And an entry pretty much in keeping with the title of this blog, in which I fly in a plane, wonder what planet Jean Claude Juncker is on as yet again he bangs on about ‘ever closer political union in the EU’, remember once more why it’s lethal for me to drink at lunchtimes and – well, nothing more really – BUT DON’T GIVE UP

Illats, France.

This is a late addition to this blog entry, but I am putting it here upfront, because the rest of this entry is so stupendously dull that I doubt anyone would carry on reading and get to it. Earlier on today, my aunt (see below) announced that Francis Coppola’s (or to give him his full name Francis Ford Coppola, though I really can’t see what the ‘Ford’ is necessary, I mean it’s not as though his last name is a boring old Smith or even Powell) recut version of his classic Apocalypse Now, usefully re-titled Apocalypse Now Redux (which makes it sound related to an anti-vomiting medication) would be showing on French/German channel ARTE. The reason she told me was that it was a ‘VO’ screening, original version.

Well, we all sat down at 8.5pm (20.55 for fucking Eurohphiles) and the film started. In bloody French. My aunt (see below) expressed her disappointment, and I thought ‘sod, it, I was looking forward to this’. Finally, after about 45 minutes of French dialogue – er, I don’t speak French – I gave up and announced I was going to bed.

But I knew that a few months ago I had downloaded the film – in English – and promised myself that when I got back to Old Blighty, I would scour my 17 laptops looking for which one it had been downloaded to. But, dear friends, there is a god: it was downloaded to this one, the trusty small, 11in Lenovo x121e I take on my travels. So guess what I am going to do once I have added this to my blog entry? Watch the film? Well, why not?

This blog entry was started several thousands of feet up in the air, for no very good reason than that I have never done that before. In fact, I can see a series coming on, a series of blogs written in unusual places or circumstances: a blog written (obviously at some considerable risk) in Russian president Vladimir Putin’s private lavatory, one written while simultaneously trying to break the record for eating the most doughnuts (US ‘donuts’) in an hour while typing with one hand.

Well, this blog entry is being written, though by necessity will not be posted while flying easyjet EZY8019 from Gatwick to Bordeaux, mainly because I am bored, don’t really want to read the Economist and watching a film on my iPad (on which this entry is being written) is not as easy as it seems because I find the noise of the engine tends to come through and dialogue is surprisingly difficult to understand.

But first things first: I, as everyone else who came to Gatwick to fly off somewhere (as opposed to all the staff in the many shops, bars and cafes selling tat, drinks and grub at hugely inflated prices – I had a Tony Powell moment when I was asked to pay £3.55 for a regular, i.e. ‘small’, cappuccino and made my feelings plain) had more or less to strip naked to pass through security.

Now I obviously fully understand the reasons for the whole rigmarole, but it always puts me in a bad mood and makes travel by plane such a pain. I like the flying, it’s the stripping off and hanging around that pisses me off. Today our flight – and not one towards the end of the day, but the 9.40pm to Bordeaux – didn’t leave until 10.25pm.

It did, though, make me realise that I would make a rubbish refugee or economic migrant. And for once that isn’t some cheap, silly joke: given that their lot doesn’t involve mere 40-minute delays and that they are treated like shit by pretty much everyone they come across, they have my wholehearted respect. If I were a refugee, there would be not one but a great many Tony Powell moments, until they come to an end when I am shot through the head by some thug who got fed up with all the whingeing.

. . .

The big news this week, or rather the 17th biggest news this week given that the wee chappie in North Korea has sent another rocket off across Japan which arguably is rather bigger news, is that one Jean-Claude Juncker, the president of the European made his ‘state of the union’ address to a gathering of the few who can still find it in themselves to be interested and in which he banged on about chasing forward ever faster towards ever greater political union, an EU army, EU-wide this and EU-wide that. ‘Europe, he declared, ‘has the wind in its sails again. Well, perhaps, perhaps not. As usual we would have to wait for at least 50 years and preferably far more to get a balanced, reasonably objective account of how the EU fared once Britain had upped sticks and buggered off in a huff and few if any of us reading this will be around then.

I read the report of his speech in the Guardian, a paper which is not known for its Brexit tendencies, but even it was remarkably sniffy about Juncker and his speech. It pointed out that the contents of the speech were more fantasy than anything else, given that not a small number of EU members who might well be keen on most aspects of the union are – for any number of reasons – not at all hot on ‘ever closer political union’. This is something Juncker is apparently still big on.

As for Brexit and Juncker’s take on it, you pays your money and you makes your choice as to how important the great man thinks it is. The Guardian reported that he spent less than two minutes addressing the issue. You can read more details here.

The Daily Mail on the other hand made a big thing of Juncker’s references to Brexit, which is no great surprise, of course, reporting that the great man insisted Britain would regret leaving the EU and a second account here.

There, in a nutshell, is the problem for anyone trying to find out objective accounts of this another matters. The Mail says one thing, the Guardian another. And given the choice of two interpretations most of us accept the one which best reflects our views. But then it was ever thus.

 . .

I have now been here in Illats for a few days, days which are following their usual pattern. My aunt, who is basically Irish but who has lived in France for more than 50 years does things the French way. So lunch is the big meal of the day. It’s not that the French treat themselves to several haut cuisine dishes at every meal, so by ‘big meal’ I mean main meal, even though it does always – in her household and even though it is essentially a simple meal – consist of hors d’oeuvres (pate, cruditie, that kind of thing, then the main course, then cheese, then fruit. And it is not all gulped down in four minutes. I should though point out that my aunt (strictly speaking my stepmother’s sister, but I regard here as an aunt and her two sons as cousins) and her husband are both over 80 and grew up in a different age. Supper is something simpler, often just salad with dressing, bread and a bit of cheese. But wine is drunk at both meals, and it is the wine which does for me.

I can’t say I drink a great deal, but even a glass of wine at lunchtime can knock me out for the afternoon, and it is usually two or three glasses rather than just the one. Obviously, I am not being forced to drink, but I do like a leisurely meal and nothing makes a meal more leisurely than a glass or three of wine. I can’t say I know a great deal about wine (at home I stick to one of two brands of Spanish Rioja and although neither is the cheapest in the supermarkets, buying them most certainly doesn’t risk me breaking the bank), but my aunt’s husband – who may no longer drink alcohol for health reasons – does, like many French of his age know a bit and buys in good wines, which are always a pleasure to drink. So after lunch, I retire to my room, try to read, but very soon give in and nap on and off for an hour or two and finally end up feeling like death. Some people are refreshed by an afternoon snooze, some are not. I am not.

In the past few years I have been coming to Illats in July to take in several concerts at chateaux in the region, but it wasn’t possible this year, so I am here in September. There are, sadly, no concerts at the moment (in July there is are there different series of them) but last night we did catch a nine-strong group of Georgians singing their lusty hearts out at the Cite du Vin in Bordeaux (a very futuristic-looking building). Apparently, it was all part of a marketing drive to push Georgian wines and there was any number of brochures about Georgia’s wine industry, one claiming – not doubt truthfully – that the cultivation of grapes and wine-making began in Georgia around 6,000BC.

The singers (who each carried a foot-long dagger) had great voices and they harmonised as I have so far only heard the Welsh do.