Tuesday 13 September 2011

Essert-Romand. Day three - an insight

Essert-Romand, Haute-Savoie, France.
Those who might be craving an additional insight into brother Mark's character (brother Mark, my favourite of two brothers, is the one who lost his passport within seconds of arriving at Geneva airport but refused categorically to return to chase up the loss when, just ten minutes drive away he discovered what had happened) might be interested in this, an exchange which took place less than three minutes ago.
The scene: we are just three days into our holiday with another 11 days of blissless nothing to do - no obligations, no work to go to, nothing - settled into a very comfortable ski apartment in Essert-Romand, sitting on the balcony overlooking a very pleasant valley, a large glass of pastis at our elbows, the temperature falling a little but still comfortable. I am feeling contented and ask:
Are you enjoying yourself, Mark?
He:
Why do you ask?
Why indeed? Just thought I would pass the time of day. Why on earth did I bother?
Supper is Piedmont tomatoes (Delia's recipe) prepard by me, and chicory salad, prepared by Mark. Why did I ask? I do wonder.

Monday 12 September 2011

Essert-Romand. Day two. And to use a cliche: Greek default and the euro - the endgame

Essert-Romand, Haute-Savoie, France.
Second day here in the Rhone Alps, so I thought I might dribble on a bit and keep whoever is bloody interested up to speed (Sid and Doris Bonkers for anyone who cares to pick up on the allusion, not that it is in any way significant. But I am keen to get underway a literary tradition of ‘insignificant significance’ - see further dribblings, as yet unpublished, for greater insight, although I should warn you that an essential element in the new literary philosophy of ‘insignificant singificance’ is the notion of ‘pointless insight’)
After a train ride to Gatwick Airport, the highlight of which was being buttonholed by a divorced Russian journalist (her claim) who was on her way to Sicily for alone for a 20-day sojourn and who didn’t stop talking about herself from Clapham Junction to Gatwick, Mark and I flew to Geneva Airport where we encountered our first hiccup.
I am vacationing with my younger brother Mark who I have finally managed to winkle out of his hole for what I believe is a much-needed holiday. For two months earlier this year, he was bedridden with an awful case of shingles and, I think, that persuaded him to give in and come with me. I get on well with Mark, and although I am now almost 62 and he turned 53 in June, I still regard him as ‘my little brother’. Older siblings might know what I am talking about.
But Mark can be quiet particular, and that first hiccup - for him at least, I didn’t give a flying fuck - was that instead of the VW Polo hire car he reckons we were promised by Budget, we ended up with a Skoda Fabia. He was rather put out and suggested, whether seriously or not, that we should complain and insist on a Polo. As, as far as I am concerned, I’ll put up with more or less any car as long as it has four wheels, a working engine and keeps me dry, I didn’t encourage him. So the Skoda it was, and is, and, as you will gather I have no complaints.
A slightly bigger hiccup occurred when we approached the Swiss/French border and Mark went to take out his passport in case the border police of either stripe demanded to see it. He could find it. We pulled in and he searched is jacket high and low, then his bag, then the car, but he still couldn’t find it. He last had it, as must be pretty obvious, when we went through immigration at the airport just 30 minutes earlier but between then and now it had mysteriously gone missing. I offered to turn around and drive back to the airport as we were no more than 10 minutes away, but in that stubborn way he was, he would hear none of it (which for me is a subsidiary mystery - returning to the airport and trying to track it down seemed to me the obvious thing to do).
Then is was the winding schlepp through sunny Alpine road to this little hamlet. It is just on the outskirts of Morzine, but we took a wrong turning somewhere and drove right into the town, arriving after dark when everything was lit up and made it all look like a Hollywood Alpine film set designed by someone with more money than taste. After I had finally persuaded him to ask directions to Essert-Romand (he was brought up in France and is bilingual in English and French but is oddly pathologically averse to bothering people by way of asking directions) we reached the little hamlet. There was one last diversion when instead of taking a turning just 30m up a steep hill off the main road, we carried on for anther few kilometres deep into the mountains. We then came across a gang of young men from whom, again at my urging, Mark solicited directions and finally arrived at our apartment.
It is very nice and comfortable. The first day, yesterday, we spent doing absolutely nothing - which is as it should be - and today we visited the local Carrefour to stock up on gin and tonic and all the things that go with gin and tonic (moussaka, kitchen towels, red peppers, crisps etc.)

. . .

What is quite noticeable is how expensive ordinary goods are here in France. Given that the pound is trading 1 to 1.13 euros, prices seem to have gone up quite remarkable in these past few years. I was in France last July, but I didn’t do very much shopping. But my brother and I went out today for a general shop-up and for pretty much very few goods I parted with 46.40 euros. That’s more than £41. Ironcially, the most expensive item - a 75cl - was still cheaper than I could have bought it in England, so the other goods - red peppers, jar of anchovies, milk, break, garlic, nuts and crisps (and one or two other things I can’t be arsed to record at this point) were up in price. This on the day when the shares in French banks are plummeting, given that far too many of them hold Greek bonds. I wonder whether all the futures bods in the City have now laid their bets as to how soon the Greece will default?
The panic started when spokesmen for both coalition parties in Germany talked of ‘an orderly default by Greece’ no longer being out of the question. And bearing in mind the old saw that one should never believe anything until it’s officially denied, a default be Greece in now a racing certainty. About the only game in town is which one of the German government’s tame banks and cronies should be shielded from the fallout. That’s what will be getting hearts racing in Berlin and Frankfurt. Oddly enough, I was also on holiday in September when Britain was turfed out of the ERM (which, in hindsight, was a blessing in disguise).

Saturday 3 September 2011

CIA and MI6 not above doing business with whoever if the results are right

A while ago, I trawled the net for whatever pictures I could find of various world leaders schmoozing the Gaddafi. I came across several and published them. In view of today’s lead news on the BBC News website, I thought it might be worth publishing them again. What was that news? Well, despite our ostensible distaste for the various cutthroats around the world we choose to label as dictators, we are not above getting into bed with them when and if. And it seems that’s just what America’s CIA and Britain’s MI6 were doing for several years before Gaddafi’s recent difficulties. You can read more here.
In the meantime, here again are thoses piccies:


Blair greets his old mucker Muammar - God, I've missed you - no, I dont have a gun in my pocket



Anything Tony can do - well, so can Barak. He manages to look sincere - go team Obama



... and don't forget good ol' Nicolas - can't let those bloody roast beefs steal all the glory


When it comes to reformed characters guys like Putin will yield to no one. How's it going, my old mate Muammar?


Finally, of course, Brown might have come late to the office of Prime Minister - or later than he demanded - but he was just as willing to kiss arse as his predecessor


. . .

Off to France in seven days for a well-earned break, in the Haut Savoie just south of the Swiss border, where loads and load and loads of folk go skiing, but as in the middle two weeks of September there should be no snow whatsoever, I hope to God I don’t bump into any Brits. I don’t know what it is – perhaps it is my German blood – but I do find a great many Brits I meet abroad a complete embarrassment. The middle-class ones get very pretentious as the food and wine, and treat almost everything French as though it were manna from Heaven. ‘Lord, the French know how to live, could teach us a thing or two’. Er, no, actually, if we Brits regarded food as one of life’s pleasures rather than as mere sustenance and if, consequently, we gave a little more care and attention to its preparation, we, too, could eat like the French. As for the wine, there is as much bad wine around in France as in England. The main difference as far as wine is concerned between the French (and Italians and Spanish) and we Brits is that they will drink a glass or two and leave it at that, but we feel obliged to drink the whole bottle, start a second and see just how fast and far we can get off our faces with – the usual Brit touch – for the minimum outlay.
As for – well, I am too delicate to lay myself open to a charge of snobbery beyond the call of duty so I shall restrict myself to referring to this next group as the ‘not middle-class’, all they seem to want to do is to get as pissed as possible as fast as possible. ‘But didn’t you just say that about the middle-classes’ I hear you ask? No, not quite. The crucial difference is that the ‘not middle-class’ don’t get all hoity-toity about drinking wine whereas the middle-class like to imbue it with some kind of spurious cultural significance. ‘Lord, isn’t it great to live a little, I mean really live properly, you know the French could teach us a thing or two.’
I shall carry on doing my puzzles work while on holiday which means I had to dig out a chalet with wireless internet access. So, if I take any nice piccies, I shall post them here on this blog. Oh, and I am going with my younger brother who attended French schools for five years as a lad and speaks French. I , on the other hand, don’t.

. . .

And just for the craic, a picture of my son taken nine years ago which I have been dicking around with.


Thursday 1 September 2011

A silly season? Anything but, my sweethearts. And God rot these aches and pains

Whatever happened to the silly season. Traditionally, hacks and the media obliged to employ them are so hard up for hard news stories in August that they resort to all sorts of crap to fill their newslists. It’s where we get the phrase ‘skateboarding ducks’ from, although I have no doubt at all that somewhere in Tarahoma, Iowa, some idiot is as I write (or you read) fine-tuning his programme to get a troupe of ducks to dance the
Dance Of The Sugar Plum Fairies from The Nutcracker Suite. He, or in these post-feminist days even she, was probably spurred on by happening upon this blog and resolving to outdo in wackiness the moron I described a few entries ago who intends to die the fattest person alive. Incidentally, by describing that particular idiot as a moron, I am, make no mistake, skating on thin ice. Here in the Western World in which we lay great stress on ‘individuality’ and ‘expressing yourself’ and the outright insistence that whatever bollocks I write is in no way more important than the bollocks you write, however much it is 24-carat bollocks, it is not just in poor taste publicly to question someone’s intelligence, we are in very real danger of contravening human rights legislation. While many in Libya and Syria are giving their lives in order that their fellow man and woman might in future live in freedom, all we in the West can think of doing with the freedom we take for granted is to see how much more stupid we can be than the next man.
But, as usual, I have digressed. I began by asking whatever had happened to the silly season, and I did so because August has been anything but news-free: there is the ongoing trouble in Libya and Syria, the discomfort of America’s East Coast who were forcefully taught that not being poor and black doesn’t save you from the ravages of a hurricane, the tragedy become farce but now again become tragedy of the imminent collapse of Europe’s economy what with all the tippy-toeing around the problems of the euro, the widespread looting here in Britain, the shock to the U.S. that as far as the ‘credit ratings agencies’ are concerned, that country’s government and how it runs the economy is no more trustworthy than your average Mid-West snake oil salesman. And finally, as it were to add insult to injury, there’s the fact that for the fourth year running summer here in Britain has been a complete washout. So take your talk of silly seasons and shoved it where the sun don’t shine. We should, of course, look on the bright side: after Channel 4 finally canned Big Brother, reasoning that the programme has run its course, served its purpose and that the station was in danger of flogging a dead horse, up popped Five to buy up the rights and carry on regardless. And, I’m happy to report (though I must admit when I tested the waters, I could stand no more then seven minutes of it) it is even worse than it ever was.

. . .

OK, so as I’m not even 62 and shan’t even reach that oh-so-glorious milestone for more than two months, I am being a bit previous as we say here in England (though my father will be turning in his grave to hear me adopt the phrase, once the slang of uneducated ruffians, then a knowing number adopted by educated ruffians, and now not far off what you might well hear in a BBC Radio 4 commentary, still every-so-slightly jokey, but with overtones that the speaker might be a tad dull but he’s most definitely also a tad street. Christ, the petty nuances of modern life. But I was going to rattle on a little about began ‘old age’ and so I’d better get to the point sharpish for fear of being prematurely diagnosed with the onset of dementia. Now why would I consider pontificating about old age. Well, for one, the increasing number of vague and not so vague aches and pains my body suffers daily. And what’s all that about? Lord, there was a time, it seems no many years ago, but was most surely at least 20 when, if needs be, I could shag all night and still go to work after just two hours sleep. I was - this is, I think important - still unmarried and would, admittedly, spend the rest of the day feeling like a rag doll, but that isn’t the point. But now? Now the first steps downstairs for my morning cup of tea are tentative, to say the least, with my heels feeling as though I had spent the previous ten hours running non-stop. Then there is my growing stoop. What’s all that about then? It has got to the point where my son, still only 12 but sadly just as facetious and heartless as I was at that age, feels the way I get up from a chair and walk is worth at least five minutes of remorseless ribbing. And what makes it all the less bearable is that no amount of loving advice along the lines of ‘don’t laugh to much, my lad, you’ll get there, too, one day, mark my words’ makes the not a blind bit of difference. He is just a young lad enjoying the last few months of life pre-puberty when everything is a hoot, and I can’t see him paying any attention at all to my wise advice for at least an other 30 years, by which time I shall be dead, or if not dead, in no state do do much except slobber over my soup and repeat myself till even the most charitable of my nurses loses patients.
So what is it all about? I go to the gym three times a week
and have done for many years, and I don’t just go through the motions but make sure I really do get a sweat up, but still I have been unable to avoid any of that pissy set of aches and pains which will afflict us all. Laugh if you will, but a few years ago I really thought that if I did, as I now do, go to the gym conscientiously, I might somehow avoid them. Some bloody hope. I would like to end this entry on something positive, but, you know, I really can’t off-hand think of anything. Good night and God bless.

Saturday 27 August 2011

And one more, just for the craic, why the misery of others cheers us up and filthy, filthy Brits

It’s Saturday morning, I’m off to London a little earlier this week, I always miss my children so here’s another short, this one for parents and sentimental saps everywhere.


Actually, I could quite get into posting a short video or two on this blog lark. See what I can come up with.

. . .

I'm sure we have all been glued to the television screen these past few days what with the mounting misery taking place in the world. And there's nothing like the misery of others to cheer us up as we realise that however dull, frustrating, uninspired and essentially lifeless our existence is it could be a lot worse. The two major stories for the past few days have been Libya and the threat of mass destruction to the good Yankee folk who have the misfortune to live on the East Coast. Granted there has been untold misery in Northern Kenya and Southern Somalia as millions - I believe it is now millions - have nothing to eat, but for us in the West Somalia and Kenya are just a tad too far away to elicit more than just a resigned 'God, isn't life bloody! Makes you think, doesn't it'. Then there were the dramatic events in Egypt, but Egypt, too, seems rather distant. And anyway, despite the limited viollence earlier this year, their dictator was got rid of apparently quite easily with no incidents of wholesale massacre. But it's a whole different matter in Libya which arouses our interest rather more in that it is actually 'quite close'. Sitting just south of Sicily and even closer to Malta (which ran a ferry service to Benghazi until recently) we can relate to Libya. And many Brits of a certain age - those who are now between 65 and 85 - might well have a certain sentimental affection for Libya as the place where they got roaring drunk for the first time and might even have lost their cherry while serving in the forces during the war and its aftermath. ('Ah, Tobruk Tessa, what she couldn't do with a ... well, better leave it there.') Those feeling a little argumentative might argue that in that case Tunisia is almost 'closer', to which I would retort that that country's revolution also passed off comparatively peacefully and, anyway, the French had and have their fingers all over Tunisia which rather spoils it for us Brits.
But for the horror of revolution, Libya fits the bill neatly, and it's a comfort that we are able to see it all on our TV screens, which is as close to all the misery as we will get, which is just the way we like it. Which brings me to Hurricane Irene and the havoc it is wreaking on America's East Coast. We Brits know a thing or two about rain but this is ridiculous. And rather as the horror in Libya oddly afffects us more than the human misery in Somalia, the scenes of destruction in North Carolina and - heavens! - New York seem curiously more appalling than when we see virtually identical footage shot in Florida and Lousiana. I mean those Southern States have several hurricanes every year and they are geared up for it. But the East Coast? New York? Hurricanes? Surely not? Isn't that where America's intellectuals live? Can't have that can we? Granted that the mainstream news media are apt to exaggerate these days - in fact, I believe it is written into their contracts that everything is bigged up and then some - but I recall hearing the astounding snippet that one million New Yorkers are fleeing their homes for safer parts. But where are those safer parts? All I know is that beyond New York and to the west lie New Jersey, where no New Yorker would care to be seen dead, and the Catskills where - I think I've got this right - numerous Jewish comedians and playwrights honed their talent. Is that where they have gone?
. . .
I have strayed from the path. What brought on this particular sermon/rant/diatribe/delete as applicable is that I am sitting on a train bound for Bristol where I am due to pick up my car and carry on to London. (Long story, but briefly, my brother has inherited all the property, goods and chattels of an elderly bachelor friend of the family who died last year and having no use for a rather smart Vauxhall Astra automatic which was part of the package has given it to me. Yes, that's right, he gave it to me. Lovely chap, my brother. So I now have three cars to my name, and must now decide what to do with one of them. But that's all for another time.)
My journey didn't get off to a good start in that my wife dropped me off at the station one hour and 15 minutes before my train was due to leave for what she regards as 'good reasons' but which I regard as nothing but provocation. In the even it turned out an earlier train was leaving Bodmin Parkway for Bristol and although my ticket specifies that I can only catch the train I am booked for, I decided to chance my arm. When the ticket collector came - officially train manager - came along, a bottle blonde Mancunian, I immediately fessed up and asked humbly that as my wife had dropped me at the station earlier, would it be all right ... Yes, she said, but she was only travelling as far as Plymouth and I would have to ask the next ticket collector/train manager. And, she added, he was new and stuck to the rules, so good luck. And so he did, and so I got off the train at Plymouth (the station is as dreary as the town) and waited for the 18.23 for Leeds, which, as usually happens on these occasions when one detail becomes out of kilter arrived 35 minutes late.
What got me thinking about Libya was the state of the lavatory at the end of my carriage. There was no water, so it couldn't be flushed and it had been used by quite a few others by the time I got around to using it. And its state was not a one-off. I have been driving to London to work for these past few years but for many, many years I used to catch the train at Exeter. And all too often the loo was somehow out of order. But the Brits don't seem to care. How can I make that claim? Because if they did care, the train companies would ensure that their lavatories were always clean, and if they didn't, the public would put pressure on them to do so. But the public doesn't. At the end of the day, the British public would far rather have a good old moan about the state of the loos on the train - and Lord it was late! And Lord the state of the carriage - than actually get someting done.
How did I get to Libya from there? Well, simple really: whenever I've seen coverage of the war, the country seems to consist of God-awful scrubland and desert and the towns seem so down-at-heel that they, too, could be described as scrubland. Certainly, the country, thanks to its oil wealth, had modern hospitals and certainly Gaddafi and his sons and daughter lived very high on the hog. But it would seem the Abdul Public wasn't quite as fortunate.
Years ago, I went to Greece, to Corfu, in September, and it seemed to me that because it was getting towards the end of the season and because its 19th-century sewage system couldn't cope with the 20th-century hordes of, mainly British, tourists, the whole place stank of shit. I spent the second week in a small more or less purpose-built resort on the north of the island - pupose-built several decades earlier, I should add - and running to the sea was a small stream. This stream was thick and grey and stank atrociously, yet not feet away Brit tourists were sunbathing on the grass. Sadly, the Brits don't seem to care.