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.

The Soviet Story demolishes deeply-rooted myths

The other week, I sent an email to my son's lycée, to the attention of the history teachers to let them know about the existence of a film which I thought might be of interest to them and their students, The Soviet Story. My DB told me that I was probably now marked as an interfering parent and that my son would be eyed suspiciously as having a mother who thought she could boss his teachers about. Paranoia is alive and well in the French teaching profession.

I have had no answer to my mail, not even an acknowledgement of receipt.

The reason why I thought it might be of interest to the school is because it demolishes two deeply-rooted myths in French society (and now has French subtitles).

The first is that communism, as opposed to Nazism started off with good intentions.

Our own dear former socialist president of the Languedoc-Roussillon region, M. Georges Frêche proved this by installing a number of bronze statues on the Place des Grands Hommes du XX^e siècle including Lenin and Mao, because « les idéologies représentées sur la place sont toutes des idéologies de libération et de conquête des droits malgré leurs parts d’ombre » (Translation: the ideologies represented on the site are all ideologies of liberation and the conquest of rights despite a few dodgy bits). The editor of top Polish newspaper Uważam Rze wondered why a member of the French Parti Socaliste had decided to honour two of the greatest criminals against humanity...

Edvins Snore, the writer and director of The Soviet Story, shows that communism is about class warfare, which meant eradicating whole sections of the population. Those in opposition were first up against the wall, then came intellectuals, good workers, engineers and so on. Lenin, Mao, and indeed Pol Pot and Stalin were all supporters of forced social engineering. They even used it on ethnicities who were considered too resistant. During the winter of 1932-3, for example, 7million Ukrainians died of starvation because their food and grain reserves were confiscated, and anyone trying to get food or escape was shot.


The second myth is that Soviet communism and German national-socialism are two completely different ideologies.

Both aimed at creating a new Man because neither accepted human nature as it was. In fact, both systems were at war with human nature, which is the root of totalitarianism. Nazism was based on false biology, and communism was based on a false sociology, but both claimed to have a scientific base (Françoise Thom, professeur d’histoire, Sorbonne, interviewed in the film).

According to Natalia Lebiedeva, a Russian historian, between 1937 and 1941, 11million people were assassinated. Hitler followed what was happening in the Soviet Union very closely, knew about George Bernard Shaw's support and his appeal to scientists to develop a gas that could exterminate those people who were useless for society humanely. Hitler used this gas, Zyclon B, later in his camps.

The Soviet Union helped Nazi Germany instigate the holocaust. The film shows evidence from archive documents and interviews with former Soviet military intelligence officers. Between September 1939 and June 1941, the Soviets handed over to the Nazis whole groups of Jews who had managed to flee Germany.

So, I believe it's a film that is worth seeing, especially to young people so that they can learn more about what really happened, stop believing the myths and be able to make their case based on knowledge not fantasy.

This is important because communism has played an important role in defining French society, and its political echoes are cited as a reason why French politicians are historically against liberal market economics. Here are a couple of examples:
« Libéralisme, thatchérisme, reaganisme, des oripeaux. » (oripeaux = flashy rags)
Alain Juppé, Le Figaro Magazine, 24/11/84.

« Je suis convaincu que le libéralisme est voué au même échec que le communisme et qu’il conduira aux mêmes excès. L’un comme l’autre sont des perversions de la pensée humaine. »
Jacques Chirac, dans « L’inconnu de l’Elysée », de Pierre Péan (Fayard, 2007). 

The Secu was set up in October 1945 under the influence of the Parti communiste and the unions. The unions went on to infest the state's administrative, political, economic and social machinery and have managed to stay there with the tacit support of successive heads of government whether on the right (through weakness or cowardice) or on the left (ideological convergence). You can read more about the dodgy monopoly French Secu here which, despite condemnation by the Cour Européenne de Justice for non application of directives concerning medical insurance has resisted practical application, so it's almost impossible to quit. In fact, only a total collapse of the system could put an end to this communist-inspired monopoly set up in 1945 without any public approval.

Explains a lot, wouldn't you say?

Anyway, the school might not be interested, but I am certainly going to buy the dvd to show to my son and any of his friends who want to see it too.

From The Soviet Story website:

SYNOPSIS

The film tells the story of the Soviet regime.
- The Great Famine in Ukraine (1932/33)
- The Katyn massacre (1940)
- The SS-KGB partnership [in the late 1930s the KGB was called NKVD]
- Soviet mass deportations
- Medical experiments in the GULAG.
These are just a few of the subjects covered in the film.
“The Soviet Story” also discusses the impact of the Soviet legacy on modern day Europe. Listen to experts and European MPs discussing the implications of a selective attitude towards mass murder; and meet a woman describing the burial of her new born son in a GULAG concentration camp.
The Soviet Story is a story of pain, injustice and “realpolitik”.

Here are some reviews from Amazon.

How Not to be a Loser at Lycee and Beyond

My eldest son is 15 and thinking about his future. We are optimistically assuming the world will not end before he finishes school, or the western world be taken over by a far eastern consortium who had to create a police state to sort out the bankrupt mess that the evil bankers left. If you're wondering where that came from, I'm currently reading The Bailout by Charlie Wade in which that exact scenario is used to turn the UK into a Dystopia where all the old people are shunted to the south east coast, the Isle of Wight is turned into a prison and anyone who disagrees with the new state has a dodgy time.

But we are not there yet, so my son has to think of his après-Lycée. This might be fairly straight-forward if he had a passion for something or was supremely bright and hard-working. Unfortunately, the only thing he's passionate about is having a good time, playing on the XBox and looking cool. One cannot base a future on any of those things, and he's bright but not so brilliant that he doesn't have to work.

The French are pretty merciless when it comes to lycée upwards, in certain circles at least, and of course the ones I move in, starting with my son's father. So, received wisdom on schooling amongst the bourgeois goes like this:
1. the only Bac to do is the S Bac (formerly the C) and anyone who doesn't do S is a loser. S is the Scientific Bac but such is its aura of influence that you can go on to do anything you like post-Bac. Basically if you are brainy you do S, and if you are not scientifically brainy and good at maths you are a loser. The government is leading a losing battle on overcoming this prejudice by declaring that all Bacs are equal because they appeal to different intelligences. The bourgeois public know better and are having none of it.

2. Post-Bac you have 3 choices of further education for those who want to carry on in academia. The brightest are supposed to do a preparatory class lasting two years after which they enter exams for private Grand Ecoles. Grand Ecoles are not universities, but specialist centres of further education such as HEC (Hautes Etudes de Commerce), Ecole Polytechnique, and the Ecole Normale Superieur to name but three. They are not cheap, costing thousands of euros per year but do guarantee excellent career prospects. Prépa, as it's called, is two years of hell if you want to do well, demanding long hours of work, no social life and lots of reading.

If you do not go to prépa, you are a loser and end up either at the fac (university), or an IUT (Institut Universitaire de Technologie) which are a bit like the old UK polys. You can stave off loser status only if you are an academic nerd, or want to study for a profession such as law, medicine, pharmacy, or become a teacher. The fac has to take anyone who has a Bac and wants to go there. The first year is hell as it is stuffed full of people who shouldn't be there, and those who can't cope fall gradually by the wayside after wasting a year or two. You leave at the end with a Licence, a three-year degree which is useless unless you go on to complement it with post-grad studies. The French love people to enter the workforce already trained and specialised in something.

The IUT offers two-year diplomas which can be transformed into a Licence Professional with a third year, but the IUT is also an alternative way of preparing for the less prestigious Grands Ecoles without the breakdown-inducing workload.

My son is not interested in any of the above. To start with, he doesn't want to do the Bac S (cue apoplexy from papa) because he hates physics, so he wants to do the ES which is Economics.

Next, he doesn't want to do a prépa (cue apoplexy from papa) because he is a lazy sod but did have the idea of going to the fac and then doing a Masters in the UK (Plan A).

Then I suggested a third way (ignoring the IUT which was never on the books) - doing a degree in the UK at a good university and coming back to do a Masters or something if he wanted. He would have to do a foundation year in academic English, dissertation/report writing etc but that could only stand him in good stead in the future. One company that offers this worldwide is EF (Education First) which also has links to many UK universities including Nottingham and Exeter.

My suggestion, to get him motivated, would be to do the foundation year in London ( "Oooh yes!!") and then go to a good university to do something like economics because there's no way he'll get into LSE or UCL. There's no point going at all and incurring all that debt if he doesn't get a good bac. In that case he can just go to the fac and implement Plan A.

British universities have the equivalents for A levels all sorted:

UK GCE Advanced Level grades	French Baccalaureate equivalence (overall average, plus this score in specified subjects)	Option International (overall average, plus this score in specified subjects)
A*A*A*	18	17
A*A*A	17	16
A*AA	16	15
AAA	15	14
AAB	14	13
ABB	14	13
BBB	13	12
BBC	13	12
BCC	12	11
CCC	11	11

One possibility, for example, would be to apply to do Economics at Nottingham which has a requirement of three As. My son would have to get an average of 15 at his Bac. Exeter requires 14.

He is pretty enthusiastic about this because it will no longer matter that he does the ES Bac, it'll even be coherent with his further studies, and I'm hoping it'll encourage him to aim high rather than doss about and scrape through his Bac. Even my bourgeois TWDB (who has a son at HEC) thinks it's a good idea, a solution to escape the tyranny of hard line critics in a system which doesn't suit my son.

Chaotic Events

Figure this one out if you can. My son came home on Wednesday with the dossier to register him at the lycée. I had been told this would have to be done during the first week of July.

In the dossier was a slip of paper saying that registration for the collège was open on Thursday of last week between 1pm and 6pm only. This I ignored. We toddled along to the lycée yesterday afternoon with newly taken photos, photocopy of divorce jugement, RIB, cheque, uncle Tom Cobbly and all. You might wonder why they need all that. I do too, and what business is it of theirs to have the WHOLE legal document concerning my divorce?

Anyway, we get there, find the right room and get told, 'You're late, you should have done this last Friday'. Friday? Where does Friday come into it? Either I got the wrong slip of paper or they're making it up as they go along. It didn't matter in the end so I'm not sure what all the fuss was about, why they handed out slips of paper with the wrong information, or why I was told we could register any time this week.

We were surprised that my son has not been accepted onto the European Section for English considering he's bilingual, but he may be able to change that at the Rentrée. He was hoping for some easy points at the BAC so was a bit miffed.

That was the second chaotic event of the day.

The first preceded it by little. My friend DRK (not DSK the 'rutting chimpanzee', no) was to receive an award, l'Etoile Européenne du Développement Civil & Militaire presented by Anh Dao Traxel (daughter of Jacques and Bernadette Chirac) and president of the association. A Big Thing quoi.

I was invited to participate at this event which was going on at the Institut Saint Pierre at Palavas, supposedly from 2-4pm. You would think an event like this would be organised properly, wouldn't you? Staff would know where to send guests, it would start on time and the event would be a credit to the institution.

Well, it wasn't like that at all. I arrived at 2pm and waited around with a group of guests in the hospital lobby. Some member of staff who obviously hadn't a clue what was going on then ushered us into some sort of games room where kids (patients) were playing table soccer, billiards and so on. Staff members started dragging out a dozen or so chairs shooing kids off while we stood around thinking it all looked a bit inadequate for the numbers.

Then a guy who knew what was going on told us we were in the wrong place (surprise surprise) and were supposed to be in the main hall. Off we trotted after him to the hall where a number of children were already in place and waiting for us.

Anh Dao had arrived by this time of course so there was much picture-taking and time taken up introducing the main players. At 2.45pm it finally got going. It began not with anyone introducing anything or thanking us for coming - you know, usual stuff - but with 3 comediennes who just started up some sort of slapstick entertainment for the kids. Goodness knows how long they were going to go on for. I had to leave at 3pm to register my son at lycée so didn't get to see my friend be decorated or anything else. I did manage to have a jolly chat with friends and people I know, but I could have done that any time.

If I HAD  KNOWN that the ceremony would be nearer 4pm than 2pm I could have gone to the lycée first. We had tried to get the programme from the local organiser, but to no avail. He just said '2-4pm'.

I must say, it really annoys me when an event is so badly organised I miss the action, and I wasn't the only one who had to leave. Not many people can devote 2 elastic hours on a Monday afternoon to one non work-related event. I was off yesterday because Independence Day is a holiday for the company I work for, but I spent the morning at the doctor's and X-ray clinic (my youngest had a close encounter on his bike with a tree branch on Saturday and hurt his clavicle - no fracture, luckily!), and had a number of things to do in the afternoon too. Bizarrely, the last time Anh Dao came to Palavas back in March the same organisers had prepared a tight schedule.

So there we have it. Why organise something properly when you can do it chaotically, keep everyone guessing and annoy the hell out of a whole bunch of people! What fun!

Red Bus Morning

There was no one like this at my son's school carnival, theme - 'Planets'...

This morning was one of those red bus mornings. You know the sort, you do nothing on a Saturday morning for weeks and then you have two important activities happening at exactly the same time one for one child the other for the other. When you are a single parent it's handy if you have the capacity to be in two places simultaneously. Unfortunately, I don't know of one who can split her/himself in two and hop off in opposite directions.

The result is, usually, a bit of a mess what with having to prioritise and thereby offending one child as being less important than the other. I can foresee my youngest spending hours on a shrink's couch coming to terms with being placed second on the day he had his carnival.

Actually, that's an exaggeration because he told me earlier in the week that if he could possibly get out of it he would, but he was the letter E so duty called. Dedication to the cause no, not letting the side down yes. That's my boy!

The E of Venus - this year, the primary school carnival theme was the planets. Last weekend I was rushing around trying to dye white socks orange in a puddle of paprika and chilli powder. They both look pretty orange in the jar, don't they? Well, a word to the wise, they don't dye orange, they transform (somewhat grubby) whitish socks into even muddier dirty-looking socks. They came out looking exactly the same as they would if they'd spent the day running around the ochre earth at the Lac Salagou.

I ended up throwing them out and going on a hunt for orange socks in the local commerces. It took 4 shops - orange is not in fashion at the moment and they had to be boys' socks, not girly ones with frills and rosebuds. Eventually I found one pair in a pack of six mixed styles so spent €6.99 to get one pair of sodding orange socks. Which, I might add, spent the morning coyly hidden beneath my son's black trousers, so he could have gone in fluorescent pink ones for all that they were seen!

Today was also the open day at the local lycée. My eldest is 14 and will be 15 in September. Asking him what he wants to be when he grows up elicits the sort of ado grunt so familiar with parents of ados: "Eh, dunno". So it seemed wildly optimistic to envisage attending this open day where details on what courses to follow for what career were available together with representatives of various jobs.

Still, being a dedicated mummy, I dragged my reluctant son to see what was cookin' and at least visit the lycée a bit. The last time he'd been there was to join in the demonstrations against I can't remember what last term. He and half the school bunked off for the day to express their unformed opinions.

First problem was finding somewhere to park. The place was heaving, which also meant crowds of people. I don't like crowds especially when I'm trying to obtain information about something important, such as my son's future... We found a nice illegal spot on the roundabout and joined everyone else by bumping up the kerb.

When we reached the school, we found it very busy, with buildings signposted for various zones of information. My son was no more the wiser as to his aspirations than when he'd left home so we looked a pretty aimless pair. A nice girl then asked us where we wanted to go, so my son, for want of anything else, said SES, and she kindly escorted us to the correct building and room where it was all happening for SES. It turned out that he didn't even know what it was, and when he found out, wasn't any more interested, so we plodded back, past rooms for future doctors, social workers, engineers, the military and so on having a vague discussion along the lines of
Me: "Well, what Bac do you want to do?"
Him: "S" (science)
Me: "But you all start off doing a Bac General, don't you, and then choose specifically at Second?"
Him: "Yes, plenty of time to choose, let's go?"

And that was that. Forty-five minutes of my life I won't be getting back at the expense of my youngest's feelings of self-worth for me not turning up until just after he'd finished being the E in Venus in hidden orange socks.

I know he was the E because I'd sewn a big paper orange E onto his jacket back this morning roughly 5 minutes before he was due to be at the school. I'd also had to attach orange fronds to each shoulder and all before breakfast!

When I finally got to the school, his class had just finished (natch) and other peoples' children were wafting about being some other planet (didn't catch which one and couldn't work it out...). I've watched this sort of school event for years now, and, to be frank, I find them deadly. My youngest reckons the last one he enjoyed was in CP four years ago. He's managed to escape the really stupid costumes though. This year, at least he was all in black with a couple of orange fronds. Others were in tie-dye pink tee-shirts with silver bits coming out of their heads (not sure who they were representing either).

So, come the end and the throwing of ecologically unsound confetti on an occasion that was promoting saving the planet... my youngest had done his bit and didn't want to hang around further. That suited me fine, so we left, without buying any of the tasty goodies on sale. A shame, but I'm skint, so I leave that to those who aren't. I could have spent the €6.99 I'd spent on those useless socks of course...

Website for Losers

'Tu n'y arrives pas... nous sommes là!' (You can't make it.... we're here!) is the claim of a new website starting tomorrow called FaisMesDevoirs.com where lycéens can pay to have their homework written for them.

I don't know how serious a site it will turn out to be, but the guy behind it is proving to be a master at marketing as everyone is talking about it. It was on the radio this morning, is in Le Figaro and was on the tele at lunchtime. There's even a Facebook page which, interestingly, declares only to be offering to "corriger les devoirs des autres...." (correct the homework of others).

The national parents' association, the FCPE, is appalled, saying it's taking a playground racket and commercialising it, but it's all legal apparently.

It costs 5euros for a basic homework, up to around 30euros for a short dissertation. Broke students at the grandes écoles are queueing up to get on the list of tutors, using the Facebook page, which has 369 members, to make themselves known.

Despite the fact that parents and others are up in arms about the immoral nature of paying for homework and not using homework as a way of improving understanding and learning, they probably don't have too much to worry about. Teachers are not daft, and they will undoubtedly notice if a pupil who writes in a certain way suddenly hands in a piece of work in a different style. Or is suddenly brilliant where s/he is normally thick. They may not care, of course, being more concerned that they can tick off the work as done rather than worrying who did it or having to follow it up because it hasn't been done. French teachers are not the world's most dedicated, it has to be said...

Even at my eldest's private school, he says that they just care about coming in, doing the teaching and going home. What goes on between the pupils, or taking an interest in solving problems does not concern them.

Paying for homework sites exist elsewhere already. The US, natch, has several, and I'm sure it must exist in the UK too. To be realistic, it's no worse than parents doing their children's homework for them, which is something that certainly happens in France. It must be the payment aspect that grates so. Children have cheated with their homework since time immemorial whether it's by beating up the swots until they agreed to do it, or bribing an older sibling, or copying from a book or downloading information off Wikipedia. Faismesdevoirs.com is just another option for the cheating child with money to spend.

I say, go Stéphane Boukris (the site creator). If kids want to pay someone else and enrich them rather than learning the stuff themselves so they can go on to enrich themselves with a better job, that's their problem. No one is going to sit the exams for them, so when it comes to the crunch, they'll have to learn it or fail. If they fail because they haven't bothered to learn the work that someone else did for them, it'll serve as a marvellous lesson that you can't always buy your way out of trouble.

Meanwhile, the ones who did their own work and didn't fail will be in the grandes écoles with excellent job prospects earning quite a few bob on the side doing homework for losers. It's quite poetic, really, in its symmetry.

Life lesson: only losers cheat.