6 August 2010

Lunch at the Supermarket

For quite a few years I’d drive up the penetrante from Cagnes (a generic name in France for a road, usually a dual carriageway, which ‘penetrates’ the land away from the coast) and I’d point at a large tract of land to whoever I was with and ask what they were planning to do with it.
For the first few years, the stock answer was ‘it’s going to be the new Ikea’, which was great as it would mean J wouldn’t regularly disappear for what seemed like a week down to Ikea at Toulon. Then they didn’t get planning permission and the land lay vacant for another couple of years.
Then building work started and I would ask whoever I was with what was being constructed. ‘A casino’, they would say and I would think that the supermarket chain Casino already had several stores in the area and why would they want another one?
Finally it was finished - the Terrazur Casino, a gleaming chrome and glass edifice, sitting in landscaped gardens just 20 minutes from our house.
I’d tried to pop in quite a few times just to see what the membership rules were but I never seemed to have time, I was always rushing to or from the airport, but a few weeks ago on the way to my ear specialist I found myself with a spare twenty minutes and I wandered in.
Now I’m not a casino fanatic, it’s a very easy way to lose money but occasionally and with a strict budget I’ll play the tables but the thing which really interested me was the food. In order to attract and keep punters, casinos generally serve very good and reasonably priced food and so it appeared with the Terrazur.
And so on Wednesday when I was overdue in taking J and Kitty out to lunch, I said we’d go to the Casino, whereupon my precocious step-daughter said in her ever-so-haughty voice, ‘there’s no way I’m going to a supermarket to have lunch.’
Once she understood where we were actually going she was quite excited and when we arrived, it was even more exciting for her, her first visit ever to a casino – park the car in a cool underground car park, go through electronically controlled doors which lead straight into the casino complex and then up an escalator to the restaurant where anybody can eat – no need to register with the reception desk.
They have an indoor restaurant and a lovely planted outdoor terrace restaurant which is where we ate (see picture) and the staff, although the place was quite busy, were very attentive with the food being delivered to the table quickly and shock of shocks, the waiter asking if we wanted a drink whilst our food was being prepared!
The food was quite good considering we restricted ourselves to the ‘daily menu’ which was a bargain at €13.50 for two courses including a large glass of very good wine (Kitty had a coke). The a la carte menu also looked good with other diners choosing sea bass (€18) or pasta dishes (€10) but the bargain was the wine which was served in large glasses at €2 a time. Needless to say I had to try both the rosé and the blanc and both were delicious – much better than the stuff they serve in the surrounding villages for the same price.
The telling point though was when I got the bill – it was quite a bit less than I’d expected – always a good sign! We’ll definitely go back.
PS – following my meeting with European royalty the other night, I told Nigel about it and of course he just had to go one better. Read his blog at the following URL and remember there are some naughty bits in the content:
  

5 August 2010

Munch, Munch - What's That ?

I read an article recently which depressed me. Apparently there is a bug eating all the palm trees in the Med region and since palm trees are what people expect down here, it would be devastating if they were all to disappear. I mean, it’s what the place is known for and I’ve even planted quite a few round the house to make it feel just that little bit exotic, much to the chagrin of my French neighbour.
As soon as you come out of Nice airport, and I’m sure many others in France and Italy, you are met by palm trees galore. The five miles of the Promenade des Anglais in Nice and the Croisette in Cannes are lined with them and these tourist hot-spots would just not be the same without the trees, but it may come to that.  
These tropical plants have been all but wiped out in parts of southern France by two beautiful but voracious insects: a South American moth and the Asian red palm weevil. The larvae of these two deadly "palmivores" ruthlessly eat their way through palm tree hearts often fatally wounding the plant.
The paysandisia archon moth is believed to have landed in France in 1997 in a consignment of palms from Argentina, their country of origin. It has since been so effective in chomping its way through paradise palms that experts say the insect has wiped out 80 per cent of the plants in the Languedoc Roussillon region.
The beautiful moth, with a wingspan of up to 4 ins (11cm), lays its eggs on the trees from May to October. Once hatched, the fat white grub munches through young fronds then bores galleries into the palm tree heart. A year later, the larva turns into a moth, leaves the palm and the female lays another batch of up to 150 eggs.
Down here, meanwhile, the Côte d'Azur's palms have been colonised by an army of rust-coloured weevils. They were accidentally introduced to the Riviera three years ago in a consignment of palms from southeast Asia and have wreaked destruction among larger palm species such as the Phoenix variety lining the Cannes Croisette. Munching their way from top to bottom, the weevils eventually kill the crown of the tree. The bugs are so industrious that their burrowing can often be heard if you place your ear against the trunk of a palm tree. The picture is of some Pheonix palms I found in Cannes which obviously have fallen foul of the dreaded weevil.
However, the two-pronged foreign insect invaders may have finally met their match. After a variety of increasingly desperate and unsuccessful pest control attempts, experts believe the palm's saviour could be a microscopic ringworm that latches on to the moth and weevil larvae and kills any it meets.
Controlled tests have proven very effective, while recent field tests in eight sites in the Hérault and Côte d'Azur regions have shown a "stabilisation or improvement of treated palms", bringing near-condemned plants back to life. The worms are sprayed on to the palms in a water-based solution.
However, not every expert thinks the palms have found a saviour with some alarmists predicting that southern France will be bereft of palms within a few years. 

4 August 2010

The Red Baron's Ball - It Wasn't His Party!

Now I was going to change the names in this post to protect the ‘innocent’ but I can’t be bothered and I was also going to say up front that I’ve got nothing against the Germans, and I don’t, some of my best mates are Germans, that right Eddie Molloy and Harry McIntosh?

Anyway, our friend Wendy has just taken up with a new man (a German – Rheiner) who happens to be her neighbour and after a respectable period of a few months, they felt it was time to have a joint ‘do’ so they could meet each other’s friends. Amazingly, despite my ability to be banned from these things, we were invited, and Cindy, J’s sister came along as well.

Knowing where Wendy lives, we assumed the next door drive was Rheiner’s but we crept up it in the car quite tentatively just in case it wasn’t. Just as we reached the top of the drive, this guy in a camouflage top jumped out in front of us and demanded I turn the car round (you vill turn zee car round) which I did. I assumed we were in the right place given the German accent. As J and Cindy got out of the car, Mr Camouflage man grabbed their hands and smothered them in kisses (the hands). He then grabbed mine but I managed to pull it away just as his lips puckered. Good start I thought – nice of the host to meet us, but in fact Mr Camouflage man was called Cornell (?) and he was merely the parking attendant.

The action was obviously down by the pool side as that’s where the noise was coming from and that’s where we were introduced to Rheiner, a very suave, well-dressed, handsome man (J’s words not mine – Cindy couldn’t utter anything as her tongue was on the floor) and he was very gracious in welcoming us to his party.

As soon as I’d had a couple of drinks and cigarettes I started my rounds. The first guys to meet were the two bar boys who had also been hired for the evening (there were 6 staff in all to look after 30 guests), Freddie and Richard. A good chat with them and I ensured that for the rest of the evening neither my glass nor Cindy or J’s would be empty – and they weren’t.

Then it was off to meet a guy with a pony tail – another Rheiner. After a few seconds chat I asked him if he had any English blood in him because I said he had a sort of English aristocratic face.  ‘Zat eez because I am aristocratic. I am a Baron. I am Baron von Schiltzellhammer (or something like that) and I am also related to zee Howards in England and zis eez my Russian wife’. I’m glad he said that because I was on the point of saying to him that it was very thoughtful of him to bring his granddaughter to the party!

Next, it was a guy propping up the bar. ‘I’m Tom, who are you?’ I asked. ‘My name eez Wolfgang and I am Rheiner’s mechanic from Frankfurt.’ ‘Ah – ok – so does Rheiner have a few cars then?’ ‘He az a fleet of military vehicles and I fly down to maintain zem.’ Mmm – OK I thought – could they be panzers perhaps! You never know.

Thereafter, we had a great night. Cindy was determined to meet a real-life Baron (he was a really nice guy), Julie was determined to try and extract money for her Kenya project from some glam-babe who organizes yachts, Ferraris and jets for the hoi-polloy, and I was picked on by a blonde who asked for a cigarette and then informed me that her husband had walked out on her two months ago and as her house was in the wilderness on the other side of the valley (“I’m the white house straight across from yours”) – she was finding it ‘very lonely.’  Hmm.

I managed to get Rheiner to show me his vehicles which turned out to be Jeeps (like those in Mash) and as we were coming back down to the poolside, a small plane was circling slowly overhead. ‘What do you think that is?’ he asked. I thought of saying, ‘a Spitfire’ but I didn’t and said it was probably someone looking for a desirable property to buy (which is what they do). ‘Vy don’t zey go to zee estate agents like everybody else’, was his reply!

After a sit-down dinner with no sauerkraut in sight thank goodness,  it was time for the line dancing – again bought in to entertain the guests and yours  truly was ‘encouraged’ to join in. Thankfully, I managed to get a spot at the back beside the bar where Freddie and Richard kept me ‘refreshed’ , but I did notice that when the line dancing was announced, quite a few of the guests disappeared to get changed – into what looked like jackboots!

Thereafter, the parties split with the Brits huddled on one side, and the Germans on the other and who, as normal, outnumbered us by a factor of four to one, glugging wine like it was going out of fashion. I wanted to sit on a lounger by the pool but they were all covered with towels! What was that all about?
There was talk of submarines (not U-boats) in the pool and torpedoes hitting the pool-house. There was talk of the bridge blown up by the allies so the Germans couldn’t enter the area during the war but here they were – how did they manage it? It was all alcohol fuelled silliness.

In the end though, given that we thought we’d go for an hour just to ‘show our faces and support Wendy’, we stayed for almost five, crawling home just into Sunday morning having had a great night.

3 August 2010

Retreat ? Some Retreat !

The Monastery

I’d had a few texts from J during her island retreat, one in particular when she knew I was having lunch with a lady whose husband has been working away for weeks (you know who you are David) and it said, ’are you missing me?’, to which I replied, ‘who are you?’ which had the desired effect – no more texts!
But I relented when they texted me that they would appreciate being picked up at the ferry terminal rather than get a taxi and possibly two trains and so I went down to Cannes to show that just occasionally, I can be a dutiful husband and in Cindy’s case, a good brother-in-law.
As soon as I took their cases I noticed a distinct loss of weight (I’d taken them to the station on the outgoing trip and the cases were real heavy) and mentioned this, to which the answer was all too predictable – the cases on the way there had contained several bottles of wine, block upon block of chocolate and several packs of cigarettes and a variety of other edible and drinkable things but they were all gone now, gone in an orgy of eating and drinking, hence the lighter bags.
Now I haven’t gotten the full story of the 4 day, 3 night trip but this is what I reckon happened:
Thud, Thud (big knockers bashing against the Monastery door)
Hello – who is at the Lord’s door?

Hi Abbot – it’s me Julie.

MeJulie ? Are you from the Caribbean?

No Abbot – it’s Julie. I came with that hussy last year, you remember Lynn, the one who was after that monk of yours – Frére Phillipe.

Oh yes – I thought we’d banned, sorry excommunicated you both after your rather unsavoury and sacrilegious behaviour last year.

Oh Abbot – Lynn always gets up on the table and takes her clothes off when she’s had a few and I have to say, your monks didn’t exactly look away. In fact, some of them were clapping in time to the music she was playing on her iPod.

Well that’s something I and our Dear Lord had to deal with but I have to say, there were quite a few of my bretheren at confession following your departure. So, who have you brought this time?

Me sister Cindy – she’s from Cyprus and she’s very well behaved. In fact we’ve been having e-mail conversations with Frére Phillipe and we know he’s hurt his leg. Cindy says she’ll be happy to hold his crutch for him. We know he’s got water on the knee so Cindy reckons that if you use your special powers and turn it into wine she’ll be happy to suck it out.

I’m sure she would but after your visit last year, Frére Phillipe was banished to the cemetery and I’m afraid you won’t be seeing him on this trip. And I’ve also removed him from Facebook, Twitter, Skype and that website you enrolled him on, what was it – DirtyHabitsForHire.com  – we really cannot have our monks participating in these ungodly communications.

Oh that’s a pity Abbot, we brought him some of his favourite tipple as well.

And what’s that?

A couple of bottles of Bishop’s Finger of course and some Benedictine to share with his pals – sorry bretheren.

Well I’m afraid you’ll have to leave them at the door. This is a dry order. Now come in and please go straight to your cells. Dinner is at 6.30pm.

Abbot – d’ya remember when Lynn came up to you at the head of the dinner table last year and suggested that once we’d finished our meal we could play Charades?

Ah yes Mrs – what’s your name again?

Me? Julie?

OK Mrs MeJulie – yes I do remember that. I’m all for the monks having a bit of light relief after our silent period but her choice of subjects was not very tasteful to say the least.

But Abbot – what was wrong with Jesus Christ Superstar or The Monkeys or Confessions of a Priest?

Well Mrs MeJulie, those were bad enough but when she took all her clothes off and persuaded Frére Phillipe to do likewise and then proudly announced the charade as the film, Adam and Eve, it was just too much. That’s why Frére Phillipe has been banished to the cemetery.

So what’s he doin there Abbot? I hear you don’t bury your dead monks in coffins, they’re put in a hole on a plank of wood? Is that right? Is Frére Phillipe burying your stiffs then?

No Mrs MeJulie, he’s stopping the dogs which tourists like you bring to the island from digging up our deceased bretheren and running about with the bones.

Would you Adam and Eve it? Sorry Abbot.


2 August 2010

Cannes

Flushed with success at getting Carrefour to give me a full refund on Friday (see previous post), I headed down to Cannes to pick up J and her sister who had spent the week at the monastery on the islands.
Now I don’t like Cannes. Apart from the main drag, the Croisette, with its fancy shops and hotels, there’s nothing to the place. One street off the front and you could be in any nondescript town with lines of apartment blocks dominating the landscape. I suppose the hills which lead to Mougins and La Bocca give it a bit of character but Nice leaves it standing with its grand squares, large gardens and tree lined boulevards.
The other thing I don’t like about Cannes is the traffic – it crawls around and it’s usually Ferraris, Lambos and other exotic vehicles which are doing the crawling. Whether they are window shopping as they drive, looking for a parking space (everyone is!) or just posing, I don’t know but it’s a surreal feeling to have to ‘beep’ a Ferrari to get it to speed up a bit.
And it was as I was crawling along the Croisette in J’s battered old Honda CRV that I noticed the traffic was slower than usual and then I found the cause. Outside the main casino were parked exotic cars galore. Now I’ve seen the ‘normal’ practice in France of double parking and it’s usually an old Clio hemming in an old Renault but this was amazing – double parked Lamborghinis!  I looked at the number plates and it was obvious the Arabs were in town – every number plate was scripted in Arabic.
There was a Bugatti Veyron in gleaming black and silver (all £1 million pounds worth), several Lambos, dozens of Ferraris and a couple of Bentley’s (the racy coupé versions) – all with Arabic number plates. The casino must’ve been making a mint.
And as I got to the end of the parked procession of cars, if that’s not a contradiction in terms, there were another two fancy cars which I did not recognize – and I’m a bit of a car buff! The picture above was taken as I crawled past and I almost threw up when I passed the pink one. What on earth was he thinking, although I suppose it could have been an Arab lady?
Anyway, needless to say, my battered old Honda didn’t attract any glances except from the doorman (bouncer?) in the Jimmy Choo shop when he thought I was going to pull up on the pavement outside their boutique – as if! Then again, given the state of my car, maybe he thought a ram raid was about to take place and I can see his point. You could run the Honda through a car park battering it against every other car and at the end of it, you wouldn’t notice any difference – every panel is dented and bashed anyway. But, on reflection, I think I’d prefer to drive my Honda, battered as it is, through Tourrettes than that pink thing in the photo.
PS – if anybody can recognize what it is, please let me know.