Le Brin This Week and Election Night

It’s been a funny old week at le Brin. The weather has been foul and after cleaning all the terraces and the pool side last week, on Tuesday it proceeded to blow a gale re-covering them with all sorts of leaves, branches and even more dust from the trees. So last week’s efforts to clear away the winter gunge was a total waste of time!

The cold weather has also returned and I’m now back to wearing a vest under my shirt, we’ve switched the central heating back on and J wakes me up in the morning with the news (direct from her iTouch) that the temperature in Cork (Ireland) is warmer than it is here.

Why Cork? Well our exchange student has arrived from there, managing to escape Ireland just as the volcanic ash cloud was threatening to cause airline havoc once more. Now, I’ve a correction to make – his name is not Rick O’Shea, it’s Andrew something or other – he’s so quiet. Slightly built and with a haircut which makes it almost impossible to tell whether he’s male or female, he wanders around the house like a ghostly presence. At least he eats all the food J puts in front of him and he even scoffed a Croque Madame in the Bar Des Sports yesterday but we did learn that he quite often visits his grandmother who lives just down the coast in Italy (Imperia), so he’s probably used to food which is a bit more exotic than Irish Stew.

I unfortunately managed to get an ear infection in my last remaining good ear (which makes it sound like I have more than two) and have been virtually deaf for the last week. It’s a Cupples genetic problem which skips a generation and unfortunately I got it and fortunately my kids didn’t, but unless my ex-wife’s genes have completely overwhelmed mine, my grandchildren will suffer but let’s hope not.

On Wednesday evening I had the pleasure of sitting in Tan’s house watch his team, Tottenham, beat Manchester City to that coveted 4^th spot in the Premier League. Watching a grown 6ft 4in mountain of a man reduced to tears of joy (almost) was a sight to behold and of course, with wine bottles a plenty, we sat in the damp cold on his terrace until the early hours, discussing the game. The ‘girls’ meanwhile had been watching some slushy film in my house and only came over when J’s ability to find any more wine became impaired, not by inebriation (she’s never even been tipsy in the whole of her life !!) but by tiredness. I’m sure the bat ears of the ladies also heard Tan mention that such was his delight (at his team winning) that he might even break out the champagne. It just seemed such a coincidence that they arrived immediately he uttered the word ‘champagne’!

And bringing you all bang up to date, I’m now sitting up watching the election results come in and with my bad ear, I’ve had to rig the TV up with a long line terminating in an earpiece. The cats who have risen from their slumbers are now playing with the line which crosses the lounge floor thinking it’s all part of some new game!

The coverage on the TV is a bit chaotic at the moment which does not auger well for the mass of results which will start to flow in an hour or so. Each presenter sees their 30 second slot as an opportunity to impress and we’ve already had two doyens of the BBC having a go at each other although as one of them is the belligerent Jeremy Paxman, who in that well worn phrase, could start a fight in an empty house, it’s not surprising.

What is surprising is that the BBC only has 20 results announced whilst ITV have 33 (Sky have 21) – why the difference, all the stations have reporters around the country? Whatever – the on-screen friction between the presenters on the BBC and the better count coverage from ITV makes that the station to watch.

Interestingly, at this stage, the exit polls are indicating that although winning the greatest number of parliamentary seats, the Conservatives will not have an overall majority and there’s already official word that even if defeated, that charlatan, Gordon Brown will try and form a Government. The great hope however is that the swing in voting from Labour to Conservative, which shows that the Tories might win more seats than the exit polls suggest, will provide David Cameron with the mandate to allow him to become the new Prime Minister.

It’s all very exciting – I’ve just got to try and stay awake!

The Milly Dowler Murder

Some of you will know that I take quite a keen interest in trials, both criminal and civil. Indeed, I was a regular attendee at the Old Bailey when I worked at BT in London and even now I study some of the trial transcripts going back to the 17^th century. Finding that people were hung in those days for hitting another person with a stick or engaging in bestiality puts some of today’s sentences into perspective!

Last week , a former doorman was committed for trial accused of kidnapping and murdering 13-year-old Milly Dowler. Levi Bellfield, 41, will also be charged with another attempted kidnapping.

Why am I interested in this particular trial? Well, apart from the fact that the Dowler murder is one of Britain’s most notorious unsolved crimes, Milly’s body was found just around the corner from my friend’s house in Yately, Hampshire and the video shown frequently on TV of Milly ironing her clothes, made her seem almost like a relative. But more than that – Belfield, the only suspect, has already been sentenced to life for another murder and it’s quite obvious that the police who have been interviewing him think he’s their man, but will the trial be ‘fair’?

Belfield was first interviewed over Milly's death several years ago after he was held by the Metropolitan Police and in recent developments, officers believe they have compelling circumstantial evidence which links him to the crime. And that’s the problem – all the evidence is decidedly circumstantial.

On the night of Milly’s disappearance, a red Daewoo Nexia car was caught on CCTV ‘patrolling’ the area. The driver of the car was never traced but it just so happened that Belfield’s girlfriend at the time had a red Daewoo and Belfield has admitted he was driving the car on the night in question and coincidentally, he lived just round the corner from where Milly disappeared. It was widely rumoured that the car was crushed and disposed of and despite dredging lakes and interviewing a car scrappage dealer, the Daewoo has never been traced.

Despite the lack of clear unambiguous evidence, Belfield has been virtually tried and convicted by the tabloid papers. His face stares out of the front pages on a weekly basis and just how the trial judge will manage to get a jury who haven’t already found him guilty is beyond me.

The problem is, despite the lack of clear evidence, all the indicators say that he did it – but is this enough? Belfield is already serving life imprisonment and probably won’t be released until he’s a very old man, if at all – why doesn’t he just admit that he did it and give the Dowler family a break? But then I’m assuming he did it – maybe it’s the picture!

A Minodge on the Paris Metro

I was reading that fare-dodgers on the Paris metro are now creating their own fare-dodging insurance. It works like this: a group of say 10 fare dodgers (it’s a national pastime with the young in Paris) each pay €5 each week into a collective fund. If a fare-dodging member of the group is caught and has to pay a €50 fine, the collective pays the €50 upon receipt of the fine ticket.

Anybody who has used the Paris metro will probably never have seen a ticket inspector but will have seen many people vaulting over the barriers. Given that the loss of ticket revenue is estimated at €80 million a year, you would think that that would pay for at least one ticket checker with a rottweiler at each set of barriers. Apparently the French don’t work that way – breaking the law like this is a national pastime.

Whilst this fine paying scheme is brilliantly simple, the concept of a group of people paying into a collective fund and reaping the benefits is not new. Scotland claims to have ‘invented’ this financial arrangement, called a menage or more commonly, a minodge, whereby, in the olden days, a group of women would each contribute a sum of money every week to be saved by one of the group – the administrator. Each woman in turn would then receive the weekly total which they proceeded to spend on those little luxuries which they'd never manage to buy from their weekly allowance. There was no chance that these women would ever manage to save the amount the minodge would pay out, whilst saving the weekly amount was rather more easily achieved and kept the money out of the hands of their husbands.

I remember minodges being quite common back in the 70s. They would operate in factories, offices and even amongst neighbours in tenement buildings. I was in one at Chrysler where the 8 guys in the office all ‘chipped in’ £5 a week and every 2 months, a virtual fortune was paid out. Of course, waiting 8 weeks for your payment turn wasn’t too bad. Being in a minodge of 50 or so people was rather different – you only got paid once a year and you had to hope that the administrator didn’t run off with the cash before it was your turn!

Similar to the Paris Metro scheme of course, is the ‘bar smoking minodge’ whereby when the smoking bans were introduced into pubs and clubs a few years ago, certain country pubs ignored the ban completely. The problem was – who would pay the fine if the constabulary passed and noticed a smoky atmosphere when the door was opened? The regulars of course. They would all chip into a ‘ban pot’ and if the landlord was ever fined, the pot would pay it and if, at the end of a year, no fine had been forthcoming, the regulars had a bloody good booze up all paid for by the minodge!

Talking about money – Nigel, our rich little rich guy, has been back to London and getting mixed up in trouble as usual. Read all about it at: http://monaconigel.blogspot.com/2010/05/night-back-in-london.html

You’re Barred

For my foreign (namely English) readers, “you’re barred” is what a pub landlord says to you when he no longer wants your custom. It’s only happened to me twice, the last time was only a couple of years ago when I went up to Glasgow to see my sons, and after a family dinner, my son’s friends joined us in the bar. I was quite the innocent party, as was my brother, and at 57, I was quite happy to sit at the back of the rather busy pub and drink my Gin and Tonic. But my son’s friend had objected to the barman serving him a drink which had splashed all over the bar and unfortunately he lost the argument.”You’re barred - you're all barred” was the cry from behind the counter and the lot of us were thrown out. What an injustice, but disappointed as I was, being barred from a rather rough looking pub at the age of 57 was quite an achievement, so I accepted it with good grace.

The first time was quite different. I had not spoken to my brother for about five years despite us both living in the same city, but family differences (my fault I’m afraid) and a trivial argument had caused us to lose contact.

Always the peacemaker, I eventually got in contact with him and after a long heated discussion we agreed to meet in his favourite west end pub. I must have been about 29 at the time, he would be 24.

I turned up at the agreed hour and wandered into the bar. I saw him sitting in the far corner and went over holding my hand out in a sort of greeting. He stood up and without any warning whacked me full in the mouth with his fist.

I can’t remember my reaction but it must’ve been amazement mixed with anger mixed with pain. The next few seconds were a blur as I dragged him over the table at which he was sitting and we started laying into each other on the sawdust covered floor in a blur of fists and knees. I can remember thinking, ‘I’ve actually dressed up for this ‘meeting’ and here I am rolling about the floor’.

After what seemed like ages but could only have been about 30 seconds, the barman vaulted over the bar, separated us and as we stood there looking at each other, he said those immortal words, ”you’re both barred”. I remember Robert saying, ‘you can’t bar me – I’m a regular’, to which the barman’s response cannot be repeated.

We went outside and immediately formed a sort of friendship which guys do in adversity and started talking about the injustice of it all (which everyone who has ever been barred does). A few minutes later we were seated in a curry house wondering why we’d ever lost contact.

So why this posting? Well, I phoned my brother the other night and he said, “that’s the 4^th time you’ve phoned me this week.” ‘Is that a problem’,I said. “You’re interrupting my dinner”, he complained. ‘So what’, said I ……… and it all came flooding back.

Lyceé de Croisset

J is always on the lookout for new places to eat and she found a great one last week. She discovered it on the internet and I can only assume she’d heard it mentioned by someone and had looked it up. Once she’d established that there was a date free in my ever busy diary, she made a reservation, and on Thursday lunchtime we set off for Grasse, the perfume capital of France which is about 40 minutes from Tourrettes.

Now we’ve eaten in Grasse many times but usually in the Inidan (The New Punjab – yes I know sacrilege) or the restaurants located in the little squares dotted about the town centre. This time would be different – we were heading to a Lyceé or college – the Lyceé de Croisset to be exact – a Lyceé Professionelles which majors on students studying commerce, secretarial skills, the environment and hotel and restaurant management.

I wasn’t sure what to expect. Maybe having a lunch in a separate room in the college with the food prepared by the students and the money helping the college funds?

When we arrived we were directed to the ‘restaurant’ which turned out to be a rather non-descript room in the furthest recesses of the building. The room was set out to take a maximum of 30 diners in tables of two and four and whilst a bit lacking in atmosphere had a terrific view over the hills of Grasse.

We stood in the entrance of the room for about 2 minutes before someone came over to seat us which wasn’t a good start and then once we’d been offered an aperitif, we discovered that we were actually sitting in an ‘examination room’. The students serving us would be evaluated by two ‘professeurs’ who watched everything they did and noted it down on their exam sheets.

It was fascinating. There were four students waiting on 24 covers. The students, all sitting their first year exams, were numbered 1 – 4. Number 1 was a guy who had a quiet, confident air about him. Number 2 was another male student who looked a bit like Manuel from Fawlty Towers, but without the moustache. Number 4 was a tall, striking female who exuded a quiet calm and authority, whilst number 3, our waitress, acted like a frightened rabbit. Just our luck.

We ordered aperitifs and were advised what the menu was (it’s set out on the internet and there’s no choice) – roulade of chicken breast with a small salad and curry dressing followed by the classic veal Milannaise and spaghetti. There was no mention of what dessert would be.

The starter arrived and we ordered a half bottle of Rosé. I noticed that all the other diners had been served warm bread rolls – but not us which was something of a crime as the French normally serve bread almost as soon as you sit down. J did not want to ‘rock the boat’ and scupper the student’s chances of a good exam mark but I reckon the examiner had probably noticed that I’d stopped eating my chicken and salad, which was quite delicious, but nothing happened – still no bread. Eventually, J gave in and asked our ‘frightened rabbit’ for some which arrived within seconds.

Then it was the main course which was ok. There’s not much you can do with Milannaise but I did notice our girl did not know what one of the three accompaniments was – onion and tomato sauce as it turned out.

Up till then, everything had gone ok apart from a few minor hic-cups but it was when dessert arrived that the fun started. Number 4, the tall model-like one, who had ‘swanned’ through the service produced a flambé burner, a large frying pan and a bowl of cut strawberries. Almost simultaneously, our waitress delivered the same to our table, whereupon J exclaimed that she had also produced a couple of digestifs for us.

I had previously ordered a glass of white wine to go with my dessert but it had not been delivered (another mark lost) so I was just about to sink one of the digestifs when J and the waitress both let out a shriek – the drinks were for the flambé! What a lucky escape.

Chaos was now happening all around the room. Number 4, in her attempt to light the liqueurs which were now in the flambé pan, tipped some of her strawberries out onto the burner and quickly tried to hide them from the examiner. Number 1’s gas flambé burner went out as there was no more gas in his cylinder – his table got cold strawberries. Number 2 was also having trouble as he’d spotted number 1 spilling her strawberries and was a bit nervous about doing the same. Number 3 on the other hand, our frightened little rabbit, did it perfectly and got a round of applause from all the diners. Voila!

Dessert actually turned out to be fresh strawberries, flambéd in strawberry liqueur and kirsch and placed in a brandy basket and served with pistachio ice cream. It was delicious and the whole meal excluding drinks cost only €13.

Maybe it was because we’d had quite poor service and had been quite civilized about it or maybe it was because we just looked like a nice couple, but we were approached by another student who amazed us by asking us to return the following day – there was another examination.

I was about to ask it if would be free but J nearly bit his hand off and told me not to bother thinking about it – she was bringing a friend!

Final word – I gave frightened rabbit a €5 tip which she slipped into her inside pocket. I reckon that 99% of the diners who go there are French and they NEVER leave a tip. She was quite chuffed, but probably only until she saw her exam marks.

PS - J returned on Friday - and it wasn't free!!