The Dogs Of War

In the week when the bodies of six brave soldiers were repatriated from Afghanistan, I'm a bit nervous about posting this blog, but here goes......

I have a long held view that our brave guys in Iraq and Afghanistan actually quite like being out there and my view is based on the fact that as regular soldiers they’d rather be fighting an enemy than sitting in their barracks polishing their rifles, and toiling in the parade ground doing drills all day. I know this is a bit of a generalization, but bear with me.

Many of today’s soldiers, sailors and airmen have joined the forces knowing that Britain has been at war for the last 40 years in some way or another (Irish troubles included), and that there would be a strong chance they would be sent to one of the current conflict zones.

And in fairness to the Forces themselves, their TV adverts don’t shy away from showing life in a conflict zone, so anybody joining up thinking they’re going to swan around some of the ‘old colonies’ soaking up the sun and helping the locals build new huts, is deluding him or herself.

In a blog posting a few weeks ago (http://tomsfrenchblog.blogspot.com/2009/09/book-about-home.html), I highlighted a video shot by some soldiers hunting the Taliban, and the camaraderie and sense of purpose, as well as their bravery was quite clear.

Despite this, I still felt a bit uneasy about my position (that the ‘boys’ like being at war) so I was quite heartened today when I read a Sky News Blog, part of which I reproduce below:

A couple of months ago I met up with a mentoring team of 10 British soldiers who had been held up in their base for months. Firefights every day and supplied by helicopter drops for weeks on end. They controlled no more than a few hundred yards of dusty road outside their front door. They were attacked night after night.

They were led by a very nice posh officer lad and a classic gruff sergeant . As a unit, they were the happiest blokes I have ever met.

“It was f****** great mate. The lads f****** loved it. Thank f*** we didn’t lose anyone but we f****** twatted them – every time we went out. We knew where it would start, we knew what they would do and we just went out and tried to f*** them up. F****** brilliant.” That was the sergeant talking.

The officer: “The lads did a great professional job. I think they relished the opportunity to engage with the enemy and implement the changes we and the other forces have been tasked with achieving. The goals are difficult and achievements will sometimes be difficult to quantify but we feel we achieved a fair, if modest, degree of success.”

After spending another long night on the floor of a dusty tent, with no air conditioning in the day and freezing cold at night, eating awful MRE’s (meals ready to eat) when it was clear there could be a cook (in the unit), I took it upon myself to ask the commanding officer why his men lived in such terrible conditions when it was pointless.

“ I don’t ask much of my men,” the colonel told me. “But I do ask them this: ‘Men, we will take that town tomorrow and we will prevail whatever the cost to you or your comrades.’

I am telling them to roll out of bed and kill people and risk being killed. That is why they live like animals, because I want them to behave like animals. It is war.”

They probably love it.

Zzzzzzzzzz

No Blog today - I'm suffering from an over exposure to socializing. Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday and yesterday is just more than my old, decrepit body can handle these days and it all starts again tomorrow and continues into Saturday. How I wish I was 20 again!

So apologies to one and all but I'm going back to sleep.

The Sun Tax

I’ve often mentioned the high cost of living down here on the Côte D,Azur but I’ve come to realize that it’s the cost of living in France which is the problem, not our sunny little enclave.

And calling it a 'sun tax’ is probably unfair as it’s the retailers and tradesmen who generally benefit, not the Government, although given the high social costs and benefits which prevail in this country as well as the restrictive nature of employment, (i.e. virtually no sackings, multitudes of ‘civil servants’ retiring at 50 on 2/3rds pay including gas, electricity and water workers), you can see how businesses might need to have higher charges to offset their higher costs.

This came home to me the other day after I’d bought my iPhone which came with a call plan. The phone cost me €149 (say £135) and the call plan included unlimited texts and just 2 hours of calls. In the UK, the same phone is free and comes with 10 hours of calls!

A Flymo Lawn Mower is €110 (£100) in our biggest and cheapest DIY store but it’s only £68 in B&Q in the UK.

Rather more mundane, a 2 litre carton of milk from Tesco costs £1.34 (€1.47) but costs €2.15 out here in our nation-wide supermarket. And if you think wine is cheaper, there are so many special deals in UK supermarkets that if I was driving south from the UK, I’d definitely think about bringing down a couple of cases with me.

One of our larger bills however is the local tax bills we get at this time of year. One is called Tax Fonciere which is paid by the homeowner and the other, Tax d’Habitation, is paid by the person who actually lives in the house. As I both own and live in the house, it’s a simple (but expensive) matter to add both together and come up with a bill of over €5200 per annum which is about £4700 a year. Looking up the council tax for an equivalent house in Maidenhead, Berkshire, the bill would be a ‘paltry’ £2560!!

Our beloved but battered Honda CRV would cost €27,700 to replace here but only €24,000 in the UK.

So after all this what price do you put on sun and quality of life? I reckon it costs our family about €8,000 a year more than it would back in the UK – but I think it’s worth every penny, sorry Euro cent.

What price can you put on your children going to school knowing they'll never get bullied or be in a fight? What price do you put on them and us walking around town knowing there'll never be any yobs about causing havoc? What price do you put on the roads being fixed as soon as a pothole appears? And what price do you put on a health care system which whips you into hospital as soon as there's a problem? And finally, what price do you put on raising the shutters each morning and feeling good because the sun is shining? That €8000 is a high price to pay but it's definitely worth it.

E-mail From The Prime Minister

So, I’m sitting watching the footie on the telly having a nice glass of Italian red when my e-mail alert sounds. If it’s another bloody message from e-Bay I’ll go beserk I’m thinking, having tried to delist myself from its mailing service several times over the course of the last week as it sends me countless e-mails begging me to buy the latest line in ladies weight reduction devices. Of course I could always be wrong and it’s the electronic bill from J’s visit to Marks and Spencers last week. I hope not! There’s not enough money in the global banking system to cover that bill!

I glance at my iPhone and blink. I look again and blink again.

‘From : 10 Downing Street.'

Wow - I’ve hit the big time. Has the Prime Minister has discovered my blog and wants to discuss my radical approach to resolving British and global problems? But I’m also worried. Has he seen some of the less complimentary things I’ve written about him, of which there’s been a few? Maybe not. Has he, in his quest to develop a government of ‘all the talents’, realized that unless he gets me into a major ministerial role pretty soon, he’s going to lose the next election? Does he want me to be a sort of Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs with Special Responsibility for France? Maybe he knows how tight, sorry careful, I am with my cash and he wants me to replace Alistair Darling at the Treasury? Who knows? Excitedly, I open the e-mail.

It says, ‘You signed a petition asking the Prime Minister to resign. The Prime Minister's Office has responded to that petition and you can view it here’:

‘The Prime Minister is completely focussed on restoring the economy, getting people back to work and improving standards in public services. As the Prime Minister has consistently said, he is determined to build a stronger, fairer, better Britain for all.’

What a complete wazzock !

Lost in Translation

It always happens. I’m talking to someone French at a party or in town and they say, ‘How long have you been here?’ What they actually mean is, ‘Your French is so bad I can’t believe that you’ve lived in France for 10 years.’

It’s not my fault. I’ve had French lessons at school. I’ve had private French lessons in BT in London and they even paid for me to have private lessons in France when I wasn’t even supposed to be here but I just can’t get my head round it. I mean guys change flat tyres – no problem. Women can’t. Women can learn several languages – guys can’t. It’s just the way things are.

I ask the kids who are totally bilingual, to speak to me in French so I’ll learn but they absolutely refuse to do so. I demand that as a family we speak French at dinner twice a week but they refuse to do so. What am I to do? They say the best way to learn French (for a man) is to get a French mistress but then all I’d learn is, ‘Mon Dieu. Ah – c’est bon. Continuez. Encore ma Cherie’, and some other phrases, all of which I already know (don’t ask how).

And so my French education happens when I bump into my French neighbours or I’m out and about in town, but of course, despite being French, their politeness means that they never correct my appalling grammar and tenses. They just laugh!

It all came home to roost last week when I phoned to make an appointment for my quarterly haircut. I hate phoning French people - you don’t see their lips move (obviously) and cannot work out what they’re saying.

‘Bonjour Monsieur Patrice, je voudrais un rendezvous pour une coup sil-vous-plait.’ Basically, can I have an appointment for a haircut please. ‘Oui monsieur – trois heures?’, was the reply. 1 o’clock – no problem.

Now this is where things get tricky. I turned up at 1 o’clock and the place was distinctly closed. I looked at his ‘hours of business notice (horaires) and it said he didn’t open until 2pm. I went for lunch and saw the lights go on at 2pm and when I’d finished my café crème (which unusually wasn’t accompanied by the waiter asking sarcastically if I wanted a croissant with it – see later) I went over and threw Patrice’s door open and made it known that I wasn’t happy.

(I won’t do this bit in French) – ah Thomas – you are early – your appointment isn’t until 3pm – trois heures. Nope Patrice – you said 1 o’oclock - treize heures. No monsieur, I said trois heures. And there the problem lay.

The stupid French have virtually the same word for thirteen and three. Well at least when you put the word ‘heures’ after them.

So trying to put this down phonetically, 1 o’clock is thirteen hours which is ‘trez hours’, whereas 3pm is ‘trwaz hours’. Stupid, bloody French!

And the thing about the croissant with the coffee is classic French arrogance. The French never have milk in their coffee unless it’s breakfast when some of them have a small white coffee but they always have a croissant with it. So when the English order a white coffee at lunchtime, occasionally, and only when the waiter is a complete moron, they’ll ask if you want a croissant with it. I always look forward to that cause it means I don’t have to leave the pratt a tip !!