No Blog Today

Sung to the tune of the Herman Hermit’s song – No Milk Today

 No Blog Today, I’m afraid I’ve gone away

My body’s being changed, my willy rearranged

The doctors all agree, that as I cannot pee

They need to use a knife, to end my trouble and strife

 

How could they know just what this posting means

The end of my hopes, the end of all my dreams

How could they know, the phallus there had been

Behind the door, where my love reigned supreme

 

No blog today, it wasn't always so

The writing came its way, I’d do it night and day

 

But all that’s left is a stump, red and bloody

A crying shame when I get back home to you

Becomes all limp when I think of you only

Just  too sore to screw

 

No blog today, it wasn't always so

The writing came its way, I’d do it night and day

As music played, the faster did we dance 

We felt it both at once, the end of our romance 

 

No Blog today, the surgeon’s got his way

I’m down here at St Jean, being operated upon

The nurses stop and stare, my predicament aware

They laugh and smirk with glee, but at least I’ll be able to pee

 

No blog today, it wasn't always so

The writing came its way, I’d do it night and day

 

But all that’s left is a stump red and bloody

A crying shame when I get back home to you

Becomes all limp when I think of you only

Just  too sore to screw

 

The original can be found here……..

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ClQepFF-Sr0

Lucy Is Dead

I’m crying my eyes out. Lucy died not more than ten minutes ago, put to rest by a very sympathetic vet, called out at 11pm to see to our sickly cat. It turned out that she had been poisoned, most probably by accident, and as she was in extreme pain and with only a 10%-20% of surviving, we, (Guy, Julie and myself) decided that she had suffered enough. I have just left Guy cuddling his beloved cat wrapped in the orange pashmina to which she had taken a liking over the last few days of her life. Bijou and Shadow are sniffing around aware that something terrible has happened.

As I wrote a few days ago, Lucy had come back to visit us after Tan and Angie had gone off to England. This is normal for Lucy. As soon as Tan and Angie leave on one of their frequent trips, Lucy comes round looking for food and then settles on the sofa with one eye on Coco and the other on Bijou. This time she stayed for only a couple of days and then left on one of her sojourns. Three days later, during which it had rained and rained and rained and rained, and as I was working outside the house, I heard Lucy’s plaintive meow high up in the terraces. It was a miracle that I saw her hidden amongst the autumn leaves of the bushes and trees which populate the terracing which is so common in Provence.  Despite calling her, to which she normally responds by bounding down the steep terracing, she stayed put, crying plaintively. I knew something was wrong. When I reached her, it was obvious that she had damaged her left front paw and as I carried her down the slopes, she looked up at me with gratitude in her olive eyes.

We looked at her paw, gave her plenty of fish to eat and milk to drink and she seemed fine although the paw was still giving trouble a few days later. Whilst cuddling her, I also discovered a lump on her breast. That was it. J took her down to the vets and she was given an anti-inflammatory injection to ward off any infection and was scheduled for an operation to remove the lump.

And then yesterday she didn’t eat anything. Overnight she slept on the bed and stayed there all morning. At lunch time today I tried to tempt her with some tuna but although she tried, she just couldn’t eat anything.

At about 5pm she started to get listless and floppy. She wanted her own space. No more cuddles. At 6pm she started to look for cool, dark spaces. I knew then that Lucy was dying. Her sister, Camille had sought the cave in which to die sitting on her haunches and Lucy’s posture was exactly the same as Camille’s position when found.

We tried to leave her to rest but both Guy and I could not just sit there and do nothing. We both lay on the floor stroking her head and saying how much we loved her.

At about 8pm I told Guy his cat was dying and that he should look after her. At 10pm she was obviously in a huge amount of pain and J called the vet for a house call. He arrived at approx 10.45pm and immediately diagnosed poison.

When the decision was taken to end poor Lucy’s life, I could not bear to watch. I returned after about 5 minutes following an anaesthetising injection and she was still breathing. I could not bear to watch the final stage and as I wandered down the hall in floods of tears, I heard poor Lucy cry out. It was her final sounds.

It Made The News Today….

Some possibly interesting stories from the French media for those in the UK who seem to have to read about death, despair, the weather and Gordon Ramsay’s affairs every day…..

Firstly there is the story about some 3 star Michelin chefs who are giving up their restaurants in order to go back to more simple fare simply because of the pressure of trying to retain those coveted awards. I suppose the only way to go when you have won your 3^rd star is down and so, many of the chefs who create those gastronomic delights in France’s thirty six 3-star restaurants, are wondering whether it’s all worth it, indeed, one poor guy committed suicide a few years ago after his star rating was reduced from three to two. Maybe Michelin should have a 3+ rating or why not a 4 and a 5?

Then there was the story which sums up France’s passion for bureaucracy when it was discovered that by selling things on e-Bay, by law, you have become an ‘enterprise’ and are subject to all sorts of weird and wonderful rules and regulations. Somebody was fined over €3,000 in 2006 for being bold enough to sell some bric-a-brac on e-bay and not declaring themselves as a commercial enterprise. Only in France!

And what about the Greenpeace protest at tuna fishing? What did they do? They dumped dozens of rotting tuna on the doorsteps of the Ministry of Agriculture in Paris to make their point. So where did they get these tuna? Did they buy them at the Paris fish market in which case the market bosses would have called the trawlers and said they’d had a run on Tuna and could they catch some more please!     

Now if the Greenpeace protesters had decided to buy their tuna on a Sunday in order to let them rot for a week then they would have had to change their plans cause in good ol France there’s not too many, if any shops, open on a Sunday – it’s against the law apparently. I always thought that Sunday closing was just the French way of saying, ‘we’ve made enough money during the week thank you and Sunday is for stuffing our faces’. But apparently not. It’s against the law to open on a Sunday as it is to have sales outside the two designated official sales periods. Bizarre.

And then there was the former French politician who was arrested and fined for showing a sign when President Sarkozy’s car passed one day. The sign read, ‘casse-toi pauvre con’, which in most French people’s eyes would mean, ‘get lost you sad git’. Now if everybody who shouted or showed signs or slogans when Gordon Brown’s entourage passed on that long journey between No 10 and the Houses of Parliament (300 yards ??) nobody would be left on the streets of London. They’d all be banged up. The ‘nice’ ending to this story was that the words on that French sign were exactly the same words which Sarkozy used when addressing a French farmer last February!

What about the poor school kids? Not allowed to take any snacks to school to have during the mid-morning break. My kids leave at 7.20am on some mornings and don’t get lunch until 1pm – that’s 5 hours and 40 minutes without food. The actual story highlighted a headmistress who refused to allow kids to eat fruit at ‘playtime’ because of obesity fears! And all the while the kids could see teachers eating in the staffroom. You may not know this, but French schools do not have vending machines or ‘tuck’ shops and the kids are not allowed to take packed lunches. They either go home or have lunch in the school canteen. The headmistress in question was adamant that ‘it is bad for children to eat constantly’. Bet she’s as fat as a barrel!

And finally……..on the 6^th to the 14^th December in Paris is the Salon du Cheval which sounds like it is the horsey equivalent of Crufts. Each year over 1000 horses, ponies and donkeys appear and what do you think happens to all those equine beasts at the end of the show – yup – you guessed it – the French eat them ! Only kidding but I bet next month’s pension that the burger stands in the hall (sorry salon) sell Cheval Burgers. I bet they do. 

Monkey’s Head? – No Sir – It’s A Haggis

I read a report the other day about customs officers opening a rather foul smelling package in Munich airport and discovering a rotting monkey’s head. Now I stopped reading at that point because I had no need, nor wish, to know what someone would do with a rotting monkey’s head. Of course, it could have been a perfectly good, dead monkey’s head before it got caught up in the red tape which is border customs these days and without any knowledge of witchcraft (ok - I live with one) or anti-impotency remedies (I may need one next week!!) I have no idea what it was for. It could, of course, have been sent to some poor soul as a sort of mafia-esque gesture similar to finding a severed and extremely bloody horse’s head snuggled up beside you in bed. No idea.

It’s just a wonder that I haven’t been stopped as I’ve entered Nice airport during the last ten years. I haven’t ‘smuggled’ anything in as revolting as a monkey’s head but I’m sure the old French customs guys would have had a fit if they’d seen some of the British/Sottish foodstuffs secreted in my bag. Some of it, I have to admit, not allowed. Luckily I’ve only ever been stopped once at Nice and this was when I was on the New York flight and had nothing to do with food.

Now at Nice Airport, the customs people generally sit and read their papers or play Solitaire on their PCs, so humdrum is their daily routine but when the Delta flight arrives from New York, the staff numbers treble, papers are put aside, PCs are switched off and the incoming bags are scrutinised with a zeal which the French generally reserve for looking at their food. It was on one such day when I arrived from New York with a package so big I could not possibly have concealed it. It was a 200 CD player – one of those things like a juke box – stores 200 CDs and plays all your tracks in order, in genre or randomly – a beautiful bit of kit. Anyway, as I surreptitiously tried to disappear into the crowds pouring through the two-person-wide exit, I felt a hand on my shoulder and the request to stop and answer some questions. What was it? Where did I buy it? Had I paid tax? Did I have anything else? And then the question, the answer to which floored him, how much did it cost? ‘$199’, I said. ‘No way’, he replied. ‘Yup’, I said with a slight smirk on my face. He got out his calculator and said it couldn’t possibly be true. ‘I had a receipt’, I said with a self-assured satisfaction that something was amiss – on his side.

As it turned out, I was, once a dollar to Franc/Euro conversion had taken place, well under the limit for imported goods. He simply shook his head in disbelief and waved me onwards.   

But back to foodstuffs. Amazingly, I’ve only ever been stopped on the ‘leaving' leg of a trip. I was stopped at Glasgow when the x-ray machine highlighted two very distinct shapes – so distinct that they started to clear the security area until I looked at the screen and said, ‘they’re not bombs – they’re haggis. Laughter and relief all round as they checked the two round haggis with the distinct little knot on the top which looked for all the world like a round bomb with a fuse.

I was stopped a couple of weeks ago when I was leaving Luton for Nice when the strange solid block on the x-ray made the slightly wary security guys open my case to find a 3 kilo block of Scottish Lorne sausage (subject of a separate blog posting). I had some job trying to prove it was sausage, I tell you.

But the food which I am so glad has never been discovered is the cheese I bring back. The Winchester extra-strong cheddar. The blocks of Red Leicester. The Waitrose white Stilton with cranberries or apricots. I suspect that if I was ever discovered bringing this in, I would be thrown into prison and never heard of again. Importing English Cheese into France – mon Dieu – sacrilege.    

Lost In Space

Did you read about the female astronaut who lost her handbag in space and which can be spotted if you have a powerful telescope? This really proves that women’s handbags are way too large. I mean this thing is whizzing around at 15,000 miles per hour, 250 miles above us and yet is still visible from earth.

Now it takes a special type of woman to lose her handbag in space and sets a whole new standard of incompetence. Leaving it on the roof of the car as you speed out of the supermarket car park just does not seem laughable any more.

Why do they need to be so big anyway? They make mobile phone companies millions every year. I phone the missus all the time and I know that as it’s ringing, she’s frantically rummaging through last year’s supermarket till receipts, sticky sweets which have come out of their wrappers and a mountain of lipsticks which have long since gone out of fashion because nobody wears bright pink anymore and then I get her answering service. She then phones me back, breathless from the effort of pulling half a ton of rubbish out of her bag and so two calls are made rather than one. It’s ridiculous.

I sat in the doctor’s surgery today and watched this young woman with a handbag so big you could have gone food shopping with it. Some people could even have gone camping for the weekend with it, but as she fumbled around inside its cavernous space, I just knew it was her mobile she was after and sure enough I was correct. As she retrieved it from the very bottom of the bag (it was soft leather so I could see movements inside the bag which made it look like a couple of ferrets fighting inside a sack) I had to say I almost applauded the effort she put into it. She was obviously really chuffed at finding her phone so quickly (2 minutes and 25 seconds – I know I’m anal) and looked around for any other admiring female but there was only J and she’s still blind, so not being able to see which arm her handbag might be on, she’s stopped carrying one – albeit temporarily I’m sure. Anyway, as this girl’s glance stopped at me I simply tapped my small gentleman’s purse which is all of about 4 inches square and smirked. I was able to do this without any fear of her blaming my behaviour on English arrogance as most ex-pat males don’t carry ‘purses’ and so she just sat there thinking French males are so, well – up themselves.

Years ago when I was much more immature than I am now, and as a pretty pathetic and infantile joke when there was mixed company in a pub, one of the guys (we used to take it in turns) would simply upturn one of the females in our crowd’s handbag, emptying its contents on the bar for all to see. I have to say there were some really weird things which ended on the bar’s surface and some embarrassing ones too. Red faces all round sometimes.

But for females reading this, our hatred of those ‘fashion accessories’ really comes from the fact that every new dress seems to deserve a new, matching handbag. Every new pair of shoes – ditto. And each one more expensive and expansive than the previous incumbent. They fill up our bits of the wardrobe and they fall out when you open the doors. I dread to think how many dead cows, goats, ponies etc were sacrificed to make something as meaningless as a handbag.

So back to the female astronaut who lost her handbag (sorry toolkit) in space. Don’t be too surprised to hear of a special Space Shuttle mission to retrieve it. If it’s big enough to see from dear old earth, it must present a hazard to passing space ships and needs to be returned to its rightful owner before it does any lasting damage.

Picture is handbag (sorry toolkit) floating off into space.