News and booze

Thought I might do a round-up of the month. Not the toxic, glyphosate type which kills every living thing in sight, but an environment-friendly John Craven-type Newsround.

Sport
I've given up zumba. Not a biggie, but when I went to the first session of the 'rentrée', it was a bit tough on the old knees. Nothing to do with having done zero sport during the summer because it was so hot (except for walking in Wales), but everything to do with age-related decrepitude. My DB suggested that perhaps zumba was for osteoarthritis-free youth and that I could do something else. The truth hurts, but less than a dodgy knee.

It just so happened that I had to get some sporty clothes for my youngest in Intersport behind Carrouf, and what did I see opposite? A gym. And not just any old outrageously expensive 1OO€+ per month temple of the vain and oily, but a 245€ per year basic gym with a nice age range of the young and fit, to the more mature trying desperately to ward off osteoporosis and muscle shrivel.

When I popped over to look inside, I was pleased to find nice kind lads in charge, one of whom told me all about the gym, didn't make me feel like an old crock who had no place in a centre of fitness, and generally made me very welcome. So I went back the next day and signed myself up, and my eldest.

I go two to three times a week, take my Kindle, and am happy I can go whenever I want (6am to 11pm) whatever the weather. I even have a personal fitness plan that is training me to be hail and hearty, strong of bone, and firm of bum.

Age
I'm older than I was at the beginning of the month. It was my birthday (50+) which had to be a low-key event because it was mid-week. Otherwise of course I would have had a party for the masses... As it was, a friend took me out for a ladies-who-lunch lunch in a ladylike boutique restaurant called 'Déjeuner sur l'herbe' where you can buy the chairs you sit on if you so wish. I didn't, I just wanted to eat and chat, as you do in a restaurant. We had a very jolly time, even quaffing on a naughty work day glass of wine.

In the evening, I went to an InterNations bash. My co-Ambassador and I organised it for my birthday so I could celebrate it with a bunch of jolly people even on a Tuesday.

Happy Birthday me! I'm rocking the charity shop top!

When I arrived, I ordered a G&T to celebrate, and one was forthcoming. My co-Amb said she would get my drink and another G&T appeared. Turns out there was a little mix-up and this one had no home. When I told the patronne it was my birthday, she instantly gave me the second drinkie poo, so there I was, Two-Gins Sarah (see photo above). I got very merry (see below).

One G&T down

One of my buddies got everyone to sing ''Happy Birthday' and I must say I thoroughly enjoyed myself.

It was my eldest's birthday this month too. He is no longer a snotty teenager, but a go-getting young man of 20! Well, hopefully the go-getting will kick in at some point... and he has yet to dip his toe in the gym...

My son on his way to a gala event, suit bought 30mins prior...

Happy Birthday son, just kidding, etc.

Coding
It's a long, hard slog learning C sharp. I did very little over August with the result that I had to revise everything I'd done at the beginning of September, reviewing nearly all the videos and my notes so I could pass a little test. In order to boost my shit memory, I'm taking a complex of vitamins B and C, the sort of thing they give to Alzheimer sufferers...

The coding challenges often involve solving puzzles, and as I rarely use my brain in that way, it's like pulling teeth. My DB assures me it'll get easier, but I can just feel the rusty cogs cranking up in my brain trying to make head or tail of the problem.

#SavetheCulture
I joined a Facebook cultural Ponzi scheme which involved books. Getting up to 35 books back, was the pull that convinced me. All I had to do was send a book that I loved to one person, put my name on a list, and wait for the best-loved books of others to come flooding in.

Well, I didn't get quite 35 books back. But I did get two. That's two more than zero, so it's a win! I sent off one of my old favourites - Mrs Frampton by Pam Gems - not Great Literature, but a merry read by a fabulous author (of plays for theatre and tele). I got back 'The Deptford Trilogy' by Robertson Davies, and 'Stiff' by Mary Roach both of which look fab.


I can't remember anything else for the moment (not sure those pills are working yet...), so that's it for this post.

A Dedicated Mothers' Day

It was Mothers' Day in France last Sunday, a fête which was officially added to the calendar by maréchal Pétain in 1941. It became a national tradition in 1918 in tribute to all the women who had lost a son and/or husband in the trenches. Ten years later, in 1929, it was used to encourage women to have babies as part of la politique familiale to repopulate the country.

I enjoyed it, for once. My eldest is now old enough to take charge. Mothers' Day is tough for single mums because there's no dad to chivvy the kids into drawing a picture, buying a flower or two or supervising the making of tea.

As I'd just asked for a little word on a piece of paper, I was agreeably surprised when I was presented with a red rose and card at lunch time (nems from the best nems-man in Montpellier plus a glass of rosé, Carrouf Magnum for puds. Simple, delicious). Gobsmacked, you might say in fact. Made my day. We had a delightful lunch outside, sitting at the table with table cloth and no tiger mozzies.

Feeling on top of the world, then, I decided I'd go into town and see what was happening at the book fair - the 30e Comédie du Livre.

It wasn't exactly on the Place de la Comédie but on the Esplanade, thankfully under a series of marquees so we, including the books, didn't all roast and curl under the sun
.

The rest of the Place da la Comédie was empty

There was a whole range of books on show, and authors. If you like books, it was the place to be. There were sections on travel books, poetry, religious books, novels, culture, and a foreign section where Le Bookshop had a books-in-English stand.

If you were looking for children's books, there was even a whole marquee for them many of which looked super. I lamented again how I have boys who dislike reading. They don't even read comic books, or BD (bande déssinée) which are wildly popular in France, and were on show en masse at the fair.

On one of the stands, I saw a BD about Montpellier, called Balade à Montpellier by 'Gaston'. It's a humorous tour of the city that manages to distil the essence of Montpellier by pointing out its clichés (gay capital of France, red car on Rock Store wall, etc.), and guides us rapidly through its history. I had a look through and loved it.

It's obviously been written by someone who loves the city and knows it well. The author, 'Gaston' or Alain Rémy is an accomplished cartoonist who's worked with Disney and Spielberg, and is a script writer for Ubisoft (on 'Rabbids Go Home').

I noticed that he was dedicating the books purchased on site with a little cartoon! I had to have one too! I'm a sucker for a dedication.

Gaston dedicating his book for me

It was my turn, so I sat down and he started asking me about myself (how cool is that?) in order to find inspiration. I told him about coming to France to be with my future ex-h, and after we divorced I wanted to be with someone who spoke excellent English. There was a bit more chit chat, and he started drawing in the book I'd bought. This is what he came up with:

My dedication from Gaston. That's me on the right in my stripy tee-shirt. :)

"V.O." is a French expression for films and tele programmes that are shown not dubbed, in their original version ('version original'). Isn't it great? He has a talent for grasping the essential spirit of something/someone and whipping up a cartoon about it/them. He does it on the tele too.

Not only did I get the book dedicated, but the sponsoring bookshop (Librarie des 5 continents) was offering a dedicated card too, so this is mine:

*Chuffed*

I positively floated home.

Getting Rid of Books

Unwanted...

What do you do with books you don't want to keep?

When my DB moved to Avignon, he decided to lighten the load by getting rid of a number of his books. Pushed for time, he was just going to throw them out, but I said I'd take them. Throwing out books, even vile trash like the one Fréderic Mitterand wrote (about sodomising little boys in Bangkok in his ill-spent youth), just goes against the grain. Actually, I probably could put a match to his books and not feel much remorse.

I have no room for the rest on my shelves which are already packed two-deep. Most of my book purchases now go on my Kindle. Not only can I buy books in English more easily, but there is ample room on the device to keep them.

In this little collection, I'm glad to see he has thrown out 'The Game', the book about pick-up artists. Obviously he has either learnt all he needs to know, or he has no further use of it because he has me. Or both...

The SAS book is one of a series written by Gérard de Villiers starring the Austrian prince and CIA spy Malko Linge. About 120 million of the two hundred books written have been sold worldwide. I'd never heard of them, but they are on a par with Ian Fleming's 007 books and particularly popular in Germany, Russia, Turkey and Japan. My DB has read almost all of them.

The only book of any value is Sempé's 'Des hauts et des bas' which is worth about 20Eur on Amazon.

Should I try to donate these French books to the local library? What if they don't want them (I wouldn't blame them for not wanting Fréd's 'torchon'). It's not a very big place, and they might want to reserve the space they have for new acquisitions.

Then there's selling them on Amazon. I doubt I could ask for much, because even if I put them up at 0.01Eur, the postage would be enough to put most people off, and I'd still have to wrap them up and take them to La Poste. A lot of effort really.

Maybe I'll take them to Gibert Joseph in Montpellier. It's a second-hand bookstore right in the middle of town. On their website there's a section called 'Je Vends' where you enter the bar-code of the books you want to sell and it'll tell you whether they'll accept them and for how much. You take along your books and they are finally off your hands. In theory. My DB tried this, took along his books and discovered that the bookshop wouldn't take them after all. A big waste of time.

After a brief browse on the internet, I've discovered other solutions. La Fnac offers a secondhand book section. You can fix your price, payments are made through their site, but you still have the books hanging around until someone eventually decides to buy them at which point you have to pack them up and take them to the post office (= faff).

If you're lucky enough to live in Paris, Bordeaux or Lyon, for the purpose of getting rid of books, that is, there's a service called Recyclivre  which will take your books 'dans un geste solidaire'. They will come and pick them up (in an electric vehicle) and then sell them through their site. They declare their business to be 'eco-citoyenne' and 'un service unique'. They don't operate in Montpellier so I'm not that bothered by what they are, but I do like the counters on their website which count how many trees and how many litres of petrol  have been saved thanks to each sale of secondhand books. They also donate 10% of profits to organisations that work to reduce illiteracy, etc. Obviously good eggs.

Pity we don't have a good choice of charity shops here. The Croix Rouge exists but getting to their centres is a pain. Emmaüs is another option, and I've just seen that they will collect (even a few books?).

According to an article in Le Monde in 2012, over a third (37%) of books are bought secondhand in France so maybe if I exert myself a little perhaps I could make enough to buy a nice bottle of white fizz to go with the smooth and silky elderflower cordial I made this weekend, flowers bought from La Ruche Qui Dit Oui. That way too, my DB could enjoy his books a second time around.

(Except Fréd's livre de la honte - book of shame. It's amazing how he's been spared prison for abus sexuelle sur mineur, but then the Soixante Huitards have a Teflon coating when it comes to paedophilia. Much like British members of Establishment except I don't recall any of them actually writing about their desires and experiences in a book and getting away with it... but I digress...).

In the meantime, they'll have to stay cluttering up the dining table.

The Wounded Soldier and Other Stories

I can't say I've been a very assiduous blogger recently. Not that I care, mind. But when I see the last post written was on May 7, it comes a quite a surprise. Time seems to have accelerated since then.

My DB misjudged a set of steps whilst riding his bicycle, thought he could dive over them as he had done many a time. Unfortunately, this time there was a motorbike blocking some of the access and instead of sailing successfully down the three steps, he went sailing over the top of his handlebars and landed on his wrists. Could have been his chin and a smashed jaw, so he's counting his blessings. It still means his left arm is encased in plaster from hand to elbow, and his right hand has a removable brace (like the braces kids with scoliosis wear). The doc wanted to encase both his wrists but my DB lives alone and couldn't see how he could survive being totally incapacitated. As it is, I'm trying to fit working full time around ferrying him about to appointments, feeding him and driving him to and from chez moi. I'm counting my blessings that I don't have to wipe his bottie because I'm not sure our relationship could survive such ignominy at this stage (not sure it could at any stage if I'm honest...)...

You should have seen us walking round the adventure motorcycle expo organised by Touratech in Orange. I drove us there as we couldn't take the bike, and he got sympathetic looks from all the hard-core adventure bikers. He actually looked like he'd been involved in a little too much adventure except that he'd just fallen off his bicycle. The shame! It'll be a while before he can go off on his own adventures again. Instead, we were happy to sit and watch a presentation by Anne Girardin from annamotodiva.com recounting her trip from Alaska to the south of Argentina over a period of ten months. She had barely even sat on a motorbike before she undertook this mammoth ride! It was a very inspiring presentation, and her photos were fabulous.

I've also been doing a lot of reading for friends. One asked me to proof-read his latest book and then, later, to leave a review on Goodreads. I found the review quite tricky because I'd been reading it to find errors, not getting to grips with the story. I also wrote it a couple of weeks after I read it so my recollection of the story was a little hazy.

Then I bought the Kindle version of a book by another FB friend entitled Little Yellow Stickies: Security through Absurdity. Once I'd finished reading it, the author asked me to write a review for Amazon.com. I already had on the UK site (because I always write book reviews), so popped over to copy and paste my review into .com.

Then this weekend, I received fellow blogger Samantha Vérant's pre-publication edition of her romantic memoir 'Seven Letters from Paris'. I finished it this evening, and have to send the book on to the next on the list of pre-publication readers. We will all leave a review on Goodreads the day it's published on Oct 1. I'll have to write something down before then or I'll have forgotten it long before. I've known about this book for some time but reading it was something else. Sam's done a great job telling the story of how she met her husband, or should I say, she met him, then went back to the US.  He wrote seven truly romantic letters to her after she went back to the US, the stuff you dream of receiving, but she ignored him for twenty years, until she finally came to her senses and sent him an apology. To his credit, he wrote back and they picked up where they'd left off. He needs a medal for perseverance, I reckon!

I was telling my (French) DB about Sam's husband Jean-Luc. My DB is not very romantic so when I was telling him about everything that Jean-Luc had done for Sam, he said he needed a good talking to as he had just raised the bar for every Frenchman who wanted to get intimate with an American girl... After reading that book they'd be expecting castles, romantic letters and all sorts of effort. He perked up though when I told him that JL had previously been married to a young Russian. From being a bit of a traitor, JL suddenly became a Person of Interest. It's always been my DB's pie in the sky fantasy to have a young Russian hanging off his arm. Luckily for him he's got me now so he doesn't need to think about trying to seduce either young Americans or young Russians (and have his fantasy crash to earth if JL's ex is typical...)!

There's never a dull moment with my DB...

Mastering the Art of French Eating by Ann Mah

I don't get sent many books to review, but this is not a problem as I'm quite fussy and would not like to have to interrupt my bloodthirsty or psychological criminal thrillers too often with romantic slush or other fluffy literature. However, I'm a keen foodie so a book on food and eating in France will immediately gain my attention. This one seemed to combine both, so when the publishers asked me to read and review it, I said yes, but did warn them that my readership is fairly limited (and I don't have an Oprah effect of immediate sales the moment I say I like something, more's the pity...).

Ann Mah is an American of Chinese origin, and I really enjoyed her writing. I particularly admired the way she links from stories about her life to her exploration of French food because how she could make the transition was not immediately obvious but she managed to carry it off extremely well - very smooth and delightful to read.

I do not share her passion for Paris though, so all the lyrical descriptions which illustrate her deep-seated love of the city passed somewhat over my head. Paris, for me, is a pretty place but lacks dynamism. It's nice for a visit, but I would hate to live there and suffer the metro, RER, pollution, noise, traffic, high prices and time-wasting. My main contact with the place in recent times has been the RER from Gare de Lyon to Gare du Nord where you might think you were in downtown Douala rather than gay Paris.

What I did like about the book was the way Ann Mah threw herself into investigating her food choices thoroughly. She went all over France and met all sorts of interesting people, and official groups dedicated to maintaining the heritage and standards of certain dishes (and wine). She's a professional so you would expect a certain level of contact, but she went far beyond what I would have expected. I learned lots of things about the iconic dishes of France, which is always a pleasure when you've been in the country for a long time. It's easy to get blasé about fondue, aligot, bœuf bougignon, cassoulet and choucroute so some history about each dish and her pursuit of the real thing appealed to me a lot. I loved the way she enjoyed her food. I'm sure she's a joy to feed. One obvious omission was foie gras though. I wonder why she left out this most controversial French speciality. Or perhaps that's why...

The book is not just about Paris and food though. Ann Mah tells us a bit about her childhood and how she fell in love with Calvin, a diplomat, which meant she had to put her own successful publishing career to one side as they travelled about the world. I liked reading about how she dealt with that and how she found the means to overcome some of the issues of being an accompanying spouse. 

The poor woman had just settled into the city of her dreams with her husband when he was called away to Iraq for a year, so she had to stay in the "city of romance" without her partner-in-love. How's that for pas de chance? It could have been worse though, she could have been in Slough! And at least she could develop a project based on food and eating (and drinking), and had the means to indulge her foodie passion. 

This is an enjoyable book if you like Paris, France and food, and appreciate an honest approach to love and life. All is not rosy in Ann Mah's life, as you may have gathered, but she deals with her loneliness and isolation, even though she moans a lot about missing her husband. Actually she comes across as a someone it would be fun to have lunch with.

This book would make an excellent present for a Francophile foodie. Other chapters are devoted (and I use that word wisely) to crepes, steak frites, andouillette, salade lyonnaise, and soupe au pistou. My favourite moment in the book is when she recounts eating cheese fondue in the middle of summer. I had a good laugh at that, plus when she observed that the French do not like cinnamon which she realised after she'd made a pumpkin pie for a foodie family at Thanksgiving. I could just imagine them taking a small bite, making a mou and politely pushing it away. 

They do it to mince pies too...

Books 'n' Sods

I got a letter today that set off nearly 45 mins of frustrating phone calls. Yes, okay, I know I got off lightly because sometimes it can take a whole day on the phone to sort something out and believe me, I've been there, but by the end of 45 mins I was ready to bash my head on the desk.

It was a letter from the Région written on July 3, received today, the 9th, telling me that my son had not given back his books from this academic year. It didn't tell me which books, just that some books had not been delivered back from whence they came unto the Résponsable de la Région who holds the keys to All Books.

So I called my son who is at this moment having the time of his life with some buddies in Corsica, and working in some respect to pay his way for the father of one of them. He gave me his version of the Book Saga:

Back in the mists of Time that were Seconde, he lost two books. (I don't know which ones because I never received a letter about this. I didn't know what to do, so did nothing, and nothing was forthcoming.) As a result, my son did not get his books for Premier because the policy of the Région is that if you lose books that are given to you freely and generously by the Région and do not in some way pay the penance (and I have yet to find out what it is) you do not get any books the following year.

At which point I wondered how he had managed without books. All year. And the answer was not encouraging - because no exercises from the books had ever been set as homework, and because he sat next to someone who had a book in class. Thus he managed perfectly well all year.

Which brings me back to The Problem. According to the Région's computer, my son was given his books last September. It was marked so in the computer. The computer obviously does not know about The Penance, and that my son could not possibly have received his books because he lost two the previous year.

But, according to the Région's computer which is perhaps never wrong but in this case is mistaken, my son got his books and the Région wants them back. This is why I was on the phone for 45 mins trying to sort out this illogical issue. How can you give back something you never received in the first place? The Région told me it's not up to them to prove he got the books, but up to my son to prove he didn't have his books all year - a teacher, a Person of Rank, not his mother, someone from an empty lycée - so I rang the lycée and eventually got two temporary lads who are working for the Région over the summer but who knew nothing about anything.

I asked if my son had signed something. I suggested that if there was no signature it was difficult to prove he'd taken the books, but they don't ask for signatures, they just have a box ticked on a computer. I suggested that this might be open to error because lines can be mixed up and names confused. Offended noises came back at me from down the phone, but I was not to be beaten. As far as I'm concerned, if he hasn't signed for books, he got no books and they don't have a bookend to stand on quite apart from the issue of The Penance. And to think that the French pride themselves on their logic. Pffft!

In the end, having spoken to 4 different people plus my son, I was told he'd have to sort it out at the Rentrée because obviously it was all a grand bordel... comme d'hab.

Slim First

Slim the Ogre

I mentioned a couple of weeks ago that the children's book I wrote about Floppy the Monster will soon be published. It's actually going to come out under the title Floppy the Monster is Nearly Lost Forever, and I'll keep you posted... however, a different book will get there first!

This one is called Slim the Vegetarian Ogre and it's part of an educational resource designed to help children write their own stories. Here's what I wrote for the back cover blurb:

Slim the vegetarian ogre is the only ogre in all the land of Ogg who would not enjoy his own Gala menu of
Starter: snail soup with shell croutons, or brain gazpacho with crunchy teeth;
Main course: boiled meat (human) with worm spaghetti, or fried fingers in barbecue sauce with cockroach chips, or flame grilled rib steak with marshmallow eyes;
Dessert: Doughnuts fried in human fat, or jelly and full-fat human cream.
Drinks: bilgewater beer and fermented berry wine.

What is to become of such an ogre? Will Slim be forced to knuckle down and stop worrying his parents silly? Dr Roeg comes to Slim's rescue with an ingenious plan to save the ogre from his path of vegetarian destruction. But Slim has his own ideas. Find out how Slim develops his own plan to change the world and get to eat a pizza. 

How does that sound? Appealing? Interesting? Disgusting? Funny? OMG I'd never buy that for my kids/nieces/nephews/grandkids/kid next door/best friend's kid/other?

I wrote the story because I'd been writing material for the software that will be available for schools to help children write their own version. I put in a finished story as an afterthought because I thought it might be fun to have as a storytime story. In fact it's to be published in its own right!

The whole series looks like this:

Slim the Vegetarian Ogre the Book (hardback and paperback)
Slim the Vegetarian Ogre Digital Book Builder for teachers (adds stories from whole class to be printed in a book)
Slim the Vegetarian Ogre Digital Book Builder for Parents and Children (the child's story is printed in a book)

The book builders have help buttons for ideas, and literacy notes to help kids write more interesting stories. There's even an audio file of instructions from the ogre himself.

There'll be a website where kids can submit their stories and pictures and we'll have competitions to find the best ones.

If anyone's a member of Mumsnet and is interested in posting an 'honest and fair' review of the book, or on Amazon, do let me know.

Wanted: Illustrator

I don't suppose any of you know a children's book illustrator, do you? My agent got me to write a couple of books and is now looking for an illustrator. To date, I don't really like the one he found and he doesn't really like the one I found.

The story is for young children, but it's quite quirky so needs quirky drawings. I don't like the namby pamby cutesy illustrations you often get on kiddy books. You know, the ones where everyone looks like you want to slap them because they are so goody goody or bathed in a cherubic glow.

The story is about Floppy the Monster who lives with Emily and her family. He discovers he can communicate with her by thought although no one is aware of his skill. This means that when he thinks something, Emily picks up on it and acts, usually resulting in trouble.

He has an arch-enemy who tried to steal him in the supermarket - Momo Morris with his witchy granny. Momo Morris appears in name in later books because Floppy creates an imaginary world where he is a kind of hero pitting his wits against him and doing battle.

There's always an accident resulting in Floppy being mended with red wool so the books teach in the least didactic way possible about some of the dangers inside and outside the home.

The books are due to be published this year, so this is kinda urgent, and all the fab well-known illustrators want tonsadosh up front.

Which is why I need to fling my search into the furthest reaches of networking.

Illustrator, this author needs YOU!

Ban the Bombqa

I'm (re)reading The Women's Room by Marilyn French at the moment. Mira, the heroine, got married to Norm and lived the 1950's life of perfect housewife. Despite having a brilliant mind, her husband didn't want her to work but to look after him, have and then look after their two kids, and to keep the house immaculate. This she did, and cooked and entertained his friends and guess wot, he still asked her for a divorce after 15yrs or so of marriage.

He wouldn't let her drive until he really had no choice, and said that if he could lock her away and keep her all to himself he would. Basically she was a service centre, she and many women like her at that time. What's changed now? Well, now many women are still service centres but they have to go out to work too. I suspect many men secretly think like Norm.

In the Muslim world, many men think like Norm but, unlike Norm, are able to do what he couldn't - lock away and keep their wife all to themselves. If not totally literally, then semi-literally by imposing the burqa on her.

The liberation of women in the west from being nothing more than a dependent appendage to independent individual is one of the greatest achievements of the 20th century, and we should fight with every means possible ANY threat to this liberation. At the moment, in France, the UMP députés are quarrelling about whether to ban the burqa in France.

In my opinion, and from what I gather from the comments in Le Figaro's article, it's a no-brainer. It should be banned. Now. The burqa is an insult to all women and an indulgence to the most extreme of men's secret desires. No one should be locking any free person away, not in a room, not in clothes and not on a slippery slope.

If there are those who insist on imposing it, then they should go where wearing it is accepted, like the Middle East. I don't want to go to places where I'm made to dress in a certain way, and my liberty is shackled, but I wouldn't dream of going there and trying to impose my rules and my culture. Likewise, it's deeply offensive to see imprisoned women walking around here imposing on us the way they dress elsewhere.

I know that offence only works one way, and you have to be a minority for it to be considered. But let me say right here, on my blog, that I am offended by the site of women in all forms of veil. Religion is all about power and control, especially the control of women, and anyone with half a critical neuron in their brain should reject the submission of women by male control freak losers.

Have faith in a higher being, but reject religion. Religion isn't freedom, it's control and manipulation and it's worst manifestations are always conducted against women - female circumcision, the burqa, for example.

Let's hope those UMP députés listen to the voices of their citizens and ban the burqa plus the rest. Perhaps if they show enough balls it'll encourage other countries to do the same.

Party Absence

Last night my mother was hobnobbing with the great and good at the launch of Professor Mary Beard's book It's a Don's Life. Mary is a professor in classics at Cambridge and classics editor of the TLS. She also has a blog by the same name in The Times.

My mother was representing me. Mary's book is based on her blogs and includes a selection of the comments left by readers. To my surprise, one of my comments was included. It was not one of my more erudite (!) examples - just some throw away tale about cutting microphones at professional conferences - but it was relevant to the issue at hand, and got published along with other, more learned contributions.

So I got a signed copy of book and an invitation to the Society of Antiquaries' Burlington House premises to join in the fun of the book launch. Whilst there are many advantages to living in France, unfortunately hopping over to London for an evening's entertainment is slightly beyond my means, so, as a former Newnham girl herself ('50s), I asked my mother if she'd like to go.

She didn't need to be asked twice. I cleared it with Mary's PA (a lovely lady) and sat back to wait for my mother's review of the launch. The verdict was "GREAT!" She was welcomed by Mary herself, and introduced to various people. Then she got talking and chatting, and said how friendly everyone was, and how intellectual (unlike at home where my father, is an Alzheimer zombie and somewhat lacking in what one would call 'words'). She loved the ambiance, the food and the flowing drink, admired Mary's leggings, and came home extremely pleased with herself.

So, thank you Mary and Mary's PA for inviting my mother in my place, and congratulations on organising such an enjoyable event.

As for the book, I'm half-way through and am finding it a fun read. It covers many topics from the realm of academia and life, includes a good dose of racy subjects such as what the Romans wore under their togas, and gives the impression that Mary would be a fascinating person to have dinner with. I have a tendency to think in terms of food and company. (I would not want to eat with Frank McCourt, author of Angela's Ashes, as it's is one of the most relentlessly miserable books I've ever not finished.)

For a proper review, however, try this, by Dinah Birch at the Observer.

Reluctant Reader

This is the time of year for the first parents' evenings. One gathers in the classroom, maybe even sitting in one's child's chair, and listens to the teacher describing the programme for the year.

Every year, my fear is that there'll be a parent who starts asking questions and then can't shut up. For some reason, they feel obliged to respond to the teacher's answer, and then to the teacher's response to his/her response and so on. I've been close to banging my head on the desk with frustration before now. Instead I, and others, start making signs of impatience such as fidgeting, sighing, looking at one's watch, coughing and scraping the chair.

Happily, this year both meetings were over pretty quickly. Frankly, there's not that much to be said because if you want to know the programme you can just google it, so there's little point the teacher going into much detail. What is important to know is how often books have to be signed, whether there's going to be a school trip, how to get help if needed and whether the kids have started the year well. One hour max. Any more and it's because you've got parents with verbal diarrhea who can't shut up.

The meeting for my eldest finished after 40 minutes. I was most impressed. Obviously his form teacher is an efficient, organised woman who says what she has to say with a minimum of fuss so she can get home too. Great stuff. I asked her if there was a reading list of 'suitable' books kids of 13 should be reading for pleasure as well as being part of their literary education. She said she didn't have one but was sure the school librarian would, and I just have to send her a note.

I asked this question last year too and got nowhere. I'll be interested to see whether such a list is forthcoming this year. While UK newspapers are full of information on essential books and kids' classics, the French don't seem to do this. I wonder if it's a way the elite have of keeping the plebs down. If you need to ask, you're already a loser... I'm foreign though, so that doesn't count.

I was looking for some books for my eldest today on Amazon. It's his birthday soon and the idea is to get him some books as well as stuff he wants... So here is the list, including suggestions by my TWDB as well as those by Amazon.fr:

The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexander Dumas

Dune, tomes 1&2 by Frank Herbert

L'or et la boue by Christophe Lambert

Un tirailleur en enfer by Yves Pinguilly (this one and the one above are stories about WWI)

La chartreuse de Parme by Stendhal (his chef d'oeuvre)

Viper au poing by Hervé Bazin, a largely autobiographical account of his traumatic childhood at the hands of his odious, cruel mother.

So there's a bit of everything there - family, war, fantasy, ripping yarn, love, history, philosophy. Quite a fab collection actually, and even though it's all in French, I might even read some of it myself.

Has anyone got any suggestions for French books that would appeal to a reluctant 13yr-old reader without being condescending, overtly pc or pandering to the 'right on' crowd? Let me know, answers on a postcard...

Lit List

I got this from Keris' blog. She hasn't tagged anyone but said we could nick it if we liked. I'm not sure what the list is, whether it's 'Books you should have read' or '100 top books of all time' or some random selection of books that some person with time on his/her hands drafted one day during a lull in the cricket...

Anyway, here goes

You are supposed to:
Look at the list and:
1) Bold those you have read.
2) Italicise those you intend to read.
3) [Bracket] the books you LOVE.
4) Reprint this list on your own blog.

1 [Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen]
2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
6 The Bible (some)
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott
12 Tess of the D'Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13 Catch-22 - Joseph Heller (I don't think so, or I've started it and given up)
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare (all???)
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
19 The Time Traveller's Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot
21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
26 [Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh]
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
29 Alice's Adventures in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis
34 Emma - Jane Austen
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis
37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
38 Captain Corelli's Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres (never want to read it again - too distressing)
39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
40 Winnie-the-Pooh - AA Milne
41 Animal Farm - George Orwell
42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
43 [One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez]
45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood
49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan

51 MISSING
52 Dune - Frank Herbert
53 [Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons]
54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65 [Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas] (one of my fave books of all time)
66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68 [Bridget Jones's Diary - Helen Fielding]
69 Midnight's Children - Salman Rushdie
70 Moby-Dick - Herman Melville
71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses - James Joyce
76 The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal - Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80 [Possession - A. S. Byatt]
81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte's Web - EB White
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94 Watership Down - Richard Adams
95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo

So that's 57/100 except that one is missing so it's 57/99. There are one or two I'm not sure whether I've read them or not, so put not just in case. I've never heard of about 5 of them. I didn't study Hamlet at school, but I have seen it. I'm not one to dip into Shakespeare for a quiet read.

Well, I'm relieved to see I'm moderately well-read. I'd be more impressed if I hadn't forgotten practically everything except a basic idea of the plot though, and sometimes not even that...!

Stolen Day

I felt 'poorly' this morning. Too poorly to go to work. I won't say it wasn't my own fault, but I could see that there was little point entertaining the concept of work, so I might just as well stay in bed. Sitting up...

At lunch time it occurred to me that I should eat something, and having started the day irresponsibly, I decided I may as well continue, so had toast and honey with a cup of coffee (strong). While I was munching in front of the computer, I was sent a link to a music website, Playa Cofi Jukebox, which has music from 1950 to 1984. You download nothing, but can listen to it by clicking on a genre or a year and it just starts off and goes through the music on the play-list. I remember the late 70s and early 80s in particular, so it was sheer joy to set it off and then let the years drop away.

While listening, I read The Kept Man by Jami Attenberg which I'm really enjoying, or fell into a musical slumber just because I could. When I'd had enough of that, I emailed my someone special and chatted on IM and had a lovely time.

My day has been one of those stolen jewels of self-indulgence; a sanity break where for a few hours you can be off the treadmill, not grown up at all and revel in total selfish decadence.

Recommended!

Not so badly struck...

It seems I'm not skiving off after all, whatever anyone might say. The doc just wrote on my sick note 'bronchite aïgu'. So there! I feel very dramatic reading that. I mean, the 'aïgu' adds a whole world of severity to my condition! With a condition like that I could imagine being whisked away, prostrate in an ambulance, to be wired up and worried over in ER.

Cameron: "She's got a new symptom!"
House: "Write it on the board, Cameron."
Cameron writes 'Conjunctivitus' on the board.
House: *Sharp intake of breath* "Put her on 100ml of blahblahblahXYZ and 20g of morphine! This is getting nasty..."

So, to wile away the time, I've been reading the true story of a real tragedy, "Il était une joie" by Bernard Durand. I met him during the book launch and was deeply moved on hearing of the loss of his youngest son aged 17.

It's taken until now for me to get round to reading the book. It's not one that you'd pick up for a light-hearted 10-minute dip and I needed to be in a suitable frame of mind to attack it. Being fed up with my woolly head and general state of disrepair plus having the opportunity was the perfect set of circumstances.

I'm not that far through, but it makes sombre yet impressive reading. Here's a family; a good family with two parents, four lovely intelligent children, a loving, caring environment torn asunder by the untimely death of Jérémie. He was riding his scooter with his cousin one night when a 4x4 driven by a drunkard ran them down from behind. Despite all the scooter lights on, and safety helmets, the driver "didn't see them" and they had no chance, especially when another drunkard driving a 106 came up behind and dragged one of the bodies 100m down the road only stopping when it was too caught up to go further. The boys showed neither alcohol nor drugs in their blood.

They were decent lads; ones with a good future to look forward to, ones who knew how to love and be loved, who knew the meaning of responsibility, honour and integrity. Why is it that it's these boys who got mown down, and not some petty, mean-minded little voyou? It's something that really incenses me with this world. People talk about 'karma', but there are lots of bad people living perfectly happy bad lives causing havoc around them with their hate, but who go through life untouched by disaster.

Then you have children who would be the next set of the country's leaders; ones it so desperately needs, who have lead blameless lives full of joy until suddenly killed before they even have a chance to fulfil their potential. Leaving the Earth with an excess of the dross.

What a waste.

Saturdays

If I ever came to wonder what happened to my days - where did they go - I could just think back to days like today and it would all come flooding back.

After a doctor's appointment, we went to participate in my youngest's school carnival. The theme this year was 'Asia' so he wanted to wear his brother's judo outfit which made sense, at the same time carrying his wooden rifle and two pistols which made somewhat less.

We had a band to accompany us; one of those typically French wind groups which combine a decent sound with a merry approach. They played mostly dixie jazz which went just right with our strolling through the village. Not Asian, no, but you can't have everything!

Many of the parents were disguised, but not me. There's a limit to what I can dredge together at the last moment. Anyway, I'd completely forgotten that parents also dressed up, and have nothing dress-up-able.

We were also accompanied by a 'fetiche de guerre' which was dragged and pushed precariously up the steep hills and down again. It was burnt at the end in the sandpit. UK elf'n'safety would have had a fit. No barriers, alcool à bruler poured all over it to get it going, and kids milling about only under the responsibility of their parents (and we know how dangerous that can be!). Luckily I filmed it with my camera because my youngest was off playing shooting his pals when the beast was set alight.

Having been busy all morning, it meant we had to go shopping after lunch, something I hate doing as I feel full and food disgusts me. Result, we bought almost nothing.

Then we had a book launch to attend at the Vieux Pressoir restaurant in Prades-le-Lez. It's one of our preferred local feeding holes, and I hadn't realised that such other activities went on there too. The book, 'Il était une joie' by Bernard Durand was being promoted by the author himself and his wife, with nibbles and champagne. I haven't read the book (yet) but it's about the family's loss in a car accident of their youngest son who would have been 22 now.

It wasn't a miserable event despite the sombre subject of the book and we enjoyed meeting the author and his wife. I plugged Promo'Arts, the blog when asked if I wrote. I wasn't going to start wittering about my book. Writers dread that! But I did feel they might be interested in our association and even attend our May 22 charitable event. Actually, I even suggested that M Durand might be interested in blogging, and waxed lyrical about how easy it is to get started. He was wary, but I could tell he was dying to join the blogosphere!

A busy Saturday? You bet!