Author: sheona

French President Francois Hollande today spent about ten hours visiting the Salon de l’Agriculture – not in any sense a vote collecting exercise.  He is apparently not very popular with country people in France, but then he’s not really got a lot of  fans in any section of the population.

A few years ago we too visited this exhibition, which demonstrates the wide range of agriculture in France.  The weather was very cold and snowy in Paris then as now, so it was quite comforting to spend the day in the warmth.  Once you have paid your admission fee, you can actually eat and drink for free from all the samples that are waved in front of you.  There were all the different breeds of French cattle and sheep and pigs and also some foreign guests.  I had to go to greet the Highland cattle on display.  I never knew how many different varieties  of goat there are.  Visitors are not permitted to feed the animals on display, which may have accounted for the very unpleasant expression on the face of a rather large mule.  I’m sure he felt he deserved a carrot for standing there for so long with all these people streaming past him.

Different halls contained the produce of France’s overseas territories, the poultry and rabbits bred in farm yards, hunting dogs, horses and donkeys.  The whole exhibition covers a vast area but the cheese, wine, sausage and other samples keep the visitor going, especially the seafood nibbles from the Caribbean. From the Channel, Atlantic and Mediterranean coasts, the Alps and Pyrenees to the pastures of Normandy and other less well-known regions – I even discovered there is a Berry donkey – it was an impressive display of the wealth and variety of France’s produce.

Has anyone else been receiving odd messages via the DT, presumably from Facebook?   I was told the other day that three people had “unfriended” me, which seems unlikely since I wouldn’t touch Facebook with a bargepole, however heavily disinfected.  Brother-in-law did join, for reasons best known to himself, and put everyone else’s name down.  Today, however, I am informed that two people want to “rebound” with me.   Are there some very bouncy Tiggers out there?  Who would want to deal with such a bunch of illiterates?  Is it American?   (Sorry, LW, nothing personal.)

The festival of Bread, Love and Chocolate starts today, having been heralded yesterday by a group of  lanceurs de drapeaux dressed in red and yellow medieval outfits parading through the streets to drums and horns, tossing their flags very skilfully.  Well, they didn’t drop any while I was watching.

http://www.amourchocolat.fr/

This is a celebration of baking and chocolate, held in the square outside the Musee Peynet with all his drawings of  “Love is …”.  It’s always held round St Valentine’s Day, which this year is the day after Ash Wednesday and therefore in Lent.  So all the stalls offering Italian delicacies may be tempting people to break their Lenten resolutions.  I shall steer well clear of any meat products.

As for the weather, we are surrounded by snow-covered hills and it is cold out of the sun.  But I shall not complain.

Not one more unkind word about HRH, Janus.  He’s a kipper protector, not Scottish kippers, but kippers nevertheless.   I trust the name of the complainant will be broadcast far and wide.

Readers of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung have chosen as their favourite photo of 2012 from those published in that paper this one:

http://www.faz.net/aktuell/gesellschaft/titelbildwahl-2012-mein-bild-auf-seite-1-12045783.html

Who says the Germans don’t have a sense of humour?

It has been reported in the French press that a deprived family visiting the Musée d’Orsay on Saturday was escorted out of the building because other visitors had complained that these people smelled bad.  The family, two adults and a child whose age varies according to which report one reads but around 10-12 years of age, had come to the art gallery with a volunteer from ATD – quart monde France.  This group was set up to fight for the dignity of people (Agir Tous pour la Dignité).  According to one report the volunteer bought the entrance tickets and then lunch for the group in the restaurant.  While visiting the Van Gogh room, the group was asked by one museum attendant to leave because other visitors were complaining of its unpleasant smell.  The group disregarded this request and moved on to another room with fewer people in it.  Then four attendants surrounded the group and escorted them out of the front door, where their entrance fees were refunded.

The Musée d’Orsay has apologised for the incident, but also pointed out that deprived people do not need to pay for admission.  ATD should have known that. Was this some sort of stunt?  As usual the most interesting section is the comments page where many readers feel that ATD should have spent the cash on filling up the larder for this family and possibly adding some soap.  It’s a ticklish problem.  An ATD spokesman has commented that this is the sort of treatment meted out to those who “have poverty written on their faces”.  I’ve never come across such an incident before.  Have any other Charioteers?

http://news.fr.msn.com/m6-actualite/une-famille-d%C3%A9favoris%C3%A9e-priv%C3%A9e-de-mus%C3%A9e-pour-cause-dodeur

Should someone tell Mr Justice Tugendhat, who has reportedly just commented that

“Bond girls who had intimate relationships with the promiscuous 007 could have suffered lasting psychological damage,”

that no one suffered anything because it’s all fiction!  And this is a judge.  God help us!

When I read about a novel short-listed for some Guardian prize or other that was about Aberdeen, I asked my local library to get it for me.  Now that I’ve read it, I can safely say that only the first few chapters are actually about Aberdeen.  It is in fact about the life of a child, born in the Granite City, brought up by a mother living on benefits.

Tony Hogan bought me an Icecream-float before he stole my Ma by Kerry Hudson is about the child’s life, seen through her eyes from her birth.  We learn that mother had moved to London, found a job but had been seduced by a married American.  Pregnant she returned home to Aberdeen and ended up living on benefits, cigarettes, vodka and drugs.  The Tony Hogan of the title is a bad lad, a vicious, violent drug dealer who takes advantage of mother’s council flat to move in ( there’s a novelty!) and then starts abusing her, though thankfully not the child.  Mother and child head back to London – and that’s the end of Aberdeen’s role in the book – to find father.  What they find is father’s wife, who has no idea where the philanderer is but offers them shelter and comfort for a couple of days.  Mother then moves self and daughter to Canterbury where she meets another man.  Then back to Scotland, this time Airdrie and Coatbridge, then on to Yarmouth.  The daughter finally makes it back to London, hoping for help from her stepmother.

The language is appalling and very tedious through repetition and the whole thing is totally depressing and at the same time annoying.  Always a shortage of money, moonlight flits with the landlord’s furniture, yet vodka and cigarettes.  I’m sure it is supposed to be a “scathing indictment” or some such of our society, but for me it is simply a damning piece of evidence that benefits do not in fact benefit the recipients.  Mother falls out with her own mother just after the baby’s birth – Grandma having had the temerity to suggest that she’ll have to find a job – and then relies totally on benefits, wherever she is. The child’s life might not have been much better if they had been forced to stay with Grandma, but it couldn’t have been much worse.  Schools seem full of undisciplined children, swallowing every drug they can find, and one can already see the next batch of unemployable young adults getting ready to hold out their begging bowls.

JM and TR, I’ve just watched the first of the Blandings Castle episodes.  Dreadful!  Why must the BBC do this to perfectly good books?  Apart from the names of the characters, it bore little resemblance to the original “Pig Hoooey”, which was funny.  This just made me feel embarrassed.

I have often wondered how the choice of the European City of Culture is made and by whom. Sometimes I really wonder about the choice.

Today Kosice in eastern Slovakia takes its turn centre stage for a year.  It’s the second largest city in Slovakia and I haven’t visited it myself, but it seems to have quite a few things going for it.

But this year the title is shared between two cities and the other one is Marseille.  Marseille is not a city I like, particularly its over-ornate basilica, Notre Dame de la Garde.  There is a new Museum of the Mediterranean being built for this year of glory, but it won’t be finished till June at the earliest, half-way through its reign.  Over the past year Marseille has become notorious for murders, usually one lot of drug-dealers taking out a rival bunch.  No loss there!  But is it really a good idea to have a lot of visitors coming to a place where drive-by shootings have become the norm?  Some of the local people are hopeful that the culture accolade will improve the town’s image,

” De quoi, espèrent en choeur les Marseillais, corriger l’image de la ville, particulièrement mise à mal ces derniers mois après une série de règlements de comptes.”

Would it not have been better to postpone this City of Culture title for Marseille for a bit, until the new museum was fully open and  the police and gendarmes have managed to clear up some of the drugs racket though that will take a while, since corruption has eaten its way into some of the forces of law and order?  The North African ferries continue to unload their cargo of HGVs, many of them with hidden extras.  So who on earth thought it would be a good idea to nominate Marseille in the first place and to carry on regardless in the second?