Forget giving birth, broken bones and bad hangovers, real pain is the one experienced by people who have tooth problems. My fourth wisdom tooth had been playing up since May 2010 when I staggered around Venice, stoned on pain killers and rubbing my jaw. After a few weeks the pain had gone thanks to regular massage and a certain terror of the dentist, so I assumed all was well and that it was growing happily. And sure enough it started to poke through in the right place.
Ten days ago I came home from work feeling a bit sore around around the lower left side of my face and swallowed a couple of paracetemol. In the night I woke up realising that it now really hurt and was throbbing, and that my neighbour was playing music extremely loudly at 2.30 on a weeknight. I crossed the hall and hammered on her door; when she opened I opened my mouth to ask her to please turn it down. What came out was 'estchze qchze chtu peux echteintchrela muschiqsche'. She looked blank. While I was miming the perfectly obvious, her cat left her appartment causing me to cry out 'Chton Czstchat!'. This finished, I went back to bed pausing only to stare at a huge bloated bullfrog with a swollen neck in the mirror.
Friday at work was just embarassing as this type of condition does not suit the teaching profession. Saturday morning I went to the emergency dentist centre near Gare du Nord. The huge waiting room was full of people clutching various parts of their jaw, stoically waiting their turn. It's also the type of place you go to when you don't have private health insurance and the visible poverty of some made the place exceedingly grim, like a documentary on those the welfare state forgot.
Thankfully though this is France and it was pretty efficient. An X-ray showed that my poor fang was growing horizontally, pushing everything towards the centre on one side and digging in to my facial nerve on the other. The dentist cheerfully said this was a horrible emergency as my tooth could saw into tangled and mangled nerve causing paralysis. 'It's like a dolphin caught in a fishing net' he grinned. My huge left side throbbed in agony.
To cut a long story short, my deformed tusk (yes, tusk, the size and shape of a shark tooth or near) was whipped out with me on local anaesthetic . I felt ok if a bit woozy, but about 40 minutes later the pain kicked in and, a week on, hasn't really gone. Yeah sure I'm high as a kite on various doses of everything (teaching is fun again), but I still wake up in night to take a steroid paracetomol cocktail. It's getting much better and I had my stitches out today but fuck me has this been a screamingly horrid experience of sharp pain from the chin right up to the inside of the ear and dull tingling inside the skull. Not even counting I couldn't eat, smile or talk and have an open wound in my mouth.
All this brings me to say that we hold the ultimate proof that intelligent design is absolute bullshit. Why on earth do we still grow wisdom teeth if our modern, post neanderthal jaw is too small to cope with them? It's not like we've crunched sheep bones in the last few millenia . And go through all this pain? How the fuck do and did they manage when anaesthetic is crushed cloves? Time to bring out human v4.1, God.
samedi 26 novembre 2011
dimanche 6 novembre 2011
So here we are with Charlie Summers
The Hopeless Life of Charlie Summers by Paul Torday
In a nutshell: Hector Chetwode-Talbot, aka Eck, works for a London hedge fund and specialises in wining and dining his friends to get them to invest large sums of money in schemes that in these glorious early 2000s cannot go wrong. He meets Charlie Summers, a pathetic entrepreneur whose dodgy schemes make him cross paths several times with Eck, for better and for worse.
The blurb: First we are introduced to the narrator Eck, the amiable buffoon, who naively glides from dinner party to shooting party embarking his friends on hopelessly complicated investment schemes that the reader knows are doomed to fail as they involve the very investments that sent the financial world arse over tit in 2008. One of these excursions we meet Charlie, the opportunistic yet hopeless businessman looking to make a name for himself in the world of entrepreneurship.
As the novel progresses and their paths cross we realise that despite their differences, the two characters are strangely parallel, and when the inevitable happens and it all comes crashing down, the two men need each other to redeem themselves in ways that couldn't have been imagined before.
Like Salmon fishing in the Yemen (review here) and the Irresistable Inheritance of Wilberforce (review here) this novel gradually swings from comedy to tragedy, the light tone of the novel betraying a much deeper builup to a dark denouement.
IMHO Paul Torday is my favorite contemporary writer and this book just confirms it. A beautifully written easy read that carries with it a haunting storyline that stays with one for days.
In a nutshell: Hector Chetwode-Talbot, aka Eck, works for a London hedge fund and specialises in wining and dining his friends to get them to invest large sums of money in schemes that in these glorious early 2000s cannot go wrong. He meets Charlie Summers, a pathetic entrepreneur whose dodgy schemes make him cross paths several times with Eck, for better and for worse.
The blurb: First we are introduced to the narrator Eck, the amiable buffoon, who naively glides from dinner party to shooting party embarking his friends on hopelessly complicated investment schemes that the reader knows are doomed to fail as they involve the very investments that sent the financial world arse over tit in 2008. One of these excursions we meet Charlie, the opportunistic yet hopeless businessman looking to make a name for himself in the world of entrepreneurship.
As the novel progresses and their paths cross we realise that despite their differences, the two characters are strangely parallel, and when the inevitable happens and it all comes crashing down, the two men need each other to redeem themselves in ways that couldn't have been imagined before.
Like Salmon fishing in the Yemen (review here) and the Irresistable Inheritance of Wilberforce (review here) this novel gradually swings from comedy to tragedy, the light tone of the novel betraying a much deeper builup to a dark denouement.
IMHO Paul Torday is my favorite contemporary writer and this book just confirms it. A beautifully written easy read that carries with it a haunting storyline that stays with one for days.
So here we are cussing Tunisia
This is such a negative title for my first post of the year. Let's start with what was good about our 4 day trip to Tunisia, which took place at the end of October.
Well the wine was really nice.
OK, so back to cussing Tunisia.
To be fair, everything that could go wrong did go wrong. In order: Air France was on strike, we got badly ripped off the second we arrived, the weather was catastrophic, we got the runs, the museum (that was dry unlike the rest of the country) was mostly shut...
You could argue the Air France strike was not Tunisia's fault, and that we got there in the end. You could argue that the weather was not Tunisia's fault either but it certainly didn't help.
We'd chosen Tunis, and more specifically its suburb Sidi Bou Said, a pittoresque cliff top village all painted in blue and white as a base to escape the onset of cold and grim weather in Europe. The plan was to relax in the North African autumn sun, going for beach side strolls and visiting the incredible Roman sites around the capital, more specifically Carthage which is part of Tunis and Dougga, the Tunisian Pompei which is about 150 km away.
The worst rain to hit the country ever put a bit of a damper on these (pun etc...). Though we realised at the time that it was bad, we later heard that people had died as the equivalent of 2 months rain fell in 2 days, putting severe pressure on the country's medieval infrastructure (exploding drains anyone?), flooding the city and generally causing a lot of damage.
We experienced this when, eager and rested after an easy afternoon wandering around and snoozing, we ventured off on the Sunday to Carthage, the suburb town just a few minutes train ride away and former capital of the Punic civilisation that occupied this part of Tunisia 2000 years ago before getting sacked and destroyed by the Romans.
We got the little train at Sidi bou said station, a few minutes walk down the steep hill on which the village is perched overlooking the marina. Less than a dinar (0,50 cents) for the two of us to get to Carthage, four or five stops down the line. When we got to there we realised that the rainwater was forming huge puddles every few feet by the side of the road and that making it anywhere with dry socks was going to be complicated.
We ended up cutting our losses and wading, and then set off in search of Carthage museum, one of the many sites we were going to visit that day. A good twenty minute walk up a hill, past huge designer houses with black window tinted Jeeps outside and we got to a huge soggy and flooded archaelogical site with an impressive 19th century mansion overlooking it. We spent a shivery hour in the Museum before we realised that we were coming down with pneumonia. Found a taxi outside who cheerfully announced that he would drive us back to Sidi but for a more expensive fee than usual as it was raining and we were clearly desperate. At least he was open about it.
The next day was crisper, cloudy but with the occasional sunbeam so we put on our dry clothes and set off back to Carthage. We started with the temple of Tophet, a site with three distinct layers of Punic and Roman remains, though we only ever really identified two. According to the Romans, the inhabitants of Carthage would sacrifice babies here, burning them in a kind of brick oven (which is still distinguishable) after slitting their throats. Ashes would then be put in clay jars stacked row upon row. Some historians argue that these sacrifices were actually stillborn or deceased children.
Saw some Punic columns with inscriptions and representations of Baal scattered around and hundreds of bits of broken clay pots crushed in the ground.
These amphoras dating back two millenia are so common that they are ground up and used on tennis courts, or used by local fishermen to weigh down their nets. We saw dozens neatly stacked up on the site of the Punic war port, which is a perfectly circular harbour giving on to the sea,and is still used today by fishermen.
As we settled down on a seaside terrace for a frugal lunch of fish and red wine, the storm rolled in from the jade couloured sea. It started slashing it down but we refused to be abashed, as at this rate we would have seen sweet piss all of anything; We trudged to another site, again of depressions in the earth, columns, wells and flashes of mosaic on the ground when the heavens opened. We took refuge in a hut with a couple of other glum tourists wearing T-shirts and flip flops. Feeling more confident in our anoraks, pullovers, umbrella and sensible shoes we decided to persevere and go to the Antonin Roman Baths, a huge site just down the road. We got there and went in to the vast area, which is like a Mediterranean garden with tombs and columns scatterd around, and the vast Bath buildings to the right. These are ruins but one can see the cathedral high columns which once supported the roof and make out the various bathing rooms and underground passages that carried the water, as well as the incredible drainage system (which failed to work that day). It was magical having the place just for us but as the water rose and we got wetter and wetter, the situation was pretty quickly ridiculous. We ignored the notices saying we couldn't climb on the ruins as it was the only way to stay above the waterline.
Once again, we cut our losses, and standing in the middle of the overflowing intersection got a cab home.
Our last day, we went to Bardo, a town just west and more or less adjacent to Tunis to see the renowned Bardo museum, home to many ancient mosaics. They are absolutely fabulous, covering scenes of feasting and myths and incredible sea creatures and allegories and scenes of everyday life.
We saw the later (Christian era) stuff, whichwas actually much less intricate, especially when it came to portraits. This is because early Christianity forbade depiction of allliving things- like Islam- and so portraits could only be done for tombs once the person was deceased which led to a lack of practice and loss of certain techniques.
We inquired how the mosaics got from the sites to the museum ( rip it up and reassemble jigsaw style?). It turns out that superstrong glue is poured on the mosaic, covered witha sheet of something, and the whole thing is ripped off. Kind of like waxing it would seem. It is then laid out on a new surface -concrete like the floors of the museum which are also covered in them, plaster like the walls- and the glue is dissolved off. .
We went into Tunis and walked around the Medina, having gone past the heavily barb-wired place Kasba around whichthere are a coupls of ministries and official government buildings. A tank was parked in the flower beds and there were soldiers with machine guns,but all around life rattled on. There were a lot of election posters of all the candidates (over 75) and some elderly women were yelling at soldiers. The medina is made up of zigzagging narrow streets, sometimes outside, sometimes under plastic sheeting , sometimes under a stone roof. There are shops, which become very dense as you hit the souk, but also little courtyards, artisan shops, houses, schools and a lot of people scurrying around in this maze dodging puddles with plastic bags on their heads.
That evening we made it to the airport in time to relax a little before boarding. saw several young men, severly wounded and either in leg casts or bandaged up in soggy looking cloth that dripped red. A plane from Tripoli had come in and we wondered if they came from there. Lots of Libyan flags and badges for sale. We had time for a final half bottle of lovely Nuit et Jour red wine, a fruity and peppery Shiraz, Cab sauv mix.
Also good as we found out as we spent fortunes in various restaurants for lack of anything better to do during our trip were the hearty Magon and Chateau Magon reds, but also the flowery Muscat white. It all goes perfectly with the best of Tunisian eating (once one has got past the excitement of briks, couscous and endless fresh fish served grilled), which are the nibbles one gets at the beginning of a meal. Little chunks of tuna in oil sitting on a mound of fiery harissa. Pickled sliced vegetables not unlike Korean kimchi. Little triangular goat cheese briks, carot sticks and chili and sliced boiled eggs. In one place we even got a palm sized whole fried fish.
Full of Tunisian red wine we hobbled back to Paris, actually feeling quite relieved to get home. It's put us off travelling for a bit, which is lucky cos we can't afford to go anywhere!
Well the wine was really nice.
OK, so back to cussing Tunisia.
To be fair, everything that could go wrong did go wrong. In order: Air France was on strike, we got badly ripped off the second we arrived, the weather was catastrophic, we got the runs, the museum (that was dry unlike the rest of the country) was mostly shut...
You could argue the Air France strike was not Tunisia's fault, and that we got there in the end. You could argue that the weather was not Tunisia's fault either but it certainly didn't help.
We'd chosen Tunis, and more specifically its suburb Sidi Bou Said, a pittoresque cliff top village all painted in blue and white as a base to escape the onset of cold and grim weather in Europe. The plan was to relax in the North African autumn sun, going for beach side strolls and visiting the incredible Roman sites around the capital, more specifically Carthage which is part of Tunis and Dougga, the Tunisian Pompei which is about 150 km away.
The worst rain to hit the country ever put a bit of a damper on these (pun etc...). Though we realised at the time that it was bad, we later heard that people had died as the equivalent of 2 months rain fell in 2 days, putting severe pressure on the country's medieval infrastructure (exploding drains anyone?), flooding the city and generally causing a lot of damage.
We experienced this when, eager and rested after an easy afternoon wandering around and snoozing, we ventured off on the Sunday to Carthage, the suburb town just a few minutes train ride away and former capital of the Punic civilisation that occupied this part of Tunisia 2000 years ago before getting sacked and destroyed by the Romans.
We got the little train at Sidi bou said station, a few minutes walk down the steep hill on which the village is perched overlooking the marina. Less than a dinar (0,50 cents) for the two of us to get to Carthage, four or five stops down the line. When we got to there we realised that the rainwater was forming huge puddles every few feet by the side of the road and that making it anywhere with dry socks was going to be complicated.
We ended up cutting our losses and wading, and then set off in search of Carthage museum, one of the many sites we were going to visit that day. A good twenty minute walk up a hill, past huge designer houses with black window tinted Jeeps outside and we got to a huge soggy and flooded archaelogical site with an impressive 19th century mansion overlooking it. We spent a shivery hour in the Museum before we realised that we were coming down with pneumonia. Found a taxi outside who cheerfully announced that he would drive us back to Sidi but for a more expensive fee than usual as it was raining and we were clearly desperate. At least he was open about it.
The next day was crisper, cloudy but with the occasional sunbeam so we put on our dry clothes and set off back to Carthage. We started with the temple of Tophet, a site with three distinct layers of Punic and Roman remains, though we only ever really identified two. According to the Romans, the inhabitants of Carthage would sacrifice babies here, burning them in a kind of brick oven (which is still distinguishable) after slitting their throats. Ashes would then be put in clay jars stacked row upon row. Some historians argue that these sacrifices were actually stillborn or deceased children.
Saw some Punic columns with inscriptions and representations of Baal scattered around and hundreds of bits of broken clay pots crushed in the ground.
These amphoras dating back two millenia are so common that they are ground up and used on tennis courts, or used by local fishermen to weigh down their nets. We saw dozens neatly stacked up on the site of the Punic war port, which is a perfectly circular harbour giving on to the sea,and is still used today by fishermen.
As we settled down on a seaside terrace for a frugal lunch of fish and red wine, the storm rolled in from the jade couloured sea. It started slashing it down but we refused to be abashed, as at this rate we would have seen sweet piss all of anything; We trudged to another site, again of depressions in the earth, columns, wells and flashes of mosaic on the ground when the heavens opened. We took refuge in a hut with a couple of other glum tourists wearing T-shirts and flip flops. Feeling more confident in our anoraks, pullovers, umbrella and sensible shoes we decided to persevere and go to the Antonin Roman Baths, a huge site just down the road. We got there and went in to the vast area, which is like a Mediterranean garden with tombs and columns scatterd around, and the vast Bath buildings to the right. These are ruins but one can see the cathedral high columns which once supported the roof and make out the various bathing rooms and underground passages that carried the water, as well as the incredible drainage system (which failed to work that day). It was magical having the place just for us but as the water rose and we got wetter and wetter, the situation was pretty quickly ridiculous. We ignored the notices saying we couldn't climb on the ruins as it was the only way to stay above the waterline.
Once again, we cut our losses, and standing in the middle of the overflowing intersection got a cab home.
Our last day, we went to Bardo, a town just west and more or less adjacent to Tunis to see the renowned Bardo museum, home to many ancient mosaics. They are absolutely fabulous, covering scenes of feasting and myths and incredible sea creatures and allegories and scenes of everyday life.
We saw the later (Christian era) stuff, whichwas actually much less intricate, especially when it came to portraits. This is because early Christianity forbade depiction of allliving things- like Islam- and so portraits could only be done for tombs once the person was deceased which led to a lack of practice and loss of certain techniques.
We inquired how the mosaics got from the sites to the museum ( rip it up and reassemble jigsaw style?). It turns out that superstrong glue is poured on the mosaic, covered witha sheet of something, and the whole thing is ripped off. Kind of like waxing it would seem. It is then laid out on a new surface -concrete like the floors of the museum which are also covered in them, plaster like the walls- and the glue is dissolved off. .
We went into Tunis and walked around the Medina, having gone past the heavily barb-wired place Kasba around whichthere are a coupls of ministries and official government buildings. A tank was parked in the flower beds and there were soldiers with machine guns,but all around life rattled on. There were a lot of election posters of all the candidates (over 75) and some elderly women were yelling at soldiers. The medina is made up of zigzagging narrow streets, sometimes outside, sometimes under plastic sheeting , sometimes under a stone roof. There are shops, which become very dense as you hit the souk, but also little courtyards, artisan shops, houses, schools and a lot of people scurrying around in this maze dodging puddles with plastic bags on their heads.
That evening we made it to the airport in time to relax a little before boarding. saw several young men, severly wounded and either in leg casts or bandaged up in soggy looking cloth that dripped red. A plane from Tripoli had come in and we wondered if they came from there. Lots of Libyan flags and badges for sale. We had time for a final half bottle of lovely Nuit et Jour red wine, a fruity and peppery Shiraz, Cab sauv mix.
Also good as we found out as we spent fortunes in various restaurants for lack of anything better to do during our trip were the hearty Magon and Chateau Magon reds, but also the flowery Muscat white. It all goes perfectly with the best of Tunisian eating (once one has got past the excitement of briks, couscous and endless fresh fish served grilled), which are the nibbles one gets at the beginning of a meal. Little chunks of tuna in oil sitting on a mound of fiery harissa. Pickled sliced vegetables not unlike Korean kimchi. Little triangular goat cheese briks, carot sticks and chili and sliced boiled eggs. In one place we even got a palm sized whole fried fish.
Full of Tunisian red wine we hobbled back to Paris, actually feeling quite relieved to get home. It's put us off travelling for a bit, which is lucky cos we can't afford to go anywhere!
jeudi 23 décembre 2010
So here we are welcoming you to France
Before we start, a quick question: in which country was the secretary of State accused of and charged with racism, having said that "when there is one Arab, it's ok, but when there are many it's a problem"? Where, and when, would it be considered the norm to invent statistics linked to a particular ethnic group? And where in the world would these stats then be used to formulate and justify policies, such as deportatation?
Welcome to France 2010.
A few evenings ago on a Saturday night I met up with a few friends for a drink in Paris. Two, out of the six of us, work for the Police; both are located in commissariats in shitty towns in the worst suburbs of Paris- nobody's dream destination, but where they put the green policemen. Both answer to the Ministre de L'Intérieur, Brice Hortefeux, a long term buddy of Sarkozy's and, as mentioned above, guilty of the most ridiculous statement about Arabs (which he gracefully coined during a filmed political meeting where Arabs -or maybe just one?- were present, which also gives you an idea of his IQ. Potentially, the funniest thing about this was that he defended himself by saying that he didn't mean the Arabs, but the Auvergnats, the people who live in the region in central France! much better).
During the conversation, one of the two casually mentioned that a few weeks previously, in the middle of the "Roma crisis", they had received a call from head office, asking all the commissariats in France to give that year's criminality rate for the Romas. Problem is, it is unconstitutional in France- in the name of the indivisible and unified Republic- to gather statistics based on race, colour or religion. The answer to that was: make them up, which the policemen in every police station dutifully did. A while later this figure appeared in the newspapers: 80% increase in Roma criminality! And this led to not very much noise being made when the Roma camps were dismantled and people, including women and children, being loaded on to coaches and deported back to Romania and Bulgaria (mainly). For more information on this and its absurd application, read here.
This left me gobsmacked but nobody really seemed to react. When I pressed my friend- a decent, honest, left winger who joined the police force in order to be useful to society- why on earth the fuck was he thinking?? he answered: we didn't have a choice. When I put on a German accent (I was admittedly a little drunk) and mentioned "vee vere just obeying orders" all hell broke loose, I was accused of French bashing and became friendless.
This is what I would like to analyse: where does the statistical problem stem from and why does it matter, but also on a more personal level why am I so profoundly shocked by this whereas my friends are not or, rather, have already declared defeat?
On the question of statistics. As said, France does not allow any kind of information gathering when it comes to ethnic origin, though this can of course be grossly estimated with name (dixit the police) and address. This is why a huge amount of discrimination occurs on the job market, where, ceteris paribus, Jean-Benoit Dupont from Paris will have less trouble finding a job than Mohammed Abdel Bouna from Argenteuil. The logic behind the lack of stats dates back from the collaborationist France, which denounced and deported hundreds of thousands of Jews (and Romas!) during WW2 and the Algeria fiasco. From after the war, France had no colour, no religion and no overseas origins; you were born and/or became French: republican, secular, invested in meritcracv, democracy and brotherly love.
Absolutely fabulous on paper, and one of the reasons why I am devoutely francophile, but one should not lose sight of a little Realpolitik here. If it's a question using of stats when it comes to internal police affairs or making up the figures randomly, I think the former is closer to what the original republic had in mind. If there are stats and it turns out the Romas are illegally settled and criminally surviving, then policies could, and should be formulated. While we're at it we could turn back the clock and find out if it really was the "French with Arab origin-muslim" youths that rioted around Paris in 2005 (as opposed to a much more varied population of poor and desperate). And we could also check out whether wealth in Guadeloupe is correlated to colour (a massive yes there). The fact is, stats reveal the truth, which may be uncomfortable. It is then up to politicians to find solutions and for everyone, especially the media to make sure that the stats are calculated scientifically and independently, and not manipulated.
This coming from a person who can see the philosophical point in not having statistiques ethniques. My point is, simply, that if one needs them one could have them implemented which would always be better than simply plucking them out of thin air.
On the second point I must be careful with what I say. I have been told that I am a French basher and a hypocrite and that I am far too critical. I can see where the first two points come from, but I refuse to not be critical of such news. I think this betrays a fundemental difference between our views on personal responsability and how this has changed the course of history.
Though I am fully aware of the cliché and the weight of the term, I am convinced this goes back to when France collaborated with the nazis. When Maréchal Pétain decided it was better for France as a nation to cut its losses and give in to Hitler. All over the country people complained, but it was a million little wrists stamping the deportation documents, a million ankles pedalling over the place delivering food and documents and a million hands making the weapons and all the body of the nation working actively, though minutely, to animate the occupied monster. I have no doubt whatsoever that Britain would have fared much better. We will never know, only that being an island has its advantages. But no matter: the fact is the Brits are in the comfortable position of knowing that it never happened to them and can build on values such as stiff uper lipness, Blitz courage and the belief in bulldogs.
In France however, there hasn't been anything very positive to milk from the war experience, except for the Resistance, the underground network of opposition that the bravest took part in, at the risk of their lives. From to Gaulle to Guy Moquet to Jean Moulin, the heroes of the Resistance are the heroes of France. The issue is that only a minute part of the population resisted. Fear, despair, defeat, pessimism, indifference and approval of the new régime made 98% of occupied France go along with things, i.e. everybody, people like you and me and all the people we know. Your only link to resistance would be a teacher you once knew, or the communist freak from high school.
But that's not how it's taught in history class, or at least wasn't when I was at school (like Algeria and colonialism). My experience of the lessons are that the Maréchal Pétain was a senile 80 year old who didn't have a clue about what was going on, and that he was hoping to make a deal with Hitler which totally backfired. The population bravely resisted. History books focus on the bravery of a few (Guy Moquet who was executed at 17 wrote a gut-wrenching letter, which is read out every year), the danger of the occupier and the late arrival of the US in the war.
Only when I arrived at University, in the UK I might add, did I read serious books on the subject and discovered in one analysis an interesting portrait of post-Vichy France. Henry Rousso describes le syndrome de vichy and describes four phases. The first, le deuil inachevé, "the unfinished mourning", until the mid fifties where france woke up from the bad dream and saw the steaming remains of war. Hundreds of officials and high-level fonctionnaires were condemned (people looked upwards when it was time to name the guilty), but faced with the need to rebuild, France couldn't charge all who were guilty! The second phase, refoulement, "blocking out" lasted until the early 70s, and was when the heroes were named (including the communists) and myth of widespread resistance appeared. From 1971 to 1974 Rousso talks of the "broken mirror" where a new post-war generation comes into politics and contests the power of De Gaulle. Finally, the Vichy syndrom which lasts until today and is characterised by a national uneasy feeling of shame and frequent (though less so these last few years) bursts of mass media sensationnalisme (finding octogeneraian collaborators, discovering president Mittérand's role in the war and the Vichy government, trials).
Henry Rousso concludes that all this led to a lack of action, shoving dust under the carpet, a general feeling of guilt but without any clear distinction between those who actively took part, or whose parents did, and how much they invested themselves in it. Chirac recognising the French State's guilt in 1995 was a symbolic measure but, in my opinion simply added to the vagueness of it all. After all, what is the State- including-especially!- the police, if not each and every one of us who takes part in it? My belief is that France has never had the comfortable position of Britain saying "look! we defeated those fritzy bastards", but has never been able to look inward and ask, but how did we get to that? what was the tipping point? and could I be the drop of water that made France capitulate?
This all gets dramatic when brought back to the original concept, but the idea is: if you are wearing a uniform, or represent the State, do you not have the obligation to refuse when you are asked to do something illegal?
In the shorter run, as I have immense faith in the French nation and do not think it will topple into fascisme any time soon, it will be interesting to see what this does to the National Front's 2012 presidential elction score. "A 8O% increase in Roma criminality, eh? Told you we should kick the thieving gipsies out. And Europe too while we're at it. 10 million immigrants (including yours truly) and 5 million unemployed, you know". Marine le Pen said that on tv. And one French in 4 agrees with her.
Welcome to France 2010.
A few evenings ago on a Saturday night I met up with a few friends for a drink in Paris. Two, out of the six of us, work for the Police; both are located in commissariats in shitty towns in the worst suburbs of Paris- nobody's dream destination, but where they put the green policemen. Both answer to the Ministre de L'Intérieur, Brice Hortefeux, a long term buddy of Sarkozy's and, as mentioned above, guilty of the most ridiculous statement about Arabs (which he gracefully coined during a filmed political meeting where Arabs -or maybe just one?- were present, which also gives you an idea of his IQ. Potentially, the funniest thing about this was that he defended himself by saying that he didn't mean the Arabs, but the Auvergnats, the people who live in the region in central France! much better).
During the conversation, one of the two casually mentioned that a few weeks previously, in the middle of the "Roma crisis", they had received a call from head office, asking all the commissariats in France to give that year's criminality rate for the Romas. Problem is, it is unconstitutional in France- in the name of the indivisible and unified Republic- to gather statistics based on race, colour or religion. The answer to that was: make them up, which the policemen in every police station dutifully did. A while later this figure appeared in the newspapers: 80% increase in Roma criminality! And this led to not very much noise being made when the Roma camps were dismantled and people, including women and children, being loaded on to coaches and deported back to Romania and Bulgaria (mainly). For more information on this and its absurd application, read here.
This left me gobsmacked but nobody really seemed to react. When I pressed my friend- a decent, honest, left winger who joined the police force in order to be useful to society- why on earth the fuck was he thinking?? he answered: we didn't have a choice. When I put on a German accent (I was admittedly a little drunk) and mentioned "vee vere just obeying orders" all hell broke loose, I was accused of French bashing and became friendless.
This is what I would like to analyse: where does the statistical problem stem from and why does it matter, but also on a more personal level why am I so profoundly shocked by this whereas my friends are not or, rather, have already declared defeat?
On the question of statistics. As said, France does not allow any kind of information gathering when it comes to ethnic origin, though this can of course be grossly estimated with name (dixit the police) and address. This is why a huge amount of discrimination occurs on the job market, where, ceteris paribus, Jean-Benoit Dupont from Paris will have less trouble finding a job than Mohammed Abdel Bouna from Argenteuil. The logic behind the lack of stats dates back from the collaborationist France, which denounced and deported hundreds of thousands of Jews (and Romas!) during WW2 and the Algeria fiasco. From after the war, France had no colour, no religion and no overseas origins; you were born and/or became French: republican, secular, invested in meritcracv, democracy and brotherly love.
Absolutely fabulous on paper, and one of the reasons why I am devoutely francophile, but one should not lose sight of a little Realpolitik here. If it's a question using of stats when it comes to internal police affairs or making up the figures randomly, I think the former is closer to what the original republic had in mind. If there are stats and it turns out the Romas are illegally settled and criminally surviving, then policies could, and should be formulated. While we're at it we could turn back the clock and find out if it really was the "French with Arab origin-muslim" youths that rioted around Paris in 2005 (as opposed to a much more varied population of poor and desperate). And we could also check out whether wealth in Guadeloupe is correlated to colour (a massive yes there). The fact is, stats reveal the truth, which may be uncomfortable. It is then up to politicians to find solutions and for everyone, especially the media to make sure that the stats are calculated scientifically and independently, and not manipulated.
This coming from a person who can see the philosophical point in not having statistiques ethniques. My point is, simply, that if one needs them one could have them implemented which would always be better than simply plucking them out of thin air.
On the second point I must be careful with what I say. I have been told that I am a French basher and a hypocrite and that I am far too critical. I can see where the first two points come from, but I refuse to not be critical of such news. I think this betrays a fundemental difference between our views on personal responsability and how this has changed the course of history.
Though I am fully aware of the cliché and the weight of the term, I am convinced this goes back to when France collaborated with the nazis. When Maréchal Pétain decided it was better for France as a nation to cut its losses and give in to Hitler. All over the country people complained, but it was a million little wrists stamping the deportation documents, a million ankles pedalling over the place delivering food and documents and a million hands making the weapons and all the body of the nation working actively, though minutely, to animate the occupied monster. I have no doubt whatsoever that Britain would have fared much better. We will never know, only that being an island has its advantages. But no matter: the fact is the Brits are in the comfortable position of knowing that it never happened to them and can build on values such as stiff uper lipness, Blitz courage and the belief in bulldogs.
In France however, there hasn't been anything very positive to milk from the war experience, except for the Resistance, the underground network of opposition that the bravest took part in, at the risk of their lives. From to Gaulle to Guy Moquet to Jean Moulin, the heroes of the Resistance are the heroes of France. The issue is that only a minute part of the population resisted. Fear, despair, defeat, pessimism, indifference and approval of the new régime made 98% of occupied France go along with things, i.e. everybody, people like you and me and all the people we know. Your only link to resistance would be a teacher you once knew, or the communist freak from high school.
But that's not how it's taught in history class, or at least wasn't when I was at school (like Algeria and colonialism). My experience of the lessons are that the Maréchal Pétain was a senile 80 year old who didn't have a clue about what was going on, and that he was hoping to make a deal with Hitler which totally backfired. The population bravely resisted. History books focus on the bravery of a few (Guy Moquet who was executed at 17 wrote a gut-wrenching letter, which is read out every year), the danger of the occupier and the late arrival of the US in the war.
Only when I arrived at University, in the UK I might add, did I read serious books on the subject and discovered in one analysis an interesting portrait of post-Vichy France. Henry Rousso describes le syndrome de vichy and describes four phases. The first, le deuil inachevé, "the unfinished mourning", until the mid fifties where france woke up from the bad dream and saw the steaming remains of war. Hundreds of officials and high-level fonctionnaires were condemned (people looked upwards when it was time to name the guilty), but faced with the need to rebuild, France couldn't charge all who were guilty! The second phase, refoulement, "blocking out" lasted until the early 70s, and was when the heroes were named (including the communists) and myth of widespread resistance appeared. From 1971 to 1974 Rousso talks of the "broken mirror" where a new post-war generation comes into politics and contests the power of De Gaulle. Finally, the Vichy syndrom which lasts until today and is characterised by a national uneasy feeling of shame and frequent (though less so these last few years) bursts of mass media sensationnalisme (finding octogeneraian collaborators, discovering president Mittérand's role in the war and the Vichy government, trials).
Henry Rousso concludes that all this led to a lack of action, shoving dust under the carpet, a general feeling of guilt but without any clear distinction between those who actively took part, or whose parents did, and how much they invested themselves in it. Chirac recognising the French State's guilt in 1995 was a symbolic measure but, in my opinion simply added to the vagueness of it all. After all, what is the State- including-especially!- the police, if not each and every one of us who takes part in it? My belief is that France has never had the comfortable position of Britain saying "look! we defeated those fritzy bastards", but has never been able to look inward and ask, but how did we get to that? what was the tipping point? and could I be the drop of water that made France capitulate?
This all gets dramatic when brought back to the original concept, but the idea is: if you are wearing a uniform, or represent the State, do you not have the obligation to refuse when you are asked to do something illegal?
In the shorter run, as I have immense faith in the French nation and do not think it will topple into fascisme any time soon, it will be interesting to see what this does to the National Front's 2012 presidential elction score. "A 8O% increase in Roma criminality, eh? Told you we should kick the thieving gipsies out. And Europe too while we're at it. 10 million immigrants (including yours truly) and 5 million unemployed, you know". Marine le Pen said that on tv. And one French in 4 agrees with her.
jeudi 2 septembre 2010
So here we are on the 15th of July
One Day by David Nicholls
In a nutshell: this is the story of the friendship between Emma and Dexter which starts on their last day of university and spans the following twenty years with all the ups, downs, highs and lows that passionate friendship inspires.
The blurb: this book is called One Day because every chapter takes place on the 15th of July, starting in 1988 and ending in 2007. First and foremost a story about friendship, it is also an clever, satirical study of becoming an adult in 1990s and early 2000s England, against a backdrop of cool Britannia. Emma and Dexter being very different- she the serially single and talented girl who doesn't know where she's going, he the happy-go-lucky-stud who burns the candle at both ends, this is a wonderful, yet realistic, ode to friendship. As every chapter is set on a 15th of July, years fly by, yet the pace of the book doesn't feel too fast as you evolve and follow these characters through their early adult years.
IMHO this is the funniest and most moving book I have read this year (so far!). The dialogues are fantastic- incredibly funny and witty like the female protagonist, and as I switched between the two characters' points of view I felt I was starting to know these people better than a lot of my own friends. Despite the laugh out loud parts, the book is also incredible touching (yes, i wept) as one tries to define with the characters what defines true friendship, happiness and love. Very highly recommended, any place, any time.
In a nutshell: this is the story of the friendship between Emma and Dexter which starts on their last day of university and spans the following twenty years with all the ups, downs, highs and lows that passionate friendship inspires.
The blurb: this book is called One Day because every chapter takes place on the 15th of July, starting in 1988 and ending in 2007. First and foremost a story about friendship, it is also an clever, satirical study of becoming an adult in 1990s and early 2000s England, against a backdrop of cool Britannia. Emma and Dexter being very different- she the serially single and talented girl who doesn't know where she's going, he the happy-go-lucky-stud who burns the candle at both ends, this is a wonderful, yet realistic, ode to friendship. As every chapter is set on a 15th of July, years fly by, yet the pace of the book doesn't feel too fast as you evolve and follow these characters through their early adult years.
IMHO this is the funniest and most moving book I have read this year (so far!). The dialogues are fantastic- incredibly funny and witty like the female protagonist, and as I switched between the two characters' points of view I felt I was starting to know these people better than a lot of my own friends. Despite the laugh out loud parts, the book is also incredible touching (yes, i wept) as one tries to define with the characters what defines true friendship, happiness and love. Very highly recommended, any place, any time.
lundi 11 janvier 2010
So here we are giving in to teen vampirism
Twilight by Stephanie Meyer
In a nutshell: All-American teen Isabella Swan, rebelliously known as Bella, moves away from Mom and dusty Phoenix to Dad and Forks, rainiest town in America. At school, she falls head over heels with Edward, a mysterious and uber-handsome young man... or is he???
The blurb: Ok, he's not, he's a vampire (don't worry he's not androphage) as one blatantly knows as one opens the book. As a result, the two-hundred plus pages it takes Bella to figure this out are a little frustrating. But this of course is not the point. It's all about the massive electric chemistry and huge sexual attraction between them and the impossibility for them to even do a wet kiss without Edward instincts taking over and eating the luscious Bella. As a result this is a innocent book, more about their blossoming, fusional relationship and aching hormones than a fruity inter-species essay. It was clearly written with a dictionary of synonyms nearby, to describe the irresisitible, compelling, handsome, beautiful, mesmerising, unnerving, surreal strange, seductive, unwordly, marble Edward and his yellow, onyx, golden eyes. Oddly, other than the semi-obsessive relationship there is really little plot or twist except right at the end.
IMHO this was surprisingly addictive given how objectively bad it is. The writing is straightforward, the wet and cloudy atmosphere of Forks and the high school are conveyed and the sexual tension keeps the book together like a tight corset. It's all a bit soppy and stars-in-eyes though which to be fair is the entire point I imagine. A good, light, easy read for breathless crush-ridden teenage girls, i.e. most females between 12 and 70.
In a nutshell: All-American teen Isabella Swan, rebelliously known as Bella, moves away from Mom and dusty Phoenix to Dad and Forks, rainiest town in America. At school, she falls head over heels with Edward, a mysterious and uber-handsome young man... or is he???
The blurb: Ok, he's not, he's a vampire (don't worry he's not androphage) as one blatantly knows as one opens the book. As a result, the two-hundred plus pages it takes Bella to figure this out are a little frustrating. But this of course is not the point. It's all about the massive electric chemistry and huge sexual attraction between them and the impossibility for them to even do a wet kiss without Edward instincts taking over and eating the luscious Bella. As a result this is a innocent book, more about their blossoming, fusional relationship and aching hormones than a fruity inter-species essay. It was clearly written with a dictionary of synonyms nearby, to describe the irresisitible, compelling, handsome, beautiful, mesmerising, unnerving, surreal strange, seductive, unwordly, marble Edward and his yellow, onyx, golden eyes. Oddly, other than the semi-obsessive relationship there is really little plot or twist except right at the end.
IMHO this was surprisingly addictive given how objectively bad it is. The writing is straightforward, the wet and cloudy atmosphere of Forks and the high school are conveyed and the sexual tension keeps the book together like a tight corset. It's all a bit soppy and stars-in-eyes though which to be fair is the entire point I imagine. A good, light, easy read for breathless crush-ridden teenage girls, i.e. most females between 12 and 70.
dimanche 29 novembre 2009
So here we are gourmet cooking
Doing without Delia by Michael Booth
In a nutshell: food crazy Brit who is tired of Jamie Oliver style 20 minute feasts decides to move to Paris and join the Cordon Bleu school of super classic French cookery. Trials, tears and some excellent foodie hints.
The blurb: written in a personal, blog-ish style, mister nice-mike the bumbling brit, joins one of the most prestigious cookery schools in the world. There is a lot of "me me me" here, how well he intergrates with the market folk, how good he is at school, how upset he is at boiling lobster when pregnant and alive (the lobster, needless to add...). That said, it is full of behind-the-scenes funny anecdotes and this book is well worth reading if you are a serious food and cook fan as it is packed full of useful hints (from how to make a decent stock reduction to how to chop, from great recipes to a lot of "cutting the bullshit" explanations). On a more serious level it also deals with the central issue of whether a career in food is adapted to all gastronomes/gluttons.
IMHO this book has its place between Bourdain's "kitchen confidential" and Reichl's "comfort me with apples". Less abrasive and hilarious (and probably honest) than the former, less openly sentimental than the latter, it has its good moments and more to the point some great food and cooking advice. Want to know how to make a good nantua sauce while reading about the ultimate cookery course (without paying the 8000 euro fee)? This is the book for you.
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