the baby's vitals were bleeping away merrily. But the baby wasn't coming down and I wasn't dilating.
This situation didn't change so by late afternoon, my lovely midwife Nina who had been following me for about ten hours at this point, decided to pierce the water pouch (my waters hadn't broken, a consequence of the baby not pushing down). That happened well out of sight and as much as possible out of imagination, and... nothing. Nina mentioned that at this rate I might have to start thinking about a caesarian. It was about half past six when I told Chook to go and get some newspapers; it looked like a long night.
Hardly five minutes after he had left, about half a dozen people came into the room. All the machines were bleeping crossly this time- the baby was in cardiac arrest and it was caesarian. NOW. It's a bit of a blur from then. I remember people asking me for Chook's phone number. Bloody hell i can barely remember it when I'm sober and calm. Luckily, he came back very quickly. I started to shake uncontrollably, which didn't stop for hours and was rushed to the operation room. I remember very little except for Chook being a star and taking my mind off things by asking me practical questions such as who to send texts to. A few minutes later (I think), they dumped a red squirming squid on my neck and I having said hello, I told them to take it the hell away. I vomited and passed out. Voilà, I was a mother.
I spent five days at the maternity and remember them as five days of warm and cosy paradise as outside it snowed horribly as Paris experienced its most horrible winter for years. I learnt to hold and wash and feed Eleanor, had a procession of family (my parents and mother-in-law, specially over from Thailand) and friends come through, spent cosy time with baby & Chook whio was sleeping on a chair and hardly left our sides. A wonderful team of midwives at the Maternité des Bluets took care of me and the other mothers.
Eleanor was born on the Wednesday and we left on Monday, with difficulty as no friends or ambulances wanted to risk the icy roads home. In the end we took a taxi and, without a car seat, it was the most nerve-wracking ride of my life as I clutched my tiny baby to me without a seatbelt.
We got home and in the blink of an eye, five months have passed. From
to
Having had a nightmare pregnancy it only seemed fair that the birth should go well but that was alas not the case. Of course you want the nitty-gritty so allow me.
The contractions started on the evening of the 15th and I had a sleepless night of shifting and rolling, while Chook filled up empty plastic bottles with hot water for literal if not authentic hot water bottles. The previous few days I had tottered around, climbing stairs and doing the sales but it seems I have a punctual baby and around half past six on the 16th we called my dear friend Jaj who had offered to drive us to the maternity.
Once there, about 7AM, I saw a midwife who was just nearing the end of her shift and who hesitated about sending me home. I didn't want to, so suggested they plunge me into a hot bath instead which they did. Lovely and I dozed a bit. in my labour room I sat on the big bouncy ball a bit, walked around, even went for hot chocolate in the cafetria,crippled by contractions every few minutes.
At 12, having casually shrugged it off earlier, I started yelling for epidural, which I got with many subsequent top-ups; very nice and I actually snoozed stonedily most of the afternoon.All this time my contractions were regular (though no longer painful thanks to the wonders of medecine) and strong, and all my and the baby's vitals were bleeping away merrily. But the baby wasn't coming down and I wasn't dilating.
This situation didn't change so by late afternoon, my lovely midwife Nina who had been following me for about ten hours at this point, decided to pierce the water pouch (my waters hadn't broken, a consequence of the baby not pushing down). That happened well out of sight and as much as possible out of imagination, and... nothing. Nina mentioned that at this rate I might have to start thinking about a caesarian. It was about half past six when I told Chook to go and get some newspapers; it looked like a long night.
Hardly five minutes after he had left, about half a dozen people came into the room. All the machines were bleeping crossly this time- the baby was in cardiac arrest and it was caesarian. NOW. It's a bit of a blur from then. I remember people asking me for Chook's phone number. Bloody hell i can barely remember it when I'm sober and calm. Luckily, he came back very quickly. I started to shake uncontrollably, which didn't stop for hours and was rushed to the operation room. I remember very little except for Chook being a star and taking my mind off things by asking me practical questions such as who to send texts to. A few minutes later (I think), they dumped a red squirming squid on my neck and I having said hello, I told them to take it the hell away. I vomited and passed out. Voilà, I was a mother.
I spent five days at the maternity and remember them as five days of warm and cosy paradise as outside it snowed horribly as Paris experienced its most horrible winter for years. I learnt to hold and wash and feed Eleanor, had a procession of family (my parents and mother-in-law, specially over from Thailand) and friends come through, spent cosy time with baby & Chook whio was sleeping on a chair and hardly left our sides. A wonderful team of midwives at the Maternité des Bluets took care of me and the other mothers.
Eleanor was born on the Wednesday and we left on Monday, with difficulty as no friends or ambulances wanted to risk the icy roads home. In the end we took a taxi and, without a car seat, it was the most nerve-wracking ride of my life as I clutched my tiny baby to me without a seatbelt.
We got home and in the blink of an eye, five months have passed. From
to
mercredi 26 décembre 2012
So here we are getting Pacsed
A week already that I have been swimming in marital bliss, or something. The Gorgeous Chook and I registered our Pacs on the 19th of December, which, considering we've been together for 11+ years, was 'bout bloody time.
For those not familiar with the Pacs (Pacte civil de solidarité), here it is in a nutshell. It is a status for adult couples that dates from 1999 and was put in place by the Socialist Jospin government. The idea was to recognise that couples could benefit from certain rights and advantages without going down the mariage route, and was clearly aimed at same-sex couples though it is open to all couples (except relatives). The Pacs gives couples certain rights and reponsabilities (joint tax declaration mainly) but not others such as right to adopt. For the record this and other reasons are why the Pacs cannot be seen as an adequate alternative to same-sex marriage, but more on that another day.
We decided to get Pacsed for several reasons. In no particular order: we're going to have a baby, we're buying a flat together, we have no plans to get married for the moment and it will lighten our tax bill. It also simplifies certain administrative procedures (never a small deal in France) such as GC putting me on his excellent medical insurance. Symbolically it sounds slightly more serious to say you are Pacsed than just "with somebody".
So, at the beginning of November I called the town hall to set a date. A Pacs is carried out by a court clerk at the local Tribunal de Grande Instance (TGI, i.e. the local courthouse; sexy). A date was set for the 19th december which was the last available day of the year. Why so long? why, the bloody paperwork of course.
There are certain documents necessary to get Pacsed, which are easy-peasy to get hold of if you're French but, yup you guessed it, a little more challenging if you're not.
If you're French you need a recent (under 3 months) copy of your birth certificate which you get from the town hall of your birthplace and a photocopy of some ID. You also need to write a couple of joint-letters with Chosen One, which involve declaring on your honour that you a) live together and are not family b) have some kind of committment and long-term plan together. It can even go into the nitty-gritty detail of tax regime, wealth sharing etc. Pretty straightforward.
If you're not French, in this case British (the EU magically disappears during Pacs procedures) the list is a little longer. Ultimately this is what you need to hand over:
- The two joint-declarations mentioned above
- A copy of your birth certificate (under 6 months), duly translated by a certified translator
- A certificate of non-Pacs that you get using form Cerfa n°12819*04 (don't ask)
- A certificat de coutume delivered by the Embassy or Consulate of country in question and containing all the originals (and translations) of the papers used to get aforementioned certificat.
- An attestation de non-inscription au repertoire civil for those of us who have been living here for over a year.
Crikey. Where to start?
I started with the Embassy to enquire about this whole certificat de coutume thing. For that they need my birth certificate which is somewhere in the UK, So first I must get that.
Ditto for the certificate of Non-Pacs.
And for the attestation I need to the certificat of coutume delivered by the Embassy.
So I start again, with getting a recent copy of my birth certificate. A few phone calls, letters and a couple of weeks later that plops in the letterbox from the UK.
I'm ready to get my little parcel ready for the British Embassy: photocopy of passport, birth certificate and 85€. (For those who have already been married, Pacsed, have changed their name or in any other way fucked with the admin before, the list is longer).
A few days later the certificat de non-coutume arrives. Perfect except they've misspelt my name- Jessell. I call the embassy and, having lived in Paris for so long, am absolutely flabbergasted by how nice and efficient they are. I called during lunch hours and spoke to a very nice woman who took note of my problem. Forty-five minutes later I had a message form the Vice-Consul himself, apologising and saying that the new copy was in that Friday afternoon's post. Jesus, that's efficient. (Actually ... but that's for later).
So by then, a good few weeks down the road, I had a copy of my birth certificate and a certificat de coutume with the wrong name. Time to look into the certificate of non-Pacs.
Form Cerfa n°12819*04 is a horrible form you find online, fill in and send off with a packet of documents, in order to get the certifcate of non-Pacs. When I saw that it was going to have to tour France for a extended holiday i realised the timing might screw our date and so got on the phone to somebody to confirm this was all going to be fine. The person unfortunately confirmed this was actually going to take 4-6 weeks. "Or you could come to our office?". As it was in the north of Paris that sounded fine, as I was 8 months pregnant with contractions and had been more or less bed-ridden for a month it sounded complicated. Fuck it, I took a taxi to Corentin Cariou, a hideous and isolated area of Paris full of tower blocks of grey council housing and anonymous admin buildings. Waddling and clutching my huge belly and pelvis, I staggered to the grim office block. It contained the courthouse with lawyers and their clients milling about looking worried and admin back-offices. In one of these, everyone -the three middle aged women fonctionnaires and the young dude with long hair whom I'd had on the phone- clucked over me and asked why the hell I was there.
For the goddamn certificate of non-Pacs.
They looked at the usual pile of documents. One pointed out that my birth certifcate hadn't been officially translated and was therefore technically not valid and that on another my name was wrong, but as is usually the case, the other fonctionnaires who were obviously pitying this exhausted pregnant woman who was still wearing pyjamas, completely ignored the rules and 45 seconds later I had a fresh and crisp certificat de non-Pacs in my hot little hand. Four to six weeks is for wimps.
Even better, all four of them started giving me advice on how to speed up the following procedures which, it turned out, could take weeks. This was helpful as I learnt that the third and final, and most vital, attestation was a paper that would have to come from the tribunal in Nantes, a 385 km taxi ride away... They gave me a direct fax number for someone and recommended that I write a tear-jerking account of my predicament.
[The taxi I had taken to get there was still in the neighbourhood so a quick call later I was back in the car. Some peculiar things happened to the taxi driver that day. I'll have to tell you about them sometime.]
Progress was being made, though I still didn't have the corrected copy of the Coutume thingy from the British embassy. I decided to get the fax to Nantes together with all documents imaginable: original and recent birth certificates, ID, forms, certifcates of everything and of course the shit-eating letter explaining why nothing had yet been translated and why my name was misspelt (still no news form the bloody Brits at this time). Not having a fax machine at home I asked GC to do it from his office.
The very next day I got a message from a guy called Poulailler (chicken coop) in Nantes telling me that only the first page or so of my epic fax had got through, could I send again. On the phone to GC who duly did. I called him back on the number he had called me on and told him everything was under control. He didn't seem too pleased to be contacted.
He had to get back in touch with me though as once again oinly the first page had got through. He told me to send all the pages as separate documents. And not to call his direct line again or to bug him and how had I got this number, anyway?
I realised the women at the grim office had given me the key to the holy grail: direct access to the paper-stamper supreme who is generally just an imagined and omnipiotent figure hidden far-away and that one just has to have faith in.
I was on the phone to God.
I explained my predicament: pregnant, lame, anxious, in love, British, francophile, sniff, sob.
He seemed pretty unimpressed but told me it was in the pipes.
Two days later a letter arrived- the wonderful, longed-for attestation.
WITH THE WRONG FUCKING MISSPELT NAME ON IT!
By chance I had by now received the corrected version from the Embassy so was all set to go through the rigmarole again when, by magic, in the following post, a corrected attestation arrived, signed by my friend chicken-coop.
I had everything! Just needed to translate the birth certiciate and there we were. Did that with a translation firm in the neighbourhood, a mere 60€ for a page comprising challenging vocabulary such as "Name of father" and "Place of birth".
Nevermind. Our dossier was complete. We turned up on the wednesday at 11.35, ten minutes before our slot. Some other couples were waiting, more straight than gay and clearly the TGI was running late. So we waited about 45 minutes, they took our dossier away (we held our breath) and this very bouncy, plump and camp guy wearing a bright pink pullover and a silk cravat told us to follow him. We sat in a miniscule room furnished with an orangey-shiney wood desk and three chairs and he got us to check the documents. they had got GC middle names wrong and reversed my first and second names. Easily corrected.
And that was that. We signed our paper and it was finished. I asked our Master of Ceremony if he would mind taking a pic, but he got rather huffy saying this was courthouse not a wedding hall and why didn't we get married anyway? He explained he was pissed off with having to run from tribunal to tribuanl dealing with Pacs when the judicial system was understaffed and had more serious things to worry about. He was also dismayed to see that a lot of couples got Pacsed as a kind of engagement party, a few months before the Real Thing. We reassured him this was not the case, that we were doing this for tax and insurance purposes and this seemed to pacify him.
We got our pic in the end, a nice bubbly girl waiting to get Pacsed with her female partner took it. I look huge, and my belly is huger than it looks; but I'm happy. because even though getting it done was the least romantic thing in the world, i'm still very chuffed to be Pacsed to Chook.
For those not familiar with the Pacs (Pacte civil de solidarité), here it is in a nutshell. It is a status for adult couples that dates from 1999 and was put in place by the Socialist Jospin government. The idea was to recognise that couples could benefit from certain rights and advantages without going down the mariage route, and was clearly aimed at same-sex couples though it is open to all couples (except relatives). The Pacs gives couples certain rights and reponsabilities (joint tax declaration mainly) but not others such as right to adopt. For the record this and other reasons are why the Pacs cannot be seen as an adequate alternative to same-sex marriage, but more on that another day.
We decided to get Pacsed for several reasons. In no particular order: we're going to have a baby, we're buying a flat together, we have no plans to get married for the moment and it will lighten our tax bill. It also simplifies certain administrative procedures (never a small deal in France) such as GC putting me on his excellent medical insurance. Symbolically it sounds slightly more serious to say you are Pacsed than just "with somebody".
So, at the beginning of November I called the town hall to set a date. A Pacs is carried out by a court clerk at the local Tribunal de Grande Instance (TGI, i.e. the local courthouse; sexy). A date was set for the 19th december which was the last available day of the year. Why so long? why, the bloody paperwork of course.
There are certain documents necessary to get Pacsed, which are easy-peasy to get hold of if you're French but, yup you guessed it, a little more challenging if you're not.
If you're French you need a recent (under 3 months) copy of your birth certificate which you get from the town hall of your birthplace and a photocopy of some ID. You also need to write a couple of joint-letters with Chosen One, which involve declaring on your honour that you a) live together and are not family b) have some kind of committment and long-term plan together. It can even go into the nitty-gritty detail of tax regime, wealth sharing etc. Pretty straightforward.
If you're not French, in this case British (the EU magically disappears during Pacs procedures) the list is a little longer. Ultimately this is what you need to hand over:
- The two joint-declarations mentioned above
- A copy of your birth certificate (under 6 months), duly translated by a certified translator
- A certificate of non-Pacs that you get using form Cerfa n°12819*04 (don't ask)
- A certificat de coutume delivered by the Embassy or Consulate of country in question and containing all the originals (and translations) of the papers used to get aforementioned certificat.
- An attestation de non-inscription au repertoire civil for those of us who have been living here for over a year.
Crikey. Where to start?
I started with the Embassy to enquire about this whole certificat de coutume thing. For that they need my birth certificate which is somewhere in the UK, So first I must get that.
Ditto for the certificate of Non-Pacs.
And for the attestation I need to the certificat of coutume delivered by the Embassy.
So I start again, with getting a recent copy of my birth certificate. A few phone calls, letters and a couple of weeks later that plops in the letterbox from the UK.
I'm ready to get my little parcel ready for the British Embassy: photocopy of passport, birth certificate and 85€. (For those who have already been married, Pacsed, have changed their name or in any other way fucked with the admin before, the list is longer).
A few days later the certificat de non-coutume arrives. Perfect except they've misspelt my name- Jessell. I call the embassy and, having lived in Paris for so long, am absolutely flabbergasted by how nice and efficient they are. I called during lunch hours and spoke to a very nice woman who took note of my problem. Forty-five minutes later I had a message form the Vice-Consul himself, apologising and saying that the new copy was in that Friday afternoon's post. Jesus, that's efficient. (Actually ... but that's for later).
So by then, a good few weeks down the road, I had a copy of my birth certificate and a certificat de coutume with the wrong name. Time to look into the certificate of non-Pacs.
Form Cerfa n°12819*04 is a horrible form you find online, fill in and send off with a packet of documents, in order to get the certifcate of non-Pacs. When I saw that it was going to have to tour France for a extended holiday i realised the timing might screw our date and so got on the phone to somebody to confirm this was all going to be fine. The person unfortunately confirmed this was actually going to take 4-6 weeks. "Or you could come to our office?". As it was in the north of Paris that sounded fine, as I was 8 months pregnant with contractions and had been more or less bed-ridden for a month it sounded complicated. Fuck it, I took a taxi to Corentin Cariou, a hideous and isolated area of Paris full of tower blocks of grey council housing and anonymous admin buildings. Waddling and clutching my huge belly and pelvis, I staggered to the grim office block. It contained the courthouse with lawyers and their clients milling about looking worried and admin back-offices. In one of these, everyone -the three middle aged women fonctionnaires and the young dude with long hair whom I'd had on the phone- clucked over me and asked why the hell I was there.
For the goddamn certificate of non-Pacs.
They looked at the usual pile of documents. One pointed out that my birth certifcate hadn't been officially translated and was therefore technically not valid and that on another my name was wrong, but as is usually the case, the other fonctionnaires who were obviously pitying this exhausted pregnant woman who was still wearing pyjamas, completely ignored the rules and 45 seconds later I had a fresh and crisp certificat de non-Pacs in my hot little hand. Four to six weeks is for wimps.
Even better, all four of them started giving me advice on how to speed up the following procedures which, it turned out, could take weeks. This was helpful as I learnt that the third and final, and most vital, attestation was a paper that would have to come from the tribunal in Nantes, a 385 km taxi ride away... They gave me a direct fax number for someone and recommended that I write a tear-jerking account of my predicament.
[The taxi I had taken to get there was still in the neighbourhood so a quick call later I was back in the car. Some peculiar things happened to the taxi driver that day. I'll have to tell you about them sometime.]
Progress was being made, though I still didn't have the corrected copy of the Coutume thingy from the British embassy. I decided to get the fax to Nantes together with all documents imaginable: original and recent birth certificates, ID, forms, certifcates of everything and of course the shit-eating letter explaining why nothing had yet been translated and why my name was misspelt (still no news form the bloody Brits at this time). Not having a fax machine at home I asked GC to do it from his office.
The very next day I got a message from a guy called Poulailler (chicken coop) in Nantes telling me that only the first page or so of my epic fax had got through, could I send again. On the phone to GC who duly did. I called him back on the number he had called me on and told him everything was under control. He didn't seem too pleased to be contacted.
He had to get back in touch with me though as once again oinly the first page had got through. He told me to send all the pages as separate documents. And not to call his direct line again or to bug him and how had I got this number, anyway?
I realised the women at the grim office had given me the key to the holy grail: direct access to the paper-stamper supreme who is generally just an imagined and omnipiotent figure hidden far-away and that one just has to have faith in.
I was on the phone to God.
I explained my predicament: pregnant, lame, anxious, in love, British, francophile, sniff, sob.
He seemed pretty unimpressed but told me it was in the pipes.
Two days later a letter arrived- the wonderful, longed-for attestation.
WITH THE WRONG FUCKING MISSPELT NAME ON IT!
By chance I had by now received the corrected version from the Embassy so was all set to go through the rigmarole again when, by magic, in the following post, a corrected attestation arrived, signed by my friend chicken-coop.
I had everything! Just needed to translate the birth certiciate and there we were. Did that with a translation firm in the neighbourhood, a mere 60€ for a page comprising challenging vocabulary such as "Name of father" and "Place of birth".
Nevermind. Our dossier was complete. We turned up on the wednesday at 11.35, ten minutes before our slot. Some other couples were waiting, more straight than gay and clearly the TGI was running late. So we waited about 45 minutes, they took our dossier away (we held our breath) and this very bouncy, plump and camp guy wearing a bright pink pullover and a silk cravat told us to follow him. We sat in a miniscule room furnished with an orangey-shiney wood desk and three chairs and he got us to check the documents. they had got GC middle names wrong and reversed my first and second names. Easily corrected.
And that was that. We signed our paper and it was finished. I asked our Master of Ceremony if he would mind taking a pic, but he got rather huffy saying this was courthouse not a wedding hall and why didn't we get married anyway? He explained he was pissed off with having to run from tribunal to tribuanl dealing with Pacs when the judicial system was understaffed and had more serious things to worry about. He was also dismayed to see that a lot of couples got Pacsed as a kind of engagement party, a few months before the Real Thing. We reassured him this was not the case, that we were doing this for tax and insurance purposes and this seemed to pacify him.
We got our pic in the end, a nice bubbly girl waiting to get Pacsed with her female partner took it. I look huge, and my belly is huger than it looks; but I'm happy. because even though getting it done was the least romantic thing in the world, i'm still very chuffed to be Pacsed to Chook.
mercredi 19 décembre 2012
So here we are in the 56 bus
It's not every day one finds oneself in a surreal comedy sketch so I thought I'd try and share this crazy bus journey with you...
So I was at the maternity in the far east of Paris last Friday for some final blood tests and, unable to find a taxi in the area to carry my huge load back home, decided to take the bus.
I waddled to the bus stop, just in time to see the 56 sail away down the street; checked the digital display board- 15 minute wait- and settled down with my magazine and second breakfast of the day. A middle-aged gentleman came along, saw the board and started telling me that this bloody bus was always late, absolute scandal. Noticing I was pregnant, he started to rant saying that pregant women and elderly folk such as himself really shouldn't have to wait when the weather is so cold. I made polite clucking noises and returned to Paris Match.
A woman with a huge shopping trolley appeared and basically groaned about the same thing. Really! the market won't be around all day you know! Bloody incompetent bus. Then another pregnant lady, clearly coming from the maternity herself, squashed herself down next to us and, looking at the board began to panic about how long the bus was going to take-she was going to be late for work.
This was a little surprising to me, clearly these people have never had to take a bus on a friday late-morning in the suburbs where you can easily wait two hours. Also, having taken this bus before I was pretty certain it was going to be deserted; last time I had even wondered how much it cost the RATP to finance empty buses tootling through Paris.
A few minutes before this clearly longed-for bus appeared, a homeless guy, limping, very skinny and carrying a sleeping bag crawled upto the bus shelter. He was clearly very cold, stank of piss, and had vast amounts of snot flowing around his mouth like a gruesome oral jellyfish attack. Lacking cash but well-stocked up on Kleenex, I took a few out and reached over to him; He took one look at my offering and started whimpering with his eyes shut, rocking slightly on his heels.
"'Leave him', said shopping trolley woman, 'he's always here at this time, he'll be off again in a moment'.
Really? Ok. So, having once more tried to shove the Kleenex in his hand with nothing more than a groan in response, I sat back down. Sure enough, two minutes later he packed up his stuff and shuffled off again. Clearly there is a routine I'm not aware of here.
The 56 bus arrives dead on time to comments of "about bloody time". It's absolutely packed. I get a seat of course, opposite a little birdy woman. Across the aisle from me an elderly skinny man barks. Literally. WOOF!
Birdy woman gets out and a middled-aged woman with a dozen bags of Xmas shopping plonks in front of me. A dozen Xmas shopping bags land on my feet, knees and huge 37 week pregnant bump.
'Don't worry! there's enough room for all of it', she chuckles. 'So when is your baby due?'
'Any time now', I reply, 'but due date in January'.
'Ah! Capricorn!',she says, 'I get on well with Capricorn because I'm Pisces'.
'Right. And she'll be a dragon according to the Chinese zodiac'.
'Oh, I don't know anything about that. I'm Pisces rising sign Pisces, so you know I'm very Pisces. Very emotional, sentimental and trusting. But I don't forgive you know.'
'Right; no'.
'What are you?'
WOOF WOOF! The man started barking intensely. Nobody looked up.
'Sagittarius rising Gemini'
'OOH! the double signs. Interesting. I like Sagittarius. my daughter-in-law is one. And I work with a lot of them. But you'll change you know, when you hit 40 you'll be a real Gemini. A double sign. Interesting.'
I was about to ask what was so interesting about double signs, when the bus stopped at a busy stop. The man started barking again with real gusto. About ten people got on, including a big black lady with a little boy in a vast pushchair that she parked next to me. Some people at the back of the bus began to shout because a guy in a wheelchair needed the little platform to be let down so he could wheel himself up. The driver said it was broken so half a dozen people had to get up, out of the bus and hoist up the huge guy in his massive chair. Bus was well and truly about to explode at this point.
"LET GO OF ME!,' wheelchair guy was yelling, 'PUT ME DOWN!'. People manoeuvred him into the aisle where he blocked the exit. 'DON'T TOUCH ME!', he roared as a couple of people slid past him to get out at the next stop. Everyone squished together to give him space.
'Oh dear', I said, 'I hope he's ok'.
'Nah, he's fine', replied Mrs Astrology, 'he just can't stand being touched. He's always like this. Like the man who barks- he just can't bear it when the bus isn't moving- you know- traffic lights, bus stops and such'.
'I see, so do you often see them?'
'Oh yes'.
At this point two things happened, the little kid in the pushchair next to me released his hands from his mittens and a lady who had been standing behind Mrs Astrology joined our conversation.
'Oh hello, I was listening to your conversation. I'm Taurus rising Taurus you know!'
'Oh wow, so very Taurus!' I said feebly.
'Oh! I'm Pisces rising Pisces!' said Mrs Astrology.
'Yes! and we should get on as from your year of birth I can say you're a monkey for the chinese and I'm a rat and...
At this point the little boy next to me took my fingers and shoved them in his mouth, and started grumbling about something.
'Nicolas! Non!',shouted his nanny. 'Sorry about that but he wants to sleep and he mustn't because it'll screw up his nap times. We need to keep him awake.'
'We?...'
'He likes the plane. Make a plane with your fingers and land on his nose, like this'- Vroooom....
'...And what chinese sign are you, dear...?'
'WOOF WOOF!'
'Er..... vroooooomm.... Rooster....'
'What about the Arab Zodiac?'
'Er, no idea... vrooom'
'GET YOUR HANDS OFF ME!'
'WOOF WOOF!'
'...and dagger in the Arab horoscope, and maple in the Celtic...'
'...no, you have to fly your hand around a bit, like this- No! Nicolas! No biting!...'
'...so if you're born in 1968 or in 1980?...'
'VROOOM'
'DON'T TOUCH ME!'
... Nicolas! NO!'...."
This lasted a good ten minutes, and finally I just staggered to the door, throwing off Xmas presents, Nicolas, Astrology women and slamming into Wheelchair who started to go berserk.
And there I was thinking the bus would be eerily empty like last time. Clearly there's a bit of a party going on every friday around midday on bus 56.
So I was at the maternity in the far east of Paris last Friday for some final blood tests and, unable to find a taxi in the area to carry my huge load back home, decided to take the bus.
I waddled to the bus stop, just in time to see the 56 sail away down the street; checked the digital display board- 15 minute wait- and settled down with my magazine and second breakfast of the day. A middle-aged gentleman came along, saw the board and started telling me that this bloody bus was always late, absolute scandal. Noticing I was pregnant, he started to rant saying that pregant women and elderly folk such as himself really shouldn't have to wait when the weather is so cold. I made polite clucking noises and returned to Paris Match.
A woman with a huge shopping trolley appeared and basically groaned about the same thing. Really! the market won't be around all day you know! Bloody incompetent bus. Then another pregnant lady, clearly coming from the maternity herself, squashed herself down next to us and, looking at the board began to panic about how long the bus was going to take-she was going to be late for work.
This was a little surprising to me, clearly these people have never had to take a bus on a friday late-morning in the suburbs where you can easily wait two hours. Also, having taken this bus before I was pretty certain it was going to be deserted; last time I had even wondered how much it cost the RATP to finance empty buses tootling through Paris.
A few minutes before this clearly longed-for bus appeared, a homeless guy, limping, very skinny and carrying a sleeping bag crawled upto the bus shelter. He was clearly very cold, stank of piss, and had vast amounts of snot flowing around his mouth like a gruesome oral jellyfish attack. Lacking cash but well-stocked up on Kleenex, I took a few out and reached over to him; He took one look at my offering and started whimpering with his eyes shut, rocking slightly on his heels.
"'Leave him', said shopping trolley woman, 'he's always here at this time, he'll be off again in a moment'.
Really? Ok. So, having once more tried to shove the Kleenex in his hand with nothing more than a groan in response, I sat back down. Sure enough, two minutes later he packed up his stuff and shuffled off again. Clearly there is a routine I'm not aware of here.
The 56 bus arrives dead on time to comments of "about bloody time". It's absolutely packed. I get a seat of course, opposite a little birdy woman. Across the aisle from me an elderly skinny man barks. Literally. WOOF!
Birdy woman gets out and a middled-aged woman with a dozen bags of Xmas shopping plonks in front of me. A dozen Xmas shopping bags land on my feet, knees and huge 37 week pregnant bump.
'Don't worry! there's enough room for all of it', she chuckles. 'So when is your baby due?'
'Any time now', I reply, 'but due date in January'.
'Ah! Capricorn!',she says, 'I get on well with Capricorn because I'm Pisces'.
'Right. And she'll be a dragon according to the Chinese zodiac'.
'Oh, I don't know anything about that. I'm Pisces rising sign Pisces, so you know I'm very Pisces. Very emotional, sentimental and trusting. But I don't forgive you know.'
'Right; no'.
'What are you?'
WOOF WOOF! The man started barking intensely. Nobody looked up.
'Sagittarius rising Gemini'
'OOH! the double signs. Interesting. I like Sagittarius. my daughter-in-law is one. And I work with a lot of them. But you'll change you know, when you hit 40 you'll be a real Gemini. A double sign. Interesting.'
I was about to ask what was so interesting about double signs, when the bus stopped at a busy stop. The man started barking again with real gusto. About ten people got on, including a big black lady with a little boy in a vast pushchair that she parked next to me. Some people at the back of the bus began to shout because a guy in a wheelchair needed the little platform to be let down so he could wheel himself up. The driver said it was broken so half a dozen people had to get up, out of the bus and hoist up the huge guy in his massive chair. Bus was well and truly about to explode at this point.
"LET GO OF ME!,' wheelchair guy was yelling, 'PUT ME DOWN!'. People manoeuvred him into the aisle where he blocked the exit. 'DON'T TOUCH ME!', he roared as a couple of people slid past him to get out at the next stop. Everyone squished together to give him space.
'Oh dear', I said, 'I hope he's ok'.
'Nah, he's fine', replied Mrs Astrology, 'he just can't stand being touched. He's always like this. Like the man who barks- he just can't bear it when the bus isn't moving- you know- traffic lights, bus stops and such'.
'I see, so do you often see them?'
'Oh yes'.
At this point two things happened, the little kid in the pushchair next to me released his hands from his mittens and a lady who had been standing behind Mrs Astrology joined our conversation.
'Oh hello, I was listening to your conversation. I'm Taurus rising Taurus you know!'
'Oh wow, so very Taurus!' I said feebly.
'Oh! I'm Pisces rising Pisces!' said Mrs Astrology.
'Yes! and we should get on as from your year of birth I can say you're a monkey for the chinese and I'm a rat and...
At this point the little boy next to me took my fingers and shoved them in his mouth, and started grumbling about something.
'Nicolas! Non!',shouted his nanny. 'Sorry about that but he wants to sleep and he mustn't because it'll screw up his nap times. We need to keep him awake.'
'We?...'
'He likes the plane. Make a plane with your fingers and land on his nose, like this'- Vroooom....
'...And what chinese sign are you, dear...?'
'WOOF WOOF!'
'Er..... vroooooomm.... Rooster....'
'What about the Arab Zodiac?'
'Er, no idea... vrooom'
'GET YOUR HANDS OFF ME!'
'WOOF WOOF!'
'...and dagger in the Arab horoscope, and maple in the Celtic...'
'...no, you have to fly your hand around a bit, like this- No! Nicolas! No biting!...'
'...so if you're born in 1968 or in 1980?...'
'VROOOM'
'DON'T TOUCH ME!'
... Nicolas! NO!'...."
This lasted a good ten minutes, and finally I just staggered to the door, throwing off Xmas presents, Nicolas, Astrology women and slamming into Wheelchair who started to go berserk.
And there I was thinking the bus would be eerily empty like last time. Clearly there's a bit of a party going on every friday around midday on bus 56.
samedi 8 décembre 2012
So here we are making pot-au-feu
It's getting chilly out and I'm stuck inside so conditions are met for making Pot-au-feu, a classic French peasant dish of beef and winter vegetables in a lovely beef broth. I made the classic recipe, without potatoes and with a marrow bone, but I'm guessing you could chuck in pretty much what you want.
This is for 6-8 people, and you will need, as well as a long wintry afternoon at home:
Meat:
500 g of paleron (shoulder blade cut)
500g of gite (topside cut of beef)
500g of plat de cotes (brisket?)
N.B. These are the French cuts, and are different in other countries. Ultimately what you're after are three different cuts of beef: a fatty, a lean and a gelatinous. Consult your butcher if in doubt.
1 marrowbone per person
Seasoning
3/4 garlic cloves
1 large onion
4 cloves
6 black peppercorns
sea salt
bouquet garni
Veg:
4 large leeks
2 large celery stalks
5/6 turnips
5/6 carrots
2/3 parsnips
Recipe:
First take meat (not bones) and cut into largish pieces (about 2/3 pieces per person untimately), put in huge casserole and add 2,5 litres cold water. bring very slowly to the boil (it should take at least 15 minutes) and skim all the collagen and crud that will appear on surface every ten minutes or so. Simmer gently for an hour or so.
Second, add your seasoning: peeled onion studded with cloves, peeled and crushed garlic cloves, bouquet garni, peppercorns and a tbsp of sea salt. Bring to the boil, then simmer gently for a couple of hours. Remember to skim away the crud from time to time
Third, add the veg which should by now be peeled/washed and cut into large chunks. (I cut the leeks, carrots etc into 3, the turnips in half etc). Add to the pot and let simmer for about 30 minutes.
Finally, once your veg is cooked add the marrow bones for about 20 minutes right at the end. they generally drool fat into the soup which can make it all a bit fatty (personnally I don't see the prob) so you can always fart around by wrapping them in muslin/gauze and then putting them in pot.
Voila! add salt and pepper, and serve with mustard, coarse sea salt and gherkins. It keeps in fridge (possible to remove excess fat once it has formed a hard layer) or freezes, and makes great leftovers.
Bon appetit!
This is for 6-8 people, and you will need, as well as a long wintry afternoon at home:
Meat:
500 g of paleron (shoulder blade cut)
500g of gite (topside cut of beef)
500g of plat de cotes (brisket?)
N.B. These are the French cuts, and are different in other countries. Ultimately what you're after are three different cuts of beef: a fatty, a lean and a gelatinous. Consult your butcher if in doubt.
1 marrowbone per person
Seasoning
3/4 garlic cloves
1 large onion
4 cloves
6 black peppercorns
sea salt
bouquet garni
Veg:
4 large leeks
2 large celery stalks
5/6 turnips
5/6 carrots
2/3 parsnips
Recipe:
First take meat (not bones) and cut into largish pieces (about 2/3 pieces per person untimately), put in huge casserole and add 2,5 litres cold water. bring very slowly to the boil (it should take at least 15 minutes) and skim all the collagen and crud that will appear on surface every ten minutes or so. Simmer gently for an hour or so.
Second, add your seasoning: peeled onion studded with cloves, peeled and crushed garlic cloves, bouquet garni, peppercorns and a tbsp of sea salt. Bring to the boil, then simmer gently for a couple of hours. Remember to skim away the crud from time to time
Third, add the veg which should by now be peeled/washed and cut into large chunks. (I cut the leeks, carrots etc into 3, the turnips in half etc). Add to the pot and let simmer for about 30 minutes.
Finally, once your veg is cooked add the marrow bones for about 20 minutes right at the end. they generally drool fat into the soup which can make it all a bit fatty (personnally I don't see the prob) so you can always fart around by wrapping them in muslin/gauze and then putting them in pot.
Voila! add salt and pepper, and serve with mustard, coarse sea salt and gherkins. It keeps in fridge (possible to remove excess fat once it has formed a hard layer) or freezes, and makes great leftovers.
Bon appetit!
mercredi 21 novembre 2012
So here we are watching the Right fracture
Of course, with a view to being fair and objective I can hardly put "So here we are relishing the appalling spectacle of the UMP making complete dicks of themselves and thus annihilating all crediblity" though this would actually be pretty fair & objective.
So what's new on the French political scene? It's true that with all this Baby Bullshit (BBBS) the political posts have become few and far-between.
Well to start, it turns out that the Socialist party won the presidential election on May 6th; François Hollande has been prez for just over six months and to say that his presidency has started rockily would be the understatement of the millenium. In fact it would be more accurate to say that Sarkozy lost rather than Hollande won, as it was clearly the anti-sarko sentiment and the rise of the far-right party FN that contributed to the PS victory more than Hollande's shining charisma and promises to increase taxes. It'd also be easy to say that Sarko lost because of his personnality and the crisis context, but in fact we have to go back to the French presidential campaign to understand why the right, represented by the UMP, is in the dire straits it is today.
Sarkozy was always shadowed by a bunch of more or less well-known "conseillers" who advised him with more or less success what ideas to put forward in order to be in the air du temps. In the final stretch of the campaign, his main counsellor was Patrick Buisson, a man with a far-right background who advised taking the hard "security, Islam, immigration" line. As a result, during the campaign when Sarko should really have been focusing on unemployment, debt, competitiveness and the euro crisis, he gravely went on about the bad integration of immigrants, Roms, the risk of Islamist revolution and the secular state in peril. These positions, which found their audience in the part of the UMP represented by Jean-François Copé and the "droite poulaire" (read: populist) were undoubtedly meant to drain away votes from the FN ( a well-known Sarko technique, read here for an example) and gather the far-right and the more moderate centre of the UMP- as represented by Prime minister François Fillon- together.
It was pretty much a massive fail. The moderate Gaullists (centre-right) felt alienated and the FN loved that the UMP was recycling their favourite themes. Some of the former voted Hollande and the FN did an amazing score, and in the end, Sarkozy lost.
It could have been the end of it, but the question then arose of who was going to be the UMP's new leader. Sarkozy had the been the natural one: a new generation, with a wish to rehaul the French welfare state and economy and an "décomplexé" ( 'unashamed' is the best translation I can come up with) approach to money. He had managed to reunite all the trends present in the UMP with a clever dosage of microeconomics, labour, international affairs, security and immigration policies.
Now two different candidates had emerged.
On the one hand the current leader (since presidential campaign), Jean-François Copé. MP and mayor of Meaux, a town 50 kilometres from Paris famous for its Brie, he is also from the younger generation (nearly 50), omnipresent in the media, and could be described as a pale imitation of Sarkozy, who you either hated or loved but had to admit was the real spontaneous driven thing. Copé is smooth, has nice eyes but a shark's smile and is really a bit slimy. Wasp's honey to Sarkozy's flintstones. Copé represents the "droite décomplexée" which is conservative and a tad xenophobic and anti-islam.
On the other we have former PM François Fillon, a grave and silent man, who goes about his reforms and shuns interviews and TV appearances. He is the man who oversaw the major reforms of the last half-decade, as he was Sarko's right-hand man during the whole presidency. He represents the more moderate wing of the UMP, which is more liberal and "social gaullist".
An internal election was organised for the 300 000 UMP card-holders to vote on these two candidates. There were some other fleeting candidacies but on D-day only Fillon and Copé remained.
In the polls Fillon was given as the clear winner, 40 points ahead. And then the election happened. At 8pm the voting centres shut but no clear trend was visible. Same at 11. Then at around 11.20pm Copé came out and said he had won, 200 ballots ahead, though this result had not yet been validated by, well, anyone. They'd simply counted up the results as they came through from the various federations.
Twenty minutes later, Fillon made a statement,saying he had won, from tallying up all results from France and overseas, by about 1000 votes. This hadn't been confirmed by anyone either.
The Copé side retaliated saying that there had been evidence of fraud in Nice and Paris in particular, with ballot stuffing and people being turned away.
Chaos. On TV, other UMP figures tried to defend their side, some getting swept away like Christian Estrosi, mayor of Nice, who talked about the 'other party' forgetting that they're all supposed to be on the same ship.
Chaos continues during the next day, and finally JF Copé is declared victor by about 90 votes. He offered Vice-prez to F Fillon, who flatly refused and is now contemplating "his future in politics", clearly meaning he can't work with a populist little squit like Jean-François. And it would seem quite a lot of UMP voters might feel the same.
The belief is that the focus should be on the economy, micro and macro, with reforms to make French companies more competitive, dealing with the deficit and debt, and handling the euro-crisis, not Islam, gay marriage and yet more security. For example, Copé is famous for an anecdote he related on TV to illustrate the rise of an anti-white racism present in the dangerous 'burbs. Here a young French "gaulois-white" had had his pain au chocolat stolen at school by young French "musulmans- arabes" who had told him not to eat during Ramadan. Nevermind that there hasn't been a Ramadan during the school year for years, this was hot news to show that it's the white kids who are being treated badly because of the muslim invasion.
Marine Le Pen, leader of the Front national is rubbing her hands in glee. And it seems she might be the real winner of the UMP election, which has simply shown the fracture that exists in the French right. She and Jean-Louis Borloo who has just founded the centre-right party Union des démocrates et des indépendants.
The Socialists however are having a tough enough time with their own cock-ups, controversies and U-turns to milk anything out of this. They also have to remain very silent as they went through pretty much exactly the same thing, accusations and fratricide included, in 2008. It's worth noting that neither of the two candidates to the 2008 PS leader election were selected to run for President in 2012.
So what's new on the French political scene? It's true that with all this Baby Bullshit (BBBS) the political posts have become few and far-between.
Well to start, it turns out that the Socialist party won the presidential election on May 6th; François Hollande has been prez for just over six months and to say that his presidency has started rockily would be the understatement of the millenium. In fact it would be more accurate to say that Sarkozy lost rather than Hollande won, as it was clearly the anti-sarko sentiment and the rise of the far-right party FN that contributed to the PS victory more than Hollande's shining charisma and promises to increase taxes. It'd also be easy to say that Sarko lost because of his personnality and the crisis context, but in fact we have to go back to the French presidential campaign to understand why the right, represented by the UMP, is in the dire straits it is today.
Sarkozy was always shadowed by a bunch of more or less well-known "conseillers" who advised him with more or less success what ideas to put forward in order to be in the air du temps. In the final stretch of the campaign, his main counsellor was Patrick Buisson, a man with a far-right background who advised taking the hard "security, Islam, immigration" line. As a result, during the campaign when Sarko should really have been focusing on unemployment, debt, competitiveness and the euro crisis, he gravely went on about the bad integration of immigrants, Roms, the risk of Islamist revolution and the secular state in peril. These positions, which found their audience in the part of the UMP represented by Jean-François Copé and the "droite poulaire" (read: populist) were undoubtedly meant to drain away votes from the FN ( a well-known Sarko technique, read here for an example) and gather the far-right and the more moderate centre of the UMP- as represented by Prime minister François Fillon- together.
It was pretty much a massive fail. The moderate Gaullists (centre-right) felt alienated and the FN loved that the UMP was recycling their favourite themes. Some of the former voted Hollande and the FN did an amazing score, and in the end, Sarkozy lost.
It could have been the end of it, but the question then arose of who was going to be the UMP's new leader. Sarkozy had the been the natural one: a new generation, with a wish to rehaul the French welfare state and economy and an "décomplexé" ( 'unashamed' is the best translation I can come up with) approach to money. He had managed to reunite all the trends present in the UMP with a clever dosage of microeconomics, labour, international affairs, security and immigration policies.
Now two different candidates had emerged.
On the one hand the current leader (since presidential campaign), Jean-François Copé. MP and mayor of Meaux, a town 50 kilometres from Paris famous for its Brie, he is also from the younger generation (nearly 50), omnipresent in the media, and could be described as a pale imitation of Sarkozy, who you either hated or loved but had to admit was the real spontaneous driven thing. Copé is smooth, has nice eyes but a shark's smile and is really a bit slimy. Wasp's honey to Sarkozy's flintstones. Copé represents the "droite décomplexée" which is conservative and a tad xenophobic and anti-islam.
On the other we have former PM François Fillon, a grave and silent man, who goes about his reforms and shuns interviews and TV appearances. He is the man who oversaw the major reforms of the last half-decade, as he was Sarko's right-hand man during the whole presidency. He represents the more moderate wing of the UMP, which is more liberal and "social gaullist".
An internal election was organised for the 300 000 UMP card-holders to vote on these two candidates. There were some other fleeting candidacies but on D-day only Fillon and Copé remained.
In the polls Fillon was given as the clear winner, 40 points ahead. And then the election happened. At 8pm the voting centres shut but no clear trend was visible. Same at 11. Then at around 11.20pm Copé came out and said he had won, 200 ballots ahead, though this result had not yet been validated by, well, anyone. They'd simply counted up the results as they came through from the various federations.
Twenty minutes later, Fillon made a statement,saying he had won, from tallying up all results from France and overseas, by about 1000 votes. This hadn't been confirmed by anyone either.
The Copé side retaliated saying that there had been evidence of fraud in Nice and Paris in particular, with ballot stuffing and people being turned away.
Chaos. On TV, other UMP figures tried to defend their side, some getting swept away like Christian Estrosi, mayor of Nice, who talked about the 'other party' forgetting that they're all supposed to be on the same ship.
Chaos continues during the next day, and finally JF Copé is declared victor by about 90 votes. He offered Vice-prez to F Fillon, who flatly refused and is now contemplating "his future in politics", clearly meaning he can't work with a populist little squit like Jean-François. And it would seem quite a lot of UMP voters might feel the same.
The belief is that the focus should be on the economy, micro and macro, with reforms to make French companies more competitive, dealing with the deficit and debt, and handling the euro-crisis, not Islam, gay marriage and yet more security. For example, Copé is famous for an anecdote he related on TV to illustrate the rise of an anti-white racism present in the dangerous 'burbs. Here a young French "gaulois-white" had had his pain au chocolat stolen at school by young French "musulmans- arabes" who had told him not to eat during Ramadan. Nevermind that there hasn't been a Ramadan during the school year for years, this was hot news to show that it's the white kids who are being treated badly because of the muslim invasion.
Marine Le Pen, leader of the Front national is rubbing her hands in glee. And it seems she might be the real winner of the UMP election, which has simply shown the fracture that exists in the French right. She and Jean-Louis Borloo who has just founded the centre-right party Union des démocrates et des indépendants.
The Socialists however are having a tough enough time with their own cock-ups, controversies and U-turns to milk anything out of this. They also have to remain very silent as they went through pretty much exactly the same thing, accusations and fratricide included, in 2008. It's worth noting that neither of the two candidates to the 2008 PS leader election were selected to run for President in 2012.
lundi 12 novembre 2012
So here we are being logical
I love these, especially when they're in text form without the handy little pre-prepared tables! Thanks Fergus.
There are 5 adjacent houses. Each house has
a unique color, and each owner has a different nationality. Each owner keeps a
different pet, drinks a different type of beverage, and has a different
occupation. The Brit lives in the red house, the Swede keeps a dog, and the
Dane drinks tea. The green house is on the immediate left of the white house. In
the green house they drink coffee. The postman has birds. The fireman lives in
the yellow house. In the middle house they drink milk. The Norwegian lives in
the leftmost house. The baker lives in the house next to the house with the
cats. The fireman lives in the house next to the house with the horse. The bus
driver drinks beer. The German is plumber. The Norwegian lives next to the blue
house. They drink water in the house that lies next to the house where the
baker lives. One of the owners keeps a zebra.
Who
owns the zebra?
samedi 3 novembre 2012
So here we are drooling over cute baby stuff
You know that super annoying fad, where people bombard you with cute kitten stuff? Kitten yawning, kitten asleep in slipper, kitten falling off chair arm, kitten looking woozy? Well, it's really annoying. Which is why I'm only going to do it with cute baby stuff. Not cute babies, god no, how last season, but the clothes... I have to admit, I finally see what all the fuss is about. IT'S JUST ALL SO BLOODY CUTE. And expensive I might add, but will leave that rant for another post maybe.
There are two types of cute that I have identified so far. The cute because it's funny, and the cute because it's tiny (I'll probably have a heart attack due to overcuteness if both are combined).
Yesterday, Gorgeous Chook and I spent a fortune on the latter as we have to start thinking about putting the maternity bag together, and as Elspeth will arrive in the depths of winter (we hope) it has to be all warm and woolly and fluffy (more cuteness). So here are a couple of the cutest so far.
Scale is important to grasp tiny- cuteness so here is our reference.
Please note the bobble on the woolly hat. This is lovely and soft and will be hell to wash.
This is as pink as it's going to get I hope, but the little feet were just to much to resist
And my personal fave, possibly due to the late 19th century sleeping hat. The booties I can barely talk about without getting cuteness spasms.
Feeling sick yet? So, time to move on to that first category of cute which maybe is more accessible to people who are not sobbing hormonally into little pairs of socks: yes, the novelty-funny cute.I spent an entertaining Friday evening on various websites, such as ThinkGeek and CafePress looking at little babygros and outfits that Elspeth, being her parents' daughter, might have. It sometimes takes a bit of understanding some major nerdy, geeky and gamer references to get the full humour, but most are accessible to the masses.
Funny slogans include "Tired? there's a nap for that", "QTπ", "I like formula (a² + b² = c²)", "my daddy can outcode your daddy"and a million references to role-playing games, WoW, physics, Star trek and wars, Fermat, Linux, Perl and co, etc etc. Well I think they're hilarious.
So, hint hint, if you were hesitating between that little pale pink Laura Ashley ensemble and the t-shirt emblazoned with "diaper downloading", there's one we definitely won't be returning to the shops.Or of course you could just go for the cute.
There are two types of cute that I have identified so far. The cute because it's funny, and the cute because it's tiny (I'll probably have a heart attack due to overcuteness if both are combined).
Yesterday, Gorgeous Chook and I spent a fortune on the latter as we have to start thinking about putting the maternity bag together, and as Elspeth will arrive in the depths of winter (we hope) it has to be all warm and woolly and fluffy (more cuteness). So here are a couple of the cutest so far.
Scale is important to grasp tiny- cuteness so here is our reference.
Feeling sick yet? So, time to move on to that first category of cute which maybe is more accessible to people who are not sobbing hormonally into little pairs of socks: yes, the novelty-funny cute.I spent an entertaining Friday evening on various websites, such as ThinkGeek and CafePress looking at little babygros and outfits that Elspeth, being her parents' daughter, might have. It sometimes takes a bit of understanding some major nerdy, geeky and gamer references to get the full humour, but most are accessible to the masses.
Funny slogans include "Tired? there's a nap for that", "QTπ", "I like formula (a² + b² = c²)", "my daddy can outcode your daddy"and a million references to role-playing games, WoW, physics, Star trek and wars, Fermat, Linux, Perl and co, etc etc. Well I think they're hilarious.
So, hint hint, if you were hesitating between that little pale pink Laura Ashley ensemble and the t-shirt emblazoned with "diaper downloading", there's one we definitely won't be returning to the shops.Or of course you could just go for the cute.
mercredi 31 octobre 2012
So here we are in the third trimester
Well, someone was in a good mood when they wrote that last post, eh? Well ,things are as always evolving, and I am now about six and a half months pregnant, with another ten weeks to go until wee sproglet (code name: Elspeth) is due. I've been taken off work by the gynecologist as what i thought were harmless Braxton-Hicks contractions mixed with indigestion were actually the real deal, with mademoiselle ready to pop out and brave the world: have been prescribed between 2 and 4 weeks in bed as a result.
So, what's new so far this trimester?
A) Hugeness
On the plus side, people are nice: they notice, they stand up, they smile in the street, they pat you on the head and make friendly noises. On the down side, they have no issue with commenting on size and girth: "Jesus, you're overdue aren't you??", "Bloody hell, are you expecting triplets??", or the rather simpler "Wow, you're fat". Well, guess what, actually I'm not. I started this pregnancy at 62 kgs (can't believe I've just made that figure official & public) and am now just under 70. Some people put on that kind of weight over the Xmas holidays for fuck's sake. The simple fact is that one rarely sees heavily heavily pregnant women, maybe because going out is a waddling, breathless pain in the arse. Anyway, for the record, this is what nearly 7 months pregnant looks like.
B) Constant peeing II
I mentioned this way back, but it really doesn't get better; my heart goes out to you guys with prostate issues. We're talking every 45 minutes here, maybe every couple of hours at night. My friend Amélie reckons this is nature's way of preparing me to the sleepless and interrupted nights Elspeth will be imposing in a few weeks, but that's pretty small comfort. What's particularly frustrating is that desperate need which turns out to be a pathetic little dribble. Loo roll consumption has gone through the roof, and an estimated 8 hours a day are spent on the throne. On the plus side, I'm getting a lot of reading done.
C) Appetite and nutrition
So first three months were dedicated to puking, the following three to eating everything that couldn't run away fast enough, and these are all about moderation. Yup, Elspeth now takes up so much room (THIS IS NORMAL, I repeat) that the uterus is now where the stomach and liver should be. These two now have to squeeze into a small cavity between my boobs. The result is that a boiled egg and a small bowl of soup is enough to make one puke violently as poor old tummy just doesn't have the capacity to hold so much. Shame cos one is still pretty hungry and needs something like 2500 calories a day to keep Spawn happy and healthy and fatten her up. More to the point if I don't ingurgitate enough nutrients, babe will take them from me, i.e bones, teeth, internal organs and soon. I can imagine the result: "wow, you're huge and you've lost all your teeth and you're going bald!" Still waiting for this amazing pregnancy bloom people rave on about... Always eager to share lovely anecdotes with you, here's the latest to illustrate my point.
Was craving Indian on Sunday, so Gorgeous Chook and I headed off to our local (which luckily for us is amazing by Parisian standards, Comptoir des Indes). I ate frugally, half a portion of rice and some lovely spinach and paneer. Also drank a huge pot of tea which turned out to be a mistake. So lay down in bed, turned off light and gravity being gravity, Elspeth pushed against my stomach making everything come shooting out, green-geyser-style. The best way to describe would be this wonderful line by Stephen King in Different Seasons: "puke rumbled up his throat like a six-ton Peterbilt shooting through a tunnel." GC thought my waters had broken as "water" splashed merrily over, well,everything (I seriously hope my waters breaking will be less dramatic). Oops. Anyway, that lesson has been learnt, I now eat tiny portions frequently and pop anti-puke pills regularly.
D) Being beaten up
by something the size of a loaf of bread whatsmore! Typical, you spend months waiting for that first magic kick, that little flutter which is the first sign of life, and then very quickly you pray that she will grow so much she'll be unable to move, uncomfortably squashed. I didn't realise foetuses (foeti?) could be so bloody violent. It's in the evening that it's the most obvious: crash bang wallop especially after the evening "meal". A good thump every 3/4 minutes, with a special mention to her getting her feet tangled in my rib cage and trying to yank them out. It's pretty bad at night too; in fact there's an inverse correlation between our levels of activity: the more relaxed I am, the more kung-fu she is. GC is of course ridiculoulsy proud.
E) Libido
God, yes, it's true. Without going into detail, well, I'd shag the furniture. Twenty times a day. One wakes up in the night randy as hell. One wakes up with morning glory or female equivalent. Everyone/thing is incredibly sexy and attractive. Unfortunately because I'm threatened with premature labour I can't actually act on any of this, sex potentially leading to contractions And apparently it gets better (or worse, depends really doesn't it).
F) And luckily...
... So far I have avoided obesity (yes, I fucking well have you ignorant bastards), stretchmarks, hemorrhoids, blotchy skin, fur sprouting out of my nose/chin/ears and blowing a fortune on maternity clothes (my friends are wonderful). Not blowing a fortune on cute baby stuff however is going to be challenging, but hey, how can one resist???
So, what's new so far this trimester?
A) Hugeness
On the plus side, people are nice: they notice, they stand up, they smile in the street, they pat you on the head and make friendly noises. On the down side, they have no issue with commenting on size and girth: "Jesus, you're overdue aren't you??", "Bloody hell, are you expecting triplets??", or the rather simpler "Wow, you're fat". Well, guess what, actually I'm not. I started this pregnancy at 62 kgs (can't believe I've just made that figure official & public) and am now just under 70. Some people put on that kind of weight over the Xmas holidays for fuck's sake. The simple fact is that one rarely sees heavily heavily pregnant women, maybe because going out is a waddling, breathless pain in the arse. Anyway, for the record, this is what nearly 7 months pregnant looks like.
B) Constant peeing II
I mentioned this way back, but it really doesn't get better; my heart goes out to you guys with prostate issues. We're talking every 45 minutes here, maybe every couple of hours at night. My friend Amélie reckons this is nature's way of preparing me to the sleepless and interrupted nights Elspeth will be imposing in a few weeks, but that's pretty small comfort. What's particularly frustrating is that desperate need which turns out to be a pathetic little dribble. Loo roll consumption has gone through the roof, and an estimated 8 hours a day are spent on the throne. On the plus side, I'm getting a lot of reading done.
C) Appetite and nutrition
So first three months were dedicated to puking, the following three to eating everything that couldn't run away fast enough, and these are all about moderation. Yup, Elspeth now takes up so much room (THIS IS NORMAL, I repeat) that the uterus is now where the stomach and liver should be. These two now have to squeeze into a small cavity between my boobs. The result is that a boiled egg and a small bowl of soup is enough to make one puke violently as poor old tummy just doesn't have the capacity to hold so much. Shame cos one is still pretty hungry and needs something like 2500 calories a day to keep Spawn happy and healthy and fatten her up. More to the point if I don't ingurgitate enough nutrients, babe will take them from me, i.e bones, teeth, internal organs and soon. I can imagine the result: "wow, you're huge and you've lost all your teeth and you're going bald!" Still waiting for this amazing pregnancy bloom people rave on about... Always eager to share lovely anecdotes with you, here's the latest to illustrate my point.
Was craving Indian on Sunday, so Gorgeous Chook and I headed off to our local (which luckily for us is amazing by Parisian standards, Comptoir des Indes). I ate frugally, half a portion of rice and some lovely spinach and paneer. Also drank a huge pot of tea which turned out to be a mistake. So lay down in bed, turned off light and gravity being gravity, Elspeth pushed against my stomach making everything come shooting out, green-geyser-style. The best way to describe would be this wonderful line by Stephen King in Different Seasons: "puke rumbled up his throat like a six-ton Peterbilt shooting through a tunnel." GC thought my waters had broken as "water" splashed merrily over, well,everything (I seriously hope my waters breaking will be less dramatic). Oops. Anyway, that lesson has been learnt, I now eat tiny portions frequently and pop anti-puke pills regularly.
D) Being beaten up
by something the size of a loaf of bread whatsmore! Typical, you spend months waiting for that first magic kick, that little flutter which is the first sign of life, and then very quickly you pray that she will grow so much she'll be unable to move, uncomfortably squashed. I didn't realise foetuses (foeti?) could be so bloody violent. It's in the evening that it's the most obvious: crash bang wallop especially after the evening "meal". A good thump every 3/4 minutes, with a special mention to her getting her feet tangled in my rib cage and trying to yank them out. It's pretty bad at night too; in fact there's an inverse correlation between our levels of activity: the more relaxed I am, the more kung-fu she is. GC is of course ridiculoulsy proud.
E) Libido
God, yes, it's true. Without going into detail, well, I'd shag the furniture. Twenty times a day. One wakes up in the night randy as hell. One wakes up with morning glory or female equivalent. Everyone/thing is incredibly sexy and attractive. Unfortunately because I'm threatened with premature labour I can't actually act on any of this, sex potentially leading to contractions And apparently it gets better (or worse, depends really doesn't it).
... So far I have avoided obesity (yes, I fucking well have you ignorant bastards), stretchmarks, hemorrhoids, blotchy skin, fur sprouting out of my nose/chin/ears and blowing a fortune on maternity clothes (my friends are wonderful). Not blowing a fortune on cute baby stuff however is going to be challenging, but hey, how can one resist???
samedi 6 octobre 2012
So here we are in the second trimester
Well, it's true what they say. The second trimester is much less painful than the first. Exeunt morning sickness, crippling exhaustion and drooling. Welcome a nice rounded belly (people start to notice and make a fuss), no-guilt mega bingeing (perhaps linked to the former) and lots of energy. Of course there are days that are better than others, sometimes the sciatica plays up a bit, or nights cramps appear, and the constant need to pee hasn't really faded, but this is more than made up for by the fact that baby is now kicking a lot, floating around and reacting to food or state of relaxation. It's a simple negative correlation: the more relaxed I am, the more baby is awake and manifesting itself.
More recently (I'm getting to the end of the second term), a few new uncomfortable symptoms have emerged, mostly linked with a huge gut (huuuge, I mean it). Bending over is impossible, sitting up is challenging, getting up is a painful, picking anything up is uncomfortable, getting wellies off a physical nightmare that ended with me marooned on the floor, on my back, with a trapped nerve. Walking slowly, going very easy up and down stairs... hello I feel 85 years old.
I will pass on the fact that no matter how big the clothes that some friends have given me are, everything is too small. Or are leggings. As it gets colder, one just has to wrap up in more and more layers. Thankfully i finish work in a week and can just start rolling around in jogging bottoms and huge t-shirts, like the awful people you read about in "take a break".
Maybe the newest symptom, which has only developed recently is being shit-terrified. Now that the baby is live and kicking and present and, let's face it, pretty much alive even if it pops out tomorrow, I'm beginning to realise that this is all very nice but fuck, I'm going to be a mother! there is so much to think about, from where we're going to stock all the baby's stuff (we live in a two room 30 sq. metre flat! and babies seem to need more clothes than I do), how we're going to handle those first sleepless, stressful, chaotic weeks, when we're going to buy all the stuff and what the hell i'm going to drink over the Xmas period.
We're also a few weks before the ante-natal classes, and as a result I have had the reality check before the father has which can be kind of frustrating. For example he thought we could get the furniture and so on about a month before delivery (Ikea 8,5 months pregnant anyone?). I don't think he realises how much there is to do and the kind of organisation that's going to be required! Apparently this is the norm for guys who basically get a reality check when the sprog pops out. Not much good for clearing out cupboards and so on beforehand though!
anyway, this latest symptom, which includes feeling a little bitter, cynical, weepy and pissed off is clearly not the nicest of the second term. Still ten more days to go and we'll be in the third... and last before arrival.
More recently (I'm getting to the end of the second term), a few new uncomfortable symptoms have emerged, mostly linked with a huge gut (huuuge, I mean it). Bending over is impossible, sitting up is challenging, getting up is a painful, picking anything up is uncomfortable, getting wellies off a physical nightmare that ended with me marooned on the floor, on my back, with a trapped nerve. Walking slowly, going very easy up and down stairs... hello I feel 85 years old.
I will pass on the fact that no matter how big the clothes that some friends have given me are, everything is too small. Or are leggings. As it gets colder, one just has to wrap up in more and more layers. Thankfully i finish work in a week and can just start rolling around in jogging bottoms and huge t-shirts, like the awful people you read about in "take a break".
Maybe the newest symptom, which has only developed recently is being shit-terrified. Now that the baby is live and kicking and present and, let's face it, pretty much alive even if it pops out tomorrow, I'm beginning to realise that this is all very nice but fuck, I'm going to be a mother! there is so much to think about, from where we're going to stock all the baby's stuff (we live in a two room 30 sq. metre flat! and babies seem to need more clothes than I do), how we're going to handle those first sleepless, stressful, chaotic weeks, when we're going to buy all the stuff and what the hell i'm going to drink over the Xmas period.
We're also a few weks before the ante-natal classes, and as a result I have had the reality check before the father has which can be kind of frustrating. For example he thought we could get the furniture and so on about a month before delivery (Ikea 8,5 months pregnant anyone?). I don't think he realises how much there is to do and the kind of organisation that's going to be required! Apparently this is the norm for guys who basically get a reality check when the sprog pops out. Not much good for clearing out cupboards and so on beforehand though!
anyway, this latest symptom, which includes feeling a little bitter, cynical, weepy and pissed off is clearly not the nicest of the second term. Still ten more days to go and we'll be in the third... and last before arrival.
dimanche 22 juillet 2012
So here we are despising the tourists in Paris
Or should I rephrase to sound less grumpy? So here we are explaining to the tourists in Paris the fucking rules of "vivre ensemble" so that the locals don't despise them so much. That sounds a little long to me.
So, as they say here, pourquoi tant de haine? Poor tourists, visiting one of the most beautiful cities in the world, generally with cheerful good humour and injecting billions into the local economy, what have they done to merit such snootiness and disdain? I'd love to say that "it's not them tourists, it's us Parisians." It's partly true, due to the mentality and character of your basic Parisian. Read here for my analysis of this. But this is not the subject today.
To understand why Parisians get so annoyed with all things tourist it's important to understand how the city works. Paris is an incredibly dense city, with around 2,1 million inhabitants living in just over 100 sq. km²; that makes it nearly 21000 people per sq. km², and the 33rd densest city in the world, and four of its closest suburbs are in the top 20. (Thanks wikipedia). And that's just the people living there. As you can imagine millions more commute in and out of it every day for work. Like any ant nest, with all this to-ing and fro-ing, a certain amount of rigourous organisation is required and like a perfect Swiss watch, the force of things has made every individual move and routine interlinked.
Allow me to illustrate.
I start work at 9 o'clock in the 17th. This means I must leave the 10th at 8.15 to be comfortable and 8.21 if I'm pushing it. Anything after and I'm late. At 8.21 there will be a metro that takes me to Arts & Metiers station. The front of the train will be packed due to all the people getting off at République, the back relatively empty.
At Arts & Metiers I will see some regulars: the old man with a potato nose, the young smooth guy with a briefcase, a orthodox jew dad with his two kids and a few others. On the westward train, I know that the back of the train will be packed, but a lot of people get out at the next stop where they start work at 8.30. You almost always get a seat then.
At St Lazare, where the platform is packed and passengers risk falling on the rails, two-thirds get off and then everybody crams in. They work at Levallois at the end of the line (the 13th densest city in the world btw, and top in Europe) and start at 9 - 9.15.
When I get out and walk the rest to work it's five to nine and parents are running with pushchairs, a little late, to get their kids to the nearby school. It's all incredibly predictable, and one immediately knows when it's the school holidays, or a long bank holiday, or if there is something amazing happening like the Tour de France, because the pace and the routine change ever so slightly. And so it continues for every journey, every day, in public transport or on foot or in shops.
It's also how everything ticks along, because there is a place for everyone at a certain time and a certain place. And somehow, Parisians instinctively know all of this. For commuting, for going out, for relaxing, for eating.
And there are basic rules to apply to avoid clogging the smooth flow of people. Everything is geared for maximum efficiency.
The first is DO NOT IDLE ALONG IN THE STREET, taking up all the room on the pavement, ambling as if this were a beach or something. "Hellloooooo? I do not have time to crawl behind you; I need to grab a sandwich and be back at the office in 20 minutes."
Second, the same as above in the metro, DO NOT STAND AND GAWP GORMLESSLY IN THE METRO. It's not difficult to buy a ticket, and even if it is, you don't have to stand there consulting a map in the middle of a busy subterranean intersection.
RESPECT THE RULES OF THE METRO.
These are simple: you let people get out before you get in. To do that you stand on the platform on one side of the door. When the last person is off you may charge in.
You do not sit on the folding seats if it is packed.
If you have bulky pushchairs, suitcases and so on, you push your way to the back, away from the door so you don't prevent flow of people getting on and off.
If you are next to the door and a lot of people want to get off, YOU get off, pushing your way into the front of the queue which has formed on the platform by the side of the door.
In the metro mothers with huge pushchairs are usually quickly and efficiently helped up or down the stairs without a break in anyone's stride.
DO NOT ACT LIKE SHOPS ARE MUSEUM GIFT SHOPS. If you want cheese, buy it, don't stand there taking pictures of them all admiring their mould. If you don't know what to buy, ask the fromager in passable french for what you want, then take the ticket, go to the cash desk and pay. It should take between 20 seconds if you know what you want, and 4 minutes if you don't.
On ESCALATORS STAND ON THE RIGHT AND WALK ON THE LEFT. This applies to everyone, with or without luggage, pushchair, obese, etc.
With these rules, Paris never stops (none of this applies to traffic of course, you'd be mad to drive), people are constantly moving, generally pushing to go a little bit faster.
Tourists appear like clots at Christmas, Easter, late spring, then all of July and August in their masses. Suddenly the population seems to be wearing trainers and carrying maps, shouting on café terraces with huge shopping bags at their feet. They break the flow of the waiters and the shop assistants, the flow of the streets and the metro. They take pictures of the metro and stand in the middle of the street, or ride bicycles on the pavement.
One must also remember, in the poor Parisian's defense, that we would also like to hang out in Montmartre in the summer, or on the Champs de Mars, or in the Tuileries, because it's been a long winter and we really don't have that many green places to hang out in.
I was in the Tuileries, which runs from the Louvre to the place de la Concorde, last wednesday as the weather was good. Actually the sun was shining for the fist time in about 3 months and armed with book and water I went to find a chair and a spot. All the chairs were taken and, I regret to say that this is the absolute truth, taken by families of tourists who were using them as picnic tables or lying with their feet on them or just for resting their bags. "Yo guys! There's potentially 21000 of us needing a chair here! WTF!"
I asked for one and got it, brushed of the crumbs and crap and went for a quiet read in the sun. An incredible-looking Parisienne, in her late 60s, obtained a chair nearby and took out her magazines. She had short, perfectly bouffant red hair, and full make up: foundation, blue eyeshadow, red lipstick and nails like Rihanna, square and about 4 cms long. She had a coral crocodile handbag, 10cm beige stilettos and a pink silk shirt, with a matching carré Hermès tied around her neck. She sat there in the sun, I was amazed she didn't melt.
Nearby was a typical Parisian water fountain, the type you find in all the parks. Short, green, with a metal handle you turn to get the water flowing. Great fun for kids of course. So when a Spanish (?) family started to have a water fight a few meters from us, laughing and shouting and then picnicing loudly nearby, old Parisienne turned around and gave them a severe reprimand in pretty good english. She told me she lived Avenue MacMahon, right next to the Champs Elysées and Arc de Triomphe and she couldn't wait to leave Paris for the summer. It seems a bit mean I agree, but it sure was nice to be able to lie back in the sun and snooze a bit. None of us has a garden, a small terrace at best.
So dear tourists, it's not that the Parisians hate you per se, it's just that they think you take up so much room in an already tiny city, and when you block the streets by day and bellow in the streets by night, it's actually right on their way and under their windows. Paris looks like a museum but loads of people live here, and they don't like to have to queue at local shops or get stuck behind you in the metro. So if there can't be fewer of you, maybe you could be a bit less loud, or walk a bit faster, or stand up in the metro if it's packed. And stop asking the waiter for the bill, he'll bring it when it's ready.
So, as they say here, pourquoi tant de haine? Poor tourists, visiting one of the most beautiful cities in the world, generally with cheerful good humour and injecting billions into the local economy, what have they done to merit such snootiness and disdain? I'd love to say that "it's not them tourists, it's us Parisians." It's partly true, due to the mentality and character of your basic Parisian. Read here for my analysis of this. But this is not the subject today.
To understand why Parisians get so annoyed with all things tourist it's important to understand how the city works. Paris is an incredibly dense city, with around 2,1 million inhabitants living in just over 100 sq. km²; that makes it nearly 21000 people per sq. km², and the 33rd densest city in the world, and four of its closest suburbs are in the top 20. (Thanks wikipedia). And that's just the people living there. As you can imagine millions more commute in and out of it every day for work. Like any ant nest, with all this to-ing and fro-ing, a certain amount of rigourous organisation is required and like a perfect Swiss watch, the force of things has made every individual move and routine interlinked.
Allow me to illustrate.
I start work at 9 o'clock in the 17th. This means I must leave the 10th at 8.15 to be comfortable and 8.21 if I'm pushing it. Anything after and I'm late. At 8.21 there will be a metro that takes me to Arts & Metiers station. The front of the train will be packed due to all the people getting off at République, the back relatively empty.
At Arts & Metiers I will see some regulars: the old man with a potato nose, the young smooth guy with a briefcase, a orthodox jew dad with his two kids and a few others. On the westward train, I know that the back of the train will be packed, but a lot of people get out at the next stop where they start work at 8.30. You almost always get a seat then.
At St Lazare, where the platform is packed and passengers risk falling on the rails, two-thirds get off and then everybody crams in. They work at Levallois at the end of the line (the 13th densest city in the world btw, and top in Europe) and start at 9 - 9.15.
When I get out and walk the rest to work it's five to nine and parents are running with pushchairs, a little late, to get their kids to the nearby school. It's all incredibly predictable, and one immediately knows when it's the school holidays, or a long bank holiday, or if there is something amazing happening like the Tour de France, because the pace and the routine change ever so slightly. And so it continues for every journey, every day, in public transport or on foot or in shops.
It's also how everything ticks along, because there is a place for everyone at a certain time and a certain place. And somehow, Parisians instinctively know all of this. For commuting, for going out, for relaxing, for eating.
And there are basic rules to apply to avoid clogging the smooth flow of people. Everything is geared for maximum efficiency.
The first is DO NOT IDLE ALONG IN THE STREET, taking up all the room on the pavement, ambling as if this were a beach or something. "Hellloooooo? I do not have time to crawl behind you; I need to grab a sandwich and be back at the office in 20 minutes."
Second, the same as above in the metro, DO NOT STAND AND GAWP GORMLESSLY IN THE METRO. It's not difficult to buy a ticket, and even if it is, you don't have to stand there consulting a map in the middle of a busy subterranean intersection.
RESPECT THE RULES OF THE METRO.
These are simple: you let people get out before you get in. To do that you stand on the platform on one side of the door. When the last person is off you may charge in.
You do not sit on the folding seats if it is packed.
If you have bulky pushchairs, suitcases and so on, you push your way to the back, away from the door so you don't prevent flow of people getting on and off.
If you are next to the door and a lot of people want to get off, YOU get off, pushing your way into the front of the queue which has formed on the platform by the side of the door.
In the metro mothers with huge pushchairs are usually quickly and efficiently helped up or down the stairs without a break in anyone's stride.
DO NOT ACT LIKE SHOPS ARE MUSEUM GIFT SHOPS. If you want cheese, buy it, don't stand there taking pictures of them all admiring their mould. If you don't know what to buy, ask the fromager in passable french for what you want, then take the ticket, go to the cash desk and pay. It should take between 20 seconds if you know what you want, and 4 minutes if you don't.
On ESCALATORS STAND ON THE RIGHT AND WALK ON THE LEFT. This applies to everyone, with or without luggage, pushchair, obese, etc.
With these rules, Paris never stops (none of this applies to traffic of course, you'd be mad to drive), people are constantly moving, generally pushing to go a little bit faster.
Tourists appear like clots at Christmas, Easter, late spring, then all of July and August in their masses. Suddenly the population seems to be wearing trainers and carrying maps, shouting on café terraces with huge shopping bags at their feet. They break the flow of the waiters and the shop assistants, the flow of the streets and the metro. They take pictures of the metro and stand in the middle of the street, or ride bicycles on the pavement.
One must also remember, in the poor Parisian's defense, that we would also like to hang out in Montmartre in the summer, or on the Champs de Mars, or in the Tuileries, because it's been a long winter and we really don't have that many green places to hang out in.
I was in the Tuileries, which runs from the Louvre to the place de la Concorde, last wednesday as the weather was good. Actually the sun was shining for the fist time in about 3 months and armed with book and water I went to find a chair and a spot. All the chairs were taken and, I regret to say that this is the absolute truth, taken by families of tourists who were using them as picnic tables or lying with their feet on them or just for resting their bags. "Yo guys! There's potentially 21000 of us needing a chair here! WTF!"
I asked for one and got it, brushed of the crumbs and crap and went for a quiet read in the sun. An incredible-looking Parisienne, in her late 60s, obtained a chair nearby and took out her magazines. She had short, perfectly bouffant red hair, and full make up: foundation, blue eyeshadow, red lipstick and nails like Rihanna, square and about 4 cms long. She had a coral crocodile handbag, 10cm beige stilettos and a pink silk shirt, with a matching carré Hermès tied around her neck. She sat there in the sun, I was amazed she didn't melt.
Nearby was a typical Parisian water fountain, the type you find in all the parks. Short, green, with a metal handle you turn to get the water flowing. Great fun for kids of course. So when a Spanish (?) family started to have a water fight a few meters from us, laughing and shouting and then picnicing loudly nearby, old Parisienne turned around and gave them a severe reprimand in pretty good english. She told me she lived Avenue MacMahon, right next to the Champs Elysées and Arc de Triomphe and she couldn't wait to leave Paris for the summer. It seems a bit mean I agree, but it sure was nice to be able to lie back in the sun and snooze a bit. None of us has a garden, a small terrace at best.
So dear tourists, it's not that the Parisians hate you per se, it's just that they think you take up so much room in an already tiny city, and when you block the streets by day and bellow in the streets by night, it's actually right on their way and under their windows. Paris looks like a museum but loads of people live here, and they don't like to have to queue at local shops or get stuck behind you in the metro. So if there can't be fewer of you, maybe you could be a bit less loud, or walk a bit faster, or stand up in the metro if it's packed. And stop asking the waiter for the bill, he'll bring it when it's ready.
samedi 14 juillet 2012
So here we are telling the truth II
2) Single neurone syndrome (SNS), or unique brain cell condition (UBCC)
Known more popularly as "where the fuck am I and why am I here?". This was something I was totally unaware of about pregnancy: your brain actually shrivels and doesn't work. In my case, it has gone down to the size of a largish walnut, and can do about as much. Not very practical on a day to day basis. So you go down to the shops to get something you desperately need and stare glumly at the shelves. Or you're talking to somebody and mid-sentence you suddenly have no idea why or where this was going ("Ah yes, the kitchen is on fire"). Or you stare sadly at the person behind the desk who has just asked for your phone number, or the name of your doctor, or yours for that matter. Filling in forms takes ages, which is a shame as the paperwork required to fill in when you're expecting a baby is endless. Having meaningful conversations is just too exhausting: you have to take notes. So, you get the idea. One's brain is like the end result of a chronic drug abuser's meeting an Alzheimer-riddled one on a hangover. Only slightly less sharp. This is also why the sentences I write on this blog are getting ever shorter. It's just too confusing to play with syntax.
3) Constant peeing
does not start when you have a huge belly/baby pressing down on your bladder. It starts when you have a minuscule bump and tiny baby pressing down on your bladder. The annoying thing is that even though you need to go every HOUR or so, you don't actually have much to evacuate. So now we are like a hungover Alzheimer suffering chronic drug abuser with a prostate problem.
4) Exhaustion
Not a word to be taken lightly. The lack of 8 shots of espresso a day doesn't help, but there are clearly other maleficient forces at play. It's not about being a little dozy or feeling tired cos it's been a long week. It's waking up in the morning, going to work, and realising as you get there at 9 AM that you feel like you've already done a full and difficult day. It's eating lunch and realising that it's bedtime because your body has just retired for the day. It's sitting down to watch the news and waking up 3 hours later. Movements and speech slow down, instinctive reflexes disappear. Yawning becomes rampant. Again, so practical when your job is based on teaching people 6 hours a day. Doing simple things like going up and down stairs, carrying a bit of shopping, commuting and remembering the day of the week (SNS!) triggers the need to crawl around in a circle and settle down for the night. Still, it's pretty good to have an excuse to sleep about 11 hours a day as there probably won't be a lot of that in a few months. maybe i'll look back on this in 6 months or so and laugh bitterly, as the true definition of exhaustion willhave hit me in a whirl of night feeds and nappies. I'll keep you posted...
Known more popularly as "where the fuck am I and why am I here?". This was something I was totally unaware of about pregnancy: your brain actually shrivels and doesn't work. In my case, it has gone down to the size of a largish walnut, and can do about as much. Not very practical on a day to day basis. So you go down to the shops to get something you desperately need and stare glumly at the shelves. Or you're talking to somebody and mid-sentence you suddenly have no idea why or where this was going ("Ah yes, the kitchen is on fire"). Or you stare sadly at the person behind the desk who has just asked for your phone number, or the name of your doctor, or yours for that matter. Filling in forms takes ages, which is a shame as the paperwork required to fill in when you're expecting a baby is endless. Having meaningful conversations is just too exhausting: you have to take notes. So, you get the idea. One's brain is like the end result of a chronic drug abuser's meeting an Alzheimer-riddled one on a hangover. Only slightly less sharp. This is also why the sentences I write on this blog are getting ever shorter. It's just too confusing to play with syntax.
3) Constant peeing
does not start when you have a huge belly/baby pressing down on your bladder. It starts when you have a minuscule bump and tiny baby pressing down on your bladder. The annoying thing is that even though you need to go every HOUR or so, you don't actually have much to evacuate. So now we are like a hungover Alzheimer suffering chronic drug abuser with a prostate problem.
4) Exhaustion
Not a word to be taken lightly. The lack of 8 shots of espresso a day doesn't help, but there are clearly other maleficient forces at play. It's not about being a little dozy or feeling tired cos it's been a long week. It's waking up in the morning, going to work, and realising as you get there at 9 AM that you feel like you've already done a full and difficult day. It's eating lunch and realising that it's bedtime because your body has just retired for the day. It's sitting down to watch the news and waking up 3 hours later. Movements and speech slow down, instinctive reflexes disappear. Yawning becomes rampant. Again, so practical when your job is based on teaching people 6 hours a day. Doing simple things like going up and down stairs, carrying a bit of shopping, commuting and remembering the day of the week (SNS!) triggers the need to crawl around in a circle and settle down for the night. Still, it's pretty good to have an excuse to sleep about 11 hours a day as there probably won't be a lot of that in a few months. maybe i'll look back on this in 6 months or so and laugh bitterly, as the true definition of exhaustion willhave hit me in a whirl of night feeds and nappies. I'll keep you posted...
mardi 10 juillet 2012
So here we are telling the truth
Of course every women is different. That's the only thing all these different women can agree on. And this of course applies to pregnancy so, reader, be aware that within these pages you shall find only my experiences, no more no less. if you are expecting I can only hope that this is alien to you. If not, then you've been warned...
Also, this is written in no particular order (except maybe the most horrible painful spring to mind first).
1) Morning sickness.
Bullshit. Morning? Unless morning lasts 6 weeks and counting I'm not sure I get. So at first you feel fine. In fact you feel exactly the same as usual: you fancy nicotine and alcohol and coffee and food, preferably consumed together. Then one day you look at some pleasant ravioli in the fridge and hurl. Appetite disappears. Every smell (which is magnified to its millionth power) pulls on some long fragile cable that suspends the stomach and makes the guts wobble. The mildewy smell under the sink, the fresh paint, the cigarette smoke, the shower gel, the grilled sausages, candle wax, cooked spinach... everything sets off drool and retching.
Morning sickness set in around week 6, that's about 4 weeks after conception (just because). Chicken nuggets started it off. I really felt like some (I usually won't touch them) so microwaved some frozen at work. Big mistake. After that I could just about chew anything very bland but not swallow. The thought of anything made me feel horrible and perversely, the less you eat, the more the juices flow and the shittier you feel. The doctor, a.k.a Hitler, suggested 6 to 8 small meals a day, which apart from being physically impossible was not pratical. i spend around 6 hours a day in the company of students, teaching them English in a small training room or in their office. Not the right time to start making and eating ham sandwiches and washing apples.
The worst experience came on May 23rd, in a fashionable new restaurant in the 9th. Light, fresh, 3 course menu with wonderful ingredients and a real twist on classics. Cold fennel soup with vanilla and grilled almonds, tranluscent cod on a bed of bright green parsley puree. YUCK!! never has anything been so fragrant and creamy and sweet and green. I can't even remember dessert, I think I spent all evening in the loo.
One day things get better. you wake up without a cannon ball on your chest. Immediate panic of course because you think you've lost the baby, but no fear, the nausea does come back, in unexpected waves and at odd times, in the night, or in the metro, in the middle of a pronunciation exercise or in the middle of (a light) lunch.
The worst occured of course while teaching. I have many students, though I see most for only a week when they come for an intensive 42-hour course at the school. Others I have scattered in companies and extensive lessons, and I see them every fortnight or so in their office or at the school. General H. is one of the latter. A consultant for France's major defense company, he is a retired general and has seen a lot of battle, negociated extremely tricky situations and is basically a living history book ("War : 1970-2012"). He is also a pleasant, fluffy and dignified old chap, friendly and clearly rather conservative. I was feeling ok and was confident that my lesson would go well with Uncle H. We were at the annex, a small office a few streets away from the main school. It's in an old parisian building, and it has rooms leading off a very long and winding corridor; We were as far away from the loo as possible. Mid-lesson I felt the familiar symptoms (rising drool, need to sneeze, stomach churning battery acid) and excused myself, running down the endless corridor. Into the tiny loo and found relief, not with a gentle plop you understand but with a coughing, hacking, burping opera of empty stomach and hormones. Eventually I got up, red, tears streaming down my face and realised that the tiny window was open and that the concert had been echoing around the silent courtyard, straight into my classroom. When I got back, I understood that he thought I was drunk of hungover, so I told him the truth and he was delighted for me. That's the plus side. It's horrible but everyone is very nice.
Today I feel fine in the mornings but feel very sick in the afternoons, whether I eat, lightly, or not. There are good days and bad, and the saying that the sickness disappears at 12 weeks is certainly not applicable in my case. Things are better and I can face food. But not all of them all the time, and not sometimes not at all. To be fair, sometimes i can also eat like a monster.
So, at 14 weeks pregnant, i'm hoping that things will have settled before long. it wold be nice to gorge this summer after all.
Also, this is written in no particular order (except maybe the most horrible painful spring to mind first).
1) Morning sickness.
Bullshit. Morning? Unless morning lasts 6 weeks and counting I'm not sure I get. So at first you feel fine. In fact you feel exactly the same as usual: you fancy nicotine and alcohol and coffee and food, preferably consumed together. Then one day you look at some pleasant ravioli in the fridge and hurl. Appetite disappears. Every smell (which is magnified to its millionth power) pulls on some long fragile cable that suspends the stomach and makes the guts wobble. The mildewy smell under the sink, the fresh paint, the cigarette smoke, the shower gel, the grilled sausages, candle wax, cooked spinach... everything sets off drool and retching.
Morning sickness set in around week 6, that's about 4 weeks after conception (just because). Chicken nuggets started it off. I really felt like some (I usually won't touch them) so microwaved some frozen at work. Big mistake. After that I could just about chew anything very bland but not swallow. The thought of anything made me feel horrible and perversely, the less you eat, the more the juices flow and the shittier you feel. The doctor, a.k.a Hitler, suggested 6 to 8 small meals a day, which apart from being physically impossible was not pratical. i spend around 6 hours a day in the company of students, teaching them English in a small training room or in their office. Not the right time to start making and eating ham sandwiches and washing apples.
The worst experience came on May 23rd, in a fashionable new restaurant in the 9th. Light, fresh, 3 course menu with wonderful ingredients and a real twist on classics. Cold fennel soup with vanilla and grilled almonds, tranluscent cod on a bed of bright green parsley puree. YUCK!! never has anything been so fragrant and creamy and sweet and green. I can't even remember dessert, I think I spent all evening in the loo.
One day things get better. you wake up without a cannon ball on your chest. Immediate panic of course because you think you've lost the baby, but no fear, the nausea does come back, in unexpected waves and at odd times, in the night, or in the metro, in the middle of a pronunciation exercise or in the middle of (a light) lunch.
The worst occured of course while teaching. I have many students, though I see most for only a week when they come for an intensive 42-hour course at the school. Others I have scattered in companies and extensive lessons, and I see them every fortnight or so in their office or at the school. General H. is one of the latter. A consultant for France's major defense company, he is a retired general and has seen a lot of battle, negociated extremely tricky situations and is basically a living history book ("War : 1970-2012"). He is also a pleasant, fluffy and dignified old chap, friendly and clearly rather conservative. I was feeling ok and was confident that my lesson would go well with Uncle H. We were at the annex, a small office a few streets away from the main school. It's in an old parisian building, and it has rooms leading off a very long and winding corridor; We were as far away from the loo as possible. Mid-lesson I felt the familiar symptoms (rising drool, need to sneeze, stomach churning battery acid) and excused myself, running down the endless corridor. Into the tiny loo and found relief, not with a gentle plop you understand but with a coughing, hacking, burping opera of empty stomach and hormones. Eventually I got up, red, tears streaming down my face and realised that the tiny window was open and that the concert had been echoing around the silent courtyard, straight into my classroom. When I got back, I understood that he thought I was drunk of hungover, so I told him the truth and he was delighted for me. That's the plus side. It's horrible but everyone is very nice.
Today I feel fine in the mornings but feel very sick in the afternoons, whether I eat, lightly, or not. There are good days and bad, and the saying that the sickness disappears at 12 weeks is certainly not applicable in my case. Things are better and I can face food. But not all of them all the time, and not sometimes not at all. To be fair, sometimes i can also eat like a monster.
So, at 14 weeks pregnant, i'm hoping that things will have settled before long. it wold be nice to gorge this summer after all.
So here we are making it official
Gorgeous Chook and I are expecting a baby! or whatever the combination of our gene pools can muster. So far so good. I'm around three and a half months pregnant and apart from an extremely drunken family wedding and boozy holiday in the UK I've been pretty good (define good). Scans, blood tests and the rest indicate all's normal. So! the baby is due around mid January 2013.
That's the nice part. Now let's talk about uncontrollable farting, shall we?
That's the nice part. Now let's talk about uncontrollable farting, shall we?
So here we are fighting in the Hunger Games
The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
In a nutshell: in a post apocalyptic world where 12 districts are ruled under the Capitol's iron fist, Katniss Everdeen, our pubescent rebel, is selected for the Hunger Games where you either kill or are killed, for the amusement of all those watching on live TV.
The blurb: the theme sounds familiar because it is, maybe inspired by the cross-fertilisation of Battle Royale and Lord of the Flies. It is the potentially not-too-distant future and the world has been re-organised. Each of the twelve districts must select 2 teenagers who will be sent like modern gladiators to the Arena, a vast territory where the outcome is either glory or death. One doesn't get a glimpse of the Arena till well into the book, the first half of it dealing with the complex life and personnality of our heroin who struggles to help her family survive and her subsequent grooming as one of the selected. In fact much more of the book is dedicated to the setting of the harsh new world, the description of the characters and their complex relationships than to actual fighting. The themes of totalitarianism, love, duty, friendship and betrayal are much more present here than blind violence. Though the book can be read alone, it is clearly the foundation of what turned out to be a trilogy.
IMHO this was a lot better than I thought it would be. Panem is an interesting and unusual world and Katniss and her acolytes have rich and developed personalities that twist the storyline in unexpected ways. Though there is nothing new with the concept of the actual Hunger Games ( Battle Royale), the way they are portrayed here touch on the themes of reality TV, modern sponsorship and political repression. A pretty damn good holiday read all in all.
In a nutshell: in a post apocalyptic world where 12 districts are ruled under the Capitol's iron fist, Katniss Everdeen, our pubescent rebel, is selected for the Hunger Games where you either kill or are killed, for the amusement of all those watching on live TV.
The blurb: the theme sounds familiar because it is, maybe inspired by the cross-fertilisation of Battle Royale and Lord of the Flies. It is the potentially not-too-distant future and the world has been re-organised. Each of the twelve districts must select 2 teenagers who will be sent like modern gladiators to the Arena, a vast territory where the outcome is either glory or death. One doesn't get a glimpse of the Arena till well into the book, the first half of it dealing with the complex life and personnality of our heroin who struggles to help her family survive and her subsequent grooming as one of the selected. In fact much more of the book is dedicated to the setting of the harsh new world, the description of the characters and their complex relationships than to actual fighting. The themes of totalitarianism, love, duty, friendship and betrayal are much more present here than blind violence. Though the book can be read alone, it is clearly the foundation of what turned out to be a trilogy.
IMHO this was a lot better than I thought it would be. Panem is an interesting and unusual world and Katniss and her acolytes have rich and developed personalities that twist the storyline in unexpected ways. Though there is nothing new with the concept of the actual Hunger Games ( Battle Royale), the way they are portrayed here touch on the themes of reality TV, modern sponsorship and political repression. A pretty damn good holiday read all in all.
dimanche 15 janvier 2012
So here we are electioneering with Joan of Arc
Happy new year! And welcome to the official opening of the French presidential campaign 2012. Indeed, since the first of January, all announced candidates have been under scrutiny, and will be until round one on April 22nd; all their TV and radio appearances are now timed to guarantee perfect media-time equality. This is straightforward enough when announced candidates such as François Hollande (Parti Socialiste, credited as being next president if one takes any notice of the polls), Hervé Morin (Nouveau Centre, 0 to 1% depending on the day), François Bayrou (Modem, centrist, 7%) and others speak into the mike: their time is counted and the idea is that everyone will have spoken the same by the eve of the first round.
It gets a little more tricky whern it comes to counting the speech time of the unofficial candidates, the biggest of these being the current president, Nicolas Sarkozy. Sarkozy has yet to announce his running for election (though there is a 98% chance he will stand) and, as the President has a certain number of speeches, conferences and visits in his diary, it is turning out to be a nightmare deciding when Nicolas "the Prez" Sarkozy is talking as opposed to Nicolas "the candidate" Sarkozy is. To be fair, this is nothing new under the sun. All former French Presidents have waited until the last possible moment before declaring their second candidacy. Valery Giscard d'Estaing in '81 waited until March (and lost), Mitterand in '88 waited until March (and won), and Chirac in 2002 waited about the same (and won). The notable difference between these guys and Sarko is the latter gives a conference every couple of days.
The CSA, the French audiovisual watchdog that cares about such matters, has decided to analyse every word of every presidential intervention; when he talks about the need to pull together in a crisis it'll be considered legitimate President-talk; when he slams into the opposition talking about their insane fiscal policies it'll be docked off his speaking time.
But of course it's a fine line as was recently illustrated by the Joan of Arc episode. Joan of Arc, French national heroin, martyr saint and semi mythological peasant maid who is meant, aged 14 to have kicked the English out of France under God's guidance, was born 600 years ago (we think).
An important figure in French national consciousness, she has been for decades the possession of the far-right Front national who seen in her the young, guided and original French resistant, who was burned at the stake for heresy no less. Staunch National front supporters actually gather around Joan's gold statue next to the Louvre every first of may to celebrate the dedication and sacrifice of the "pucelle d'Orléans." So when her rather approximate 600th birthday came round Sarkozy decided to celebrate the event in Vaucouleurs, from where she launched her military campaign that eventually led her to Orléans and the coronation of Charles VII, over half a millenium ago...
Sarkozy is communications genius, and his use of symbols was already omnipresent in his 2007 campaign. In 2007, he accumulated refernces to the right, with the great Charles de Gaulle, resistant who saved France from the nazis and went on to become the founder of the Vth Republic, or Jean Moulin and André Malraux, major figures of the Resistance. More interestingly, he also appropriated a lot of left-wing figures, as early as January 2007 he was raving on about Jaurès and a little later Guy Moquet, the communist youth who was shot for resiting the Nazis (see post here).
Now that it's 2012, he needs to innovate and find some new unifying figures. Napoleon would be an idea but of course for Sarkozy such a choice is impossible. Since day one he has been accused of strutting around with the same megalomaniac ambitions as his fellow shorty "hyperpresident", and is often nicknamed Sarko Ier in the satirical publications. Impossible equally for Louis XIV, who as well as centralising France around Paris and modernising the country a great deal was also an egomaniac who called himswelf the Sun King.
So Sarkozy has gone into French mythology and craftily nicked, with excellent timing, the Jeanne d'Arc figure from the extreme right. A misunderstood character who ultimately led France out of the Dark Ages and the Hundred years War to independence, peace and prosperity. Remind you of anyone? And of course because this was a national hommage to a French heroin, it was the president who was doing all the work, not the candidate so the CSA can't charge him for this. What other mythological character associations can we get from Sarkozy before he declares his candidacy?
Sarkozy is communications genius, and his use of symbols was already omnipresent in his 2007 campaign. In 2007, he accumulated refernces to the right, with the great Charles de Gaulle, resistant who saved France from the nazis and went on to become the founder of the Vth Republic, or Jean Moulin and André Malraux, major figures of the Resistance. More interestingly, he also appropriated a lot of left-wing figures, as early as January 2007 he was raving on about Jaurès and a little later Guy Moquet, the communist youth who was shot for resiting the Nazis (see post here).
Now that it's 2012, he needs to innovate and find some new unifying figures. Napoleon would be an idea but of course for Sarkozy such a choice is impossible. Since day one he has been accused of strutting around with the same megalomaniac ambitions as his fellow shorty "hyperpresident", and is often nicknamed Sarko Ier in the satirical publications. Impossible equally for Louis XIV, who as well as centralising France around Paris and modernising the country a great deal was also an egomaniac who called himswelf the Sun King.
So Sarkozy has gone into French mythology and craftily nicked, with excellent timing, the Jeanne d'Arc figure from the extreme right. A misunderstood character who ultimately led France out of the Dark Ages and the Hundred years War to independence, peace and prosperity. Remind you of anyone? And of course because this was a national hommage to a French heroin, it was the president who was doing all the work, not the candidate so the CSA can't charge him for this. What other mythological character associations can we get from Sarkozy before he declares his candidacy?
lundi 26 décembre 2011
So here we are falling with giants
Fall of Giants by Ken Follett
In a nutshell: as always with Ken Follett in a nutshell is complicated as this volume, the first in a triolgy spanning the main events of the 20th century, is 850 pages long. Here goes. We start in 1911 in a small Welsh mining town. We meet several characters, Billy, teenage miner and his beautiful sister Ethel who works at the local rich man's house. We meet Fitz, the local rich man, and his Russian homesick wife. All these people and many moreare the center of a huge web of lives that span from the outbreak of the first world war, the Russian revolution and America's intervention in the war.
The blurb: Ken Follett is reproducing exactly the same tricks as with his previous books, Pillars of the Earth (read review here) and World without End (read review here). The idea is that we follow a cast of dozens, who are all more or less related, sometimes in the most improbable ways. The backdrop is a page turning 8-year chronology of the bloody trenches in northern France to the fragile start of the Soviet Union. We follow characters in the States and get a flavour of immigrant New York as America's politicians prepare for war. Miners, soldiers, diplomats, spies, princesses, revolutionnaries, suffragettes, politicians, criminals, everyone is represented and weaves together the history of that time.
Sometimes though the links between the people are bizarre: the sister of the young miner we meet in Wales at the beginning is the mother of the bastard child of Fitz whose wife is a Russian princess who murdered the mother of Grigori who becomes Lenin's close colleague and Lev who goes to New York but lands in Wales in the very same mining town where Maud the sister of the Earl is having an affair with the German spy who... and so on. It actually gets a bit confusing, and there is a lot of blood, battle and fighting in the second part of the book whereas the first was more focused on the characters.
IMHO this started to get a bit long and boring about three quarters in. There are a lot of people and plots and thought it is interesting to see the bigger picture develop, we start to lose track of reality as we swap from Russian revolution to New York underworld to suffragette London and and Westminster war councils. Good for people who like big complex war sagas written in a one big breath.
IMHO this started to get a bit long and boring about three quarters in. There are a lot of people and plots and thought it is interesting to see the bigger picture develop, we start to lose track of reality as we swap from Russian revolution to New York underworld to suffragette London and and Westminster war councils. Good for people who like big complex war sagas written in a one big breath.
So here we are turning thirty
Or, as I like to put it, 28 for the third time.
On Saturday December 17th, three days after the big 3-0, Anthony told me we were going out for dinner. It turns out that he is taking me to a bar we go to from time to time, and that olivia, my super mate, has organised a surprise party for me with my school friends, uni friends (from france, Brighton was understandably not represented), parents and generally nearest and dearest. I was given some lovely presents, thought the one that touched me most was a huge album my parents and Olivia compiled with pictures from 0-30 and all the people I love here and abroad. Wept like a baby and poor Marie, who had already trawled around Galeries Lafayette before Xmas with Chook to find my perfect pressies, had to mop up the rivers of mascara in the tiny loo. Thank you all so much forthat incredible surprise!
Merci à toi ma Miss pour cette surprise exceptionnelle et inoubliable, cette preuve d'amitié dont toi seule a le secret, pour tes efforts et ta réussite, et pour cette amitié sans laquelle je ne serais pas comblée comme je pense l'être. Love you OFDMV.
So here we are looking at the big picture
The Big Picture by Douglas Kennedy
In a nutshell: following an unfortunate series of events, Ben Bradford- Wall St lawyer and family man- has to fake his death and become another, leaving everything including his family and identity behind.
The blurb: written as a first person account by Ben Bradford, the first third of the book starts with an overview of his life as a successful lawyer complete with big salary, nice house, 2 kids, a wife who collects furniture and an interest in photography. A dramatic event however means that Ben has to quickly give up his comfortable yet dull life, and disappear without anyone knowing. He takes on a new identity and settles in a new environment in a small town in Montana, and the rest of this book deals with the theme of identity, i.e. are we who we say we are? who we'd like to be? are we a sum of our actions? and so on. Ultimately the real page-turning element here is the tension that builds up as one realises that taking on a new identity involves a lot more than a name change, especially when it's such a small world and no man is an island.
IMHO this is a fun, easy and pretty compulsive read. Though it is quite funny, the real grip is the fear that at some point our hero will be found out. Part road story, part surrealist coming-of-age story, part comedy, it has a similiar tone as The Dead Heart by the same author (read review here). Recommended a a nice book to curl up with in the evening.
In a nutshell: following an unfortunate series of events, Ben Bradford- Wall St lawyer and family man- has to fake his death and become another, leaving everything including his family and identity behind.
The blurb: written as a first person account by Ben Bradford, the first third of the book starts with an overview of his life as a successful lawyer complete with big salary, nice house, 2 kids, a wife who collects furniture and an interest in photography. A dramatic event however means that Ben has to quickly give up his comfortable yet dull life, and disappear without anyone knowing. He takes on a new identity and settles in a new environment in a small town in Montana, and the rest of this book deals with the theme of identity, i.e. are we who we say we are? who we'd like to be? are we a sum of our actions? and so on. Ultimately the real page-turning element here is the tension that builds up as one realises that taking on a new identity involves a lot more than a name change, especially when it's such a small world and no man is an island.
IMHO this is a fun, easy and pretty compulsive read. Though it is quite funny, the real grip is the fear that at some point our hero will be found out. Part road story, part surrealist coming-of-age story, part comedy, it has a similiar tone as The Dead Heart by the same author (read review here). Recommended a a nice book to curl up with in the evening.
jeudi 1 décembre 2011
So here we are thinking about a new EU treaty
Well! Sarkozy is on TV, live from a crammed concert hall in Toulon, giving some hot presidential speech. Blah blah blah, he was saying, right at the end (3 minutes before credits) that he had had to deal with a very horrible financial and economic catastrophe at Eurozone level with Merkel, using the framework of a rusty 1992 Maastricht treaty which turned the EEC in to the EU and invented the economic and monetary union.
Fair point. As he mentioned, the treaty provided clauses for preventive measures against financial meltdown, but no body to make sure they were properly applied. Penalties were devised in case of ridiculous deficits and debt levels, but nobody put them in place or used them. There were no institutions that could take over when things flew out of control. Which is why France and Germany have had to pile the steaming ruins of EU economies into a shit heap and sellotape it together.
Sarkozy explained the eurozone countries economies must converge or the euro will be either too weak for some and too strong for others. To do this, wait for it, it was necessary to draw up a new treaty which implements... economic governance at an EU level. France and Germany would strive for this.
BUT WHAT DOES IT MEAN?
Well, what it probably doesn't mean is that the new institution/level of power would be independent like the ECB, which stays firmly out of politics and lives to keep inflation down, cos that's part of the whole fucking problem, that monetary policy (printing the money) cannot be used in crisis situations, and that is why all the governments are focusing on fiscal policy (more money in taxes, less spending). But the Germans would never agree to that. Independent monetary policy is their condition. So what? A new branch of the commission that decides on centralised economic plans for each sovereign country? sounds unlikely. So maybe they're just going to start applying what's been written all along since the bloody Maastricht treaty, followed by Nice, Lisbon and so on.
So is this the scoop? It takes European rules 19 years to apply? or are we going a step further ijn EU integration with an incredible new political system, where a supranational economic governance (nment?) which is independent from the supranational central bank, has to face the specificities of each (sovereign?) eurozone member?
Can't wait to find out!
Fair point. As he mentioned, the treaty provided clauses for preventive measures against financial meltdown, but no body to make sure they were properly applied. Penalties were devised in case of ridiculous deficits and debt levels, but nobody put them in place or used them. There were no institutions that could take over when things flew out of control. Which is why France and Germany have had to pile the steaming ruins of EU economies into a shit heap and sellotape it together.
Sarkozy explained the eurozone countries economies must converge or the euro will be either too weak for some and too strong for others. To do this, wait for it, it was necessary to draw up a new treaty which implements... economic governance at an EU level. France and Germany would strive for this.
BUT WHAT DOES IT MEAN?
Well, what it probably doesn't mean is that the new institution/level of power would be independent like the ECB, which stays firmly out of politics and lives to keep inflation down, cos that's part of the whole fucking problem, that monetary policy (printing the money) cannot be used in crisis situations, and that is why all the governments are focusing on fiscal policy (more money in taxes, less spending). But the Germans would never agree to that. Independent monetary policy is their condition. So what? A new branch of the commission that decides on centralised economic plans for each sovereign country? sounds unlikely. So maybe they're just going to start applying what's been written all along since the bloody Maastricht treaty, followed by Nice, Lisbon and so on.
So is this the scoop? It takes European rules 19 years to apply? or are we going a step further ijn EU integration with an incredible new political system, where a supranational economic governance (nment?) which is independent from the supranational central bank, has to face the specificities of each (sovereign?) eurozone member?
Can't wait to find out!
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