Category: General

Arriving in France the day after the Front National candidate won the local council election at Brignoles in the Var – the departement next to us – I was prepared for the usual hand-wringing and “how could they do this” wailing.  Instead all was calm in the press, perhaps helped by the arrest of three suspected jihadis in the same neck of the woods that day.  The French are fed up with Hollande and fed up with the number of Roma in the country, setting up squalid , illegal camps and living off crime.  The FN expresses these concerns and is anti-EU, which the French believe is the reason all these illegals are infesting the place.  So the FN is gathering more support.

This week’s cause celebre is Leonardo, a fifteen year old Roma girl of uncertain origin who was scooped off a school bus and deported back to Kosovo with parents and five siblings.  Pupils at some schools have been protesting vigorously about this, and Hollande in his usual pathetic effort to please everyone has said that the girl can return but without her family.  Leonardo has said that she cannot leave her family, but by all accounts she had to say that or else her father would have beaten her again.  Father has been lying in his teeth for some years now.  He and mother, who may or may not be Italian, are not married; there are no papers such as birth certificates or passports available and father’s story is unravelling by the minute.  The local police in France are glad to see the back of a petty criminal;  mother never learned any French or attempted to integrate; the family is now settled in a flat in Mitrovica, but two- thirds of French people asked do not want the girl back in France.  Seems a pity, since without her family she might have a chance of a decent life.

Time did not favour me when I landed in Taipei. Two large aeroplanes full of passengers, many from mainland China, arrived before my large – and full – flight. Passport control took the better part of an hour to clear, although the officer was very efficient with me. It seems as if Hong Kong citizens have a few extra things they have to do before they can be let through the Taiwanese border, mainland Chinese a few dozen things more – including having a fair amount of paperwork filled in and many forms ready for inspection. After 15 minutes waiting in queue the woman in front of me and I started to talk. She was from Australia and we had a few good laughs at the expense of the Kevin and Juliar Show as well as Mad Monk the Budgie Smuggler with his underwhelming show. Merkel, however, she took seriously and respected – albeit with more polish than the Macanese tour guide who referred to her as “the little fat woman in the suit”. We both concluded that the less said about the USA and its derangements and delusions the better. Continue reading “Taiwan.”

I got back from the UK last Tuesday. My apologies to those I did not contact. I could have done with a break – but alas, family affairs were too overwhelming!

The first part of my trip over was magical. I had sufficient air-miles to travel business class the seven hours from Brisbane to Singapore. I thought that would prepare me for part two of the journey – thirteen hours from Singapore to Heathrow.

Alas! One child threw a temper tantrum. My seven hours stood me in good stead – and it was three hours before I finally complained.

I could willingly have strangled the woman sitting next to me, who was only moderately less stressed than I was. She merely smiled when the hostie said “well you know children….”

I was moved – but to a far less comfortable seat.

I felt somewhat vindicated in the baggage retrieval at Heathrow when I heard the same monster still screaming and shouting… 🙂

My trip back proved my point. 13 hours of silence was just great. No children! 

I finished packing the night before. Early morning rushes never amused me, especially since I tend to remember things only when I’m halfway to the airport. The taxi I requested the night before arrived a few minutes early, the driver was an upper-middle aged woman with a desire to have a job but a lack of ambition to train for anything else. Fair enough, not everyone can reasonably be expected to claw his or her way to the top of society. We chatted for a few minutes as we drove to main bus centre in Saint Cloud – it’s possible, albeit slightly inconvenient at times, to live there without a car. The bus and train journeys were predictable. Quiet, comfortable – but underwhelming. The flights to San Francisco were somewhat more interesting, but only in how revealing they were about the collapse in service standards. One flight was on time, but the air host clearly hated his job and wished to make everyone have as unpleasant a flight as possible. The second flight was delayed by over an hour and all customer inquiries were handled by a woman who preferred prattling on incessantly about how much she worked with one of her colleagues and could only be bothered to pay scant attention to customers needing to know when their children could meet them at airport or if they should began preparing for their funeral arrangements as information came so slowly risk of death caused by old age was a real possibility for anyone over 15. The flight to San Francisco finally departed, half-full, with an assigned air hostess who neither listened nor cared to pay attention to anyone or anything. I asked for water without ice, that is, water with no ice put into it. For someone reason she thought that meant I wanted ice with a little bit of water in it – and for her to throw it at me like a Ryan Air check-in employee realising that she could not charge over-weight/over-size fees returning a bag. These experiences reminded me once again why I do not travel more than I absolutely have to in the USA – this was one of the USA’s better airlines for customer service. Continue reading “To the Pearl River Delta.”

First, let me make it clear that I’m not one of the first. I am well aware that my breakfast soft boiled would have grown into a cute little chick and that my sunday roast  chook was once precisely that. I know full well that the clinically presented prepackaged chops in my supermarket was once a woolly little baa lamb cavorting in a sunny spring meadow, and I’m quite happy to eat fishey wisheys with their eyes and heads on. I don’t have a problem with shooting, fishing, gutting or filleting, it’s a fact of life whether I’m doing it or somebody else is doing it to save me the trouble.

Now (as I imagine they say in the film industry) Cut to……

Scene

The Hollywood version of an English Baronial manor. The year 1348. His baronial highness is seated on a highly ornate and gilded throne while scores of scantily clad females dance in the great hall before him.  Jugglers and fire eaters  bring  up the rear. Enter stage left,  a peasant who is gasping for breath and has obviously been running . He  throws himself to the floor at the bottom of the staircase leading up to the throne

Peasant        “My lord, there is a case of buboes in the village”

His baronialness takes a long look into the middle distance while scratching his chin.

HB                  “Hie ye forth and find Sir Swarseneggar. Tell him to go to the village and kill two thirds of the population with his semi-automatic crossbow”

Peasant           “Aye my lord. Shall he destroy all the ones with the buboes?”

HB                    “It matters not. Any two thirds will do”

Fade out.

I’m not sure it would have prevented the death of millions during the plague and I’m not sure it’ll have any effect on the spread of bovine TB in the UK either.

I was amazed to read in the Huffington Post that the Occupy Wall Street movement has plans to introduce a credit card.

http://www.huffingtonpost.fr/2013/10/01/occupy-wall-street-carte-bleue-credit_n_4023270.html?utm_hp_ref=france&ir=France

This seems, as many have pointed out, alien to the movement’s original philosophy.  The scheme is to collect 900,000 dollars and to issue prepaid debit cards to those who would not normally qualify for credit.  Of course if people can amass say $50 to put on their debit card , then they might as well just pay cash for their purchases, one would think.  Charges on the proposed new card would be lower than on standard credit cards, but I still can’t see the point of the system.

Another site gives more details

http://www.cutimes.com/2013/07/26/occupy-wall-street-intends-to-step-out-with-visa

The fee suggested is 99 cents per month.  So you put your $100 or whatever on your card and then pay another dollar a month for the privilege.  Might as well stick to the sock under the mattress – it’s free.

I have a book which my Auntie Jean gave to my Mum for her birthday. There has to be a good chance that it was her 17th as the book was first published in February 1930 and was in its 4th impression by April of the same year. Mum was born in June 1913.

The book was written by WG Hartog, MA (London), Docteur de l’Université de Paris, Officier d’Académie and Senior French Master of St Paul’s School. His little masterpiece’ Brush Up Your French’ is a compilation of the 75 conversations which he wrote for the ‘Daily Mail’ together with invaluable ‘hints and vocabularies’ which he added so that’those who go to France will seldom be at a loss for a word or phrase’. Continue reading “Repolissez votre français”