It’s The Weekend – Time For a Thai

I’d been to Paris on my honeymoon years ago when foreign travel was something Glaswegians did only when they followed their football team around Europe. I then had the pleasure of making a tour of the Loire Valley Chateaux and the Champagne region with J one year. At IBM and BT, I actually worked in Paris at La Défense for a few short weeks. I’d been to Calais quite a lot on ‘booze cruises’, long before they built the channel tunnel and I’d skied in the French Alps on a few occasions. I loved France, French food and the little bit of the country I had seen on my early travels.

It was only when I moved down to Tourrettes and saw the full beauty of the countryside that I really came to appreciate the fact that of all the countries in Europe, France probably has the most magnificent and varied scenery, and that includes my native Scotland. 

It’s a well known fact that the vast majority of French people do not travel outwith their country when the summer hols come around and after seeing quite a bit of their country over the last few years, I can understand why. I mean they’ve got majestic mountains in the south and east, magnificent beaches in the west and rolling fields and extensive history in the north. And then there is the fabulous weather and fancy resorts in the south. The gorges and rivers which criss-cross the country are amazing and the chateaux which are more numerous than you can imagine, are spectacular in their splendour.

Then there’s the food. I’ve said to J quite a few times that you can get good food in London for much the same price as you would pay in France, especially now the exchange rate has moved against the Pound. But what you don’t get in the UK is the pleasure of walking into a smallish rural restaurant and discovering a great chef, making wonderful food at reasonable prices.

Years ago when J and I lived in the UK, we splashed out and went to Bray for Sunday lunch at the  Waterside Inn which is a three-star Michelin restaurant. That day I tasted food, the like of which I had never experienced before – it was sumptuous. Then I got the bill! Now this was some 20 years ago but the total on the little bit of paper was, and I’ll remember it forever, a mind-blowing £164! You could dine out here in local restaurants for a month on that figure and although the food wouldn’t be up to Michelin star standard, it would still be of a very high quality. Indeed, our local hotel, where we got married does a three-course lunch for €20 and the food is absolutely fantastic.

So given all this; the scenery, the great food and the fact that the French love their country and holiday within it’s borders, why then have some French people opened the following establishments down here in sunny Provence? I reckon it’s for the Brits – it must be!

The Thai hotel serving ‘authentic Thai food’, created by their very own French Chef who just happened to marry a Thai girl. Probably found her on ‘MeetThaiGirls.com’! All the normal delicacies you’d find in your local Thai are here. The Green Thai Curry, the spicy soup and the deep fried vegetables. I suspect however that it’s not like some UK Thais where you have to take your own wine.

Then there’s the Mongolian Hotel where you stay in tents and eat ‘Mongolian’ food whatever that might be! Apparently, the owners (both French) saw these tents on a trip to that far-away country and decided it would be a good idea to get some shipped  over and get people to pay for the ‘Mongolian experience’!

Now call me an old fuddy-duddy if you wish, but this is a travesty. Before you know it there will be an ‘English Hotel’ somewhere down here, staffed by eastern Europeans and serving awful food. But at least they’ll keep the bar open until 2am!

In my view, there’s nothing better than getting to a small French village or town and finding a truly authentic French owned, French run, French style auberge serving delicious local food. Ok – a bit of diversity is a good thing but Thai and Mongolian hotels is ridiculous! But hey, I’m a great critic of many aspects of French life, so maybe somebody’s been reading my blog and decided that things needed to change a bit?       

The Sanglier

Native to France and widespread throughout other European countries but almost extinct in the UK, the wild boar is a much maligned, but very tasty creature.

Essentially, a wild pig they are now being reintroduced into the UK’s forests as it has been proved that they are beneficial for the habitat as their constant foraging encourages the spread of plants and trees.

Looking at the head of the sanglier which adorns the wall of our local café, you would be hard-pressed to think of a single reason why you would want to have anything to do with this creature. Huge, hairy and with large tusks, it can be a frightening sight if you come across one when you’re least expecting to.

I used to encounter them late at night when I was returning from the airport after a trip. It was quite normal to see two or three of them wandering around the rubbish bins looking for any tasty treats, but you had to be careful. Hit one of these beasts at speed and your car would be wrecked.

We also found them in our garden occasionally. Every now and then Shadow would stand at the top of the terraces and bark his head off which is not something he normally does – not even when a burglar walked past him in the lounge one night ! Getting the torch, I walked him down to the fence which separates the ‘garden’ from the wood and there they were – one huge female boar and three babies. They just stood and stared at us and then wandered calmly off, as Shadow thanked his lucky stars that there was quite a substantial fence keeping him well separated from the female sanglier. Like all mothers, they are very protective of their young and can inflict serious injuries if they charge.

Apart from the threat to life and limb though, they also create havoc in the garden. It’s not unusual to come out one morning after it’s been raining heavily to find a boar trough where one or more of these creatures has just rolled about, typically on a lawn, creating a huge hollow, devoid of grass and full of water and mud.

Our Swedish neighbours, who only use the place for holidays, decided to have a lawn put down one weekend. It was all done very quickly by the garden company who used rolls of ready-made grass. When finished, it looked immaculate - I don’t have a flat space for a patch of grass and I was extremely jealous.

The following morning as I walked past their house, there was a scene of utter devastation. Obviously some boars had decided that by watering newly laid grass, the worms would come to the surface and, strip by strip, they had actually rolled up the grass and ripped the soil apart in their search for supper.

And that’s the problem out here in summer. Water your plants at night and you risk a few hungry boar tearing your flower beds to shreds.

But hey. Simmered slowly for a couple of hours in a casserole – they don’t half taste good!   

 

Atishoo – The Hay Fever Season Has Started

It definitely has started. Every night at 2am I wake up and can feel my nose filling with pollen. I try and delay that first sneeze for as long as possible because as soon as I start, that’s it, I then sneeze for about thirty minutes. As the first sneeze starts, there’s a frantic search in the dark for my handkerchief (tissues are no good – I obliterate them) and then the bed shakes as I convulse into sneeze after sneeze.

After the first sneeze, I now know how bad it’s likely to get and if it’s likely to last more than a couple of minutes, I just get up, get my robe on, and head for the lounge, where, strangely enough, the air seems to be pollen free. That’s why so many of my blogs are written at 2am at the moment!

My ailment seems to have started much earlier this year. Last winter, I put the date of my first real sneezes in my Outlook calendar (sad I know) so that I could be prepared (Vick up the nose, plentiful supply of hankies etc etc) and I haven’t had the ‘warning’ yet – it’s not due until next week but just as global warming is playing havoc with all sorts of other natural things, it’s also playing havoc with my hooter.

I usually have two lots of hay fever. One about the middle of February when the Mimosa trees are blooming with their brilliant yellow flowers, and one towards the end of summer when there’s just lots of pollen about. This year however, we’re about four weeks early and I can’t see a reason for it. The mimosa is not out yet so something’s blooming and throwing pollen into the air and I can’t see it – but it’s there somewhere.  

 I’ve suffered with hay fever ever since the year dot. I can distinctly remember being on a camping holiday in the north of Scotland with my pal when we ran out of money and the only way of making any to get home was stacking hay in a farmer’s field. After about an hour my eyes were streaming and my nose was red raw with all the sneezing I was doing but I had to carry on – it was murder. A few years later I recall playing in goal for our work’s football team on a grass pitch which had been newly mown and my eyes were out on stalks as the pollen swirled around, invisible and debilitating. All my mates couldn’t understand why I wouldn’t jump to catch the ball but I just couldn’t see it. It was just a blur.

So for years I’ve suffered. I’ve tried every known ‘cure’ devised for hay fever. Pills and potions, sprays and  lotions. And then last year my mate Ashley told me of this new device called Medinose which uses a certain wavelength of light to desensitise your nasal passages and although it sounded like an April Fool’s wind up, I decided to research it, found it on Amazon, sent off for one and have been using it since summer of last year.

I have to admit, you do look like a proper idiot when you use it with its two bright red diodes stuck up your nose (see picture) but it appears to work. Last autumn, after a few weeks use, I suffered less than usual, although as I’m a born sceptic, I’m always looking for alternative reasons why things happen. Maybe the pollen isn’t so bad this year? Maybe I am getting cured, 50 years after my doctor said I would ‘grow out of it’!

This year I had planned to start having a ‘red nose’ in a few weeks time but I’ve had to get it out of the cupboard early and sit on the sofa at night looking like a decoration which has missed Xmas by quite a few weeks!

You Tube Link for Medinose below but if you’re interested search on Google – it can be half price in the UK.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BZdE73e5y30

     

Capitalism – Alive and Well in France

Ikea is like a religion. Do you know that more people read the Ikea catalogue than read the Bible? It’s true. I read it in the Ikea catalogue. In fact, I’m ashamed to say that over the last 2 or 3 years I‘ve read the Ikea catalogue several times and have not even picked up a bible, so it must be true.

As a family, we’ve used Ikea a lot. When we moved into our new house we left everything in our other place for our renters and so we had to furnish our new abode from top to bottom, and as French furniture shops are scarcer than a Frenchman who wears deodorant, Ikea has had its fair share of my disposable income over the last two years, so I’m quite familiar with their products and their philosophy, which I have to say, is quite amazing and from a capitalist’s point of view, very impressive.

Going back into the mists of time, when I was a newly-wed in Glasgow, no house was complete without a smattering of Habitat lights, glasses, stools and other furnishings. You would go to someone’s house for dinner and think you were at home. The plates, cutlery and even the salt and pepper set were identical to your own. It was all rather familiar and quite bizarre. These days it’s the same. It’s not unusual to go into a house over here and recognise a Detolf,  which is a glass fronted display cabinet or a Smakrik Bem 510 S, which is a rather fancy coffee maker. 

Now, a trip to Ikea is an all-day event. We drop the kids at school and then bomb about 100 miles down the motorway, past one speed camera and through several very expensive tolls, to get to Toulon. If we’re lucky, they’re still doing breakfast, which  is a large plate of smoked salmon, bread rolls, various hams, orange juice and as much coffee as you can drink for the unbelievable price of €2.50. Of course it’s all designed to get you in there early, and as lunch is also quite delicious and equally inexpensive, the plan is to have you spend the whole day there spending money hand over fist. And J does – in spades! They also, I’m reliably informed, do a midnight buffet, but we’ve never stayed that long.

So why all this stuff about a shop? Have I nothing more interesting to write about?  Well, when the new mayor of Nice was making his inauguration speech, he didn’t talk about the challenges of integrating the burgeoning ethnic community, or his plans to extend the rapid transport system, or even the long-delayed extension of the port. He said, quite unashamedly, that he would be doing everything in his power to build a new Ikea shop in Nice!

If you’re not from down here you won’t be aware that for the last 5 years or so there’s been a huge debate over where the new Ikea store will be located. Note – where it will be located. Not if it will be built at all. It’s a fait accompli. It will happen. It was supposed to be built in Valbonne which is a pretty village about 15 km from us but the NIMBYs (not in my back yard) let their voices be heard and by threatening to dump the mayor, they got their way. Now good old Mayor Estrosi of Nice can afford to upset a few hundred voters, cause for every one he upsets by allowing Ikea to build a huge blue and yellow shed in sight of their belle-epoque villa, several thousand more will welcome the fact that they don’t have to spend a whole day driving down the A8 to buy a Gloda E14  - for the uninitiated that's a low-voltage light bulb.

But, if this ‘initiative’ is aimed at generating more spondoolies for the Nice economy, it’s all an illusion. For every euro they get from taxes associated with the new store, they’ll lose the same amount, or more, by people not being snapped by the speed camera on the A8 as they dash down to Toulon to get there in time for their smoked salmon and coffee!

   

Davos - A Meeting of the Great and the Good

“Davos is full of people who are more successful than you. It is full of successful people who are used to everyone standing to attention when they walk into a room. But in Davos, no one looks at you.”  Quote by a senior politician.

Do you know about Davos? It’s where all the movers and shakers in the world of business gather to talk about who knows what, whilst the world is collapsing around them. This annual conference happened last week. It’s called the World Economic Forum.

It wasn’t always like this in that sleepy, snow covered corner of Switzerland. Last year, and the years before were a ‘doddle’ as we say in Glasgow. You turned up as one of the 1500 invited CEOs of some company or other, along with a smattering of world leaders and had great working breakfasts, wonderful working lunches and then were feted at night over wonderful working dinners.  If you were really special you would be invited to speak at one of the many ‘workshops’, although I reckon pretty well 99% of those attending had never seen a proper workshop in their lives! If you were extra, extra special you were asked by one of the more serious newspapers to write a blog where you could tell the world who you had dinner with and who the cabaret star was in the evening. And if you were super-special, you would be invited onto business TV to tell the viewers what was going on and what agreements had been discussed, not made, discussed, and which would change the world as we know it, if only they could be agreed and implemented.

I’m sooooo jealous. Although I say I don’t miss BT, I do actually miss the various junkets we went on – like Davos only less pretentious but still important all the same. The Sales Conferences in Barcelona and Prague. The meetings in New York and Amsterdam. The 3 day seminars in Southampton and Birmingham. Bit of a come down those last two eh?

At these events, one can suck up to senior management or one can be one’s self, and I,  definitely fell into the latter group. The number of times a director of BT has come up to me at one of these events and uttered the words, ‘Oh Tom’, after some social indiscretion on my part, is beyond calculation. I reckon I could have been at Davos, if only ….. if only!

So how would I have fared in Davos? Well, I probably wouldn’t have gone to many of the sessions, sorry, workshops. I’d have been off skiing with some of the secretaries and PAs (both male and female) and would have had long boozy lunches in some mountain restaurant. In the evening, I would have hosted a table of like-minded, fun-loving souls and we’d have set the world to rights in our own way, right there over a few drinks.

The thought of another CEO telling me how much he earned the previous year when the world was falling apart would have been too much for me. The bankers telling me that the sub-prime crisis was totally unforeseen and the credit bubble in the UK was caused, not by irresponsible lending, but by people spending asset wealth rather than earned wealth, would do my head in.

At the end of the week, they would get into their limos with blacked out windows to go off to the local airstrip where their private jets would be waiting to whisk them back to fantasyland and funnymoneyland.

And me? I would still be in the bar with my mates talking about football or the day’s skiing. And that is precisely why I retired at 56 instead of running IBM or BT and why I was never invited to address the world’s great and good at Davos!   

Davos link here…..

http://www.weforum.org/en/index.htm