Research Is A Wonderful Thing

This is a rather shortened blog posting today (yes – I’m still without my PC but it's been fixed – all I have to do is write a big cheque and go and pick it up), and as on a few recent occasions, the words will be few, but hopefully, you’ll think the action is good, if not exceptional!

I was talking to a friend’s mother the other day and despite not knowing me all that well, she complimented me on my blog and asked what my motivation was, which some of you will recall, was a way of letting my family know what I was up to. But I also said, that on some of the articles I write, such as the ones on nuclear physics and brain surgery, I do have to do quite a bit of research and I was saying that, sometimes the research takes me in wonderful and unexpected directions.

For example, I was ‘silver surfing’ the other day, doing a bit of research on cars and women’s driving habits when I came across an old video I took of J driving on the road which leads up to our house. It was in the depths of last winter and the road was a bit muddy and a few, old French geriatrics were clogging up the lane when she took matters into her own hands. See her rather impressive overtaking manoeuvre below:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mzFgGcfgjZ0

The moral of the story? Don't get in front of J when she's dashing off to the mall!

And then my occasional interest in football took me to an obscure YouTube video of a Greek (?) football match which seemingly is Wayne Rooney’s favourite. Apparently, it is what he thinks he should have done to the Portuguese Ricardo Carvallho, during England’s match in the 2006 World Cup. Although the film lasts over four minutes, you need only watch the first minute of it. See it below:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vM6LLv6hIow

Moral of the story? Don't play football with the Greeks! 

And finally, I don’t know where I came across the videos of an ‘America’s Got Talent’ artist called Terry Fator. He’s quite an act and as soon as he’d won AMT, he was signed up for a number of America’s biggest shows, culminating in a  ten year contract in one of the big casinos in Las Vegas and reputedly worth $200 million to him over the ten year stint! Not bad for his first, big job! And great for a guy who was just about to give up ventriloquism as a bad job! See his act here, it’s brilliant:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qNJ02rxaNrs


Moral of the story? Never, ever give up.


Have a great weekend everybody. Have I got the day right this week?

And I Thought They Liked Me !

Or maybe the title should be ‘French Customer Service – Oxymoron No. 289’?

Now I have been spending my hard earned cash in the Café du Midi in the village for over 10 years. The waitresses greet me with a kiss on both cheeks when I enter, and the barman always gives me a free drink and even has my cigarettes on the counter before I cross the road from the car park. They even sent a flower arrangement when J and I got married across the square from their bistro and, unlike the French, I always leave a generous tip. I thought they liked me. I really did.

I phone up on Tuesday morning to book a table and of course I make a bit of a pig’s ear of it by saying, ‘Je suis Thomas, le mairie de Julie’, which roughly translated means, ‘I am Thomas, the mayor of Julie’. It should have been ‘marie’ which is ‘husband’, but what’s a rogue ‘I’ between friends? Just as I was saying ‘désoleé’ , ‘sorry’ about my French, the barman cut me off in my prime quite obvious that he couldn’t be bothered to translate my attempts at his beloved language and passed me onto to Monique, one of the waitresses.

‘I’d like to book a table for 6 please.’

‘OK – what time?’

‘One o’clock please.’

‘Ah – it can’t be one o’clock.’

’12.30 then?’

‘No – it’ll need to be 12.20.’

So I accept this strange time but I know it’s because at 12.20 they have a slight chance of filling the table again when we leave, whereas at 1pm, there’s virtually no chance of a second table full of paying visitors.

At 12.20, I’m still working in Sarah and David’s swimming pool pump room when I realize I’d better get down to the Midi, to keep our table so I dash off on my scooter and arrive at precisely 12.25. I thought I’d be the forward party and show them that the rest were on their way.

Christine, the senior waitress greets me, not with a peck on the cheek but with a very serious shake of the head and a point to her watch.  I look at mine and shake my head – 5 minutes late – what’s the problem?

The young waitress who has a face that would launch a thousand suicides, also shakes her head and points to my ‘reserved’ favourite outside table and with a swish of her arm points out the totally full restaurant as if it’s going to make me feel bad.

And then just as I’m taking my jacket off, I swing my arm and knock a coffee out of the hands of a guy moving to the outside so he can have a cigarette. Although I reckon it was 50/50 blame apportionment (he should have known I was clumsy), I get another dirty look from the waitress (I've never bothered to find out her name) who then proceeds to ‘non’ every time I try to move the table so she can get her mop under it.

Eventualment (good French eh ?), everything is sorted, I sit down, there are no more incidents but I still get admonishing looks from all the waitresses because at about 12.40 I’m still the only one sitting at a table for six.

Sarah and her mum and dad arrive at about 12.45, J about 10 minutes later. Then we try and order our food which is a major struggle. We finally get our food at 1.30 and left well after 3pm! What was all the fuss about? 

France Is Revolting (Again)

I’m sure by now you know this is nothing personal on my part, it’s just that the whole country is on strike again. Well, when I say ‘the whole country’, not everybody is, but anybody who works for the government is – the firemen (they’re always ‘en greve’), the airport people, the postmen (no doubt), the bus drivers, the rail workers, the teachers  – you name it, they’re revolting about Sarkozy’s aim to increase the pensionable age from 60-62.

Already this morning (I’m writing this on Tuesday) there have been reports that planes have been cancelled and that Monaco is basically cut off. Because the trains are not running, everybody is driving there and the roads down from the mountain into the Principality just cannot cope so nobody gets in and it’s the same on the way out. Aaaah – I suppose some of them will just untie their mega-yachts and sail round there although I think they’ll find the mooring fees a bit more expensive than the car parks.  

How did it affect me? Well, the kids are back at school and because of the likelihood that the buses wouldn’t be running, I had to do the school run which meant a one hour round trip caused by the fact that Guy is at a new Lyceé down in Cagnes – some 30 minutes away.

Still, it gave me the opportunity to call in at my tyre garage once more. It took three visits to deposit my punctured tyre there (shut, holiday and open) and it’s taken three further visits to pick my tyre up (holiday, lunch, and finally open).

The face on the owner told me all I needed to know. ‘Ah monsieur – votre pneu est kaput.’

It doesn’t take a linguistic genius to know what that meant and as if to rub it in, he blew up my tyre and proceeded to spray it with soapy water whereupon it was like a bubble bath – there were holes everywhere! And only last week I was practicing my French so that I could castigate him for the poor quality of his last repair!

We had a short conversation about the fact that as the tyre is now six years old, it had basically run its course and had just started to fall apart, despite there being plenty of tread left – hence my desire to have it fixed.

‘How much’, I asked. Again the look said it all as did the symbolic gesture of him burning his fingers. ‘€320 monsieur – pour deux.’ ‘What’, I cried, thinking of the €350 I’ve just paid out for Shadow’s vet treatment, the fact that the three PCs we have in for repair will cost about €250 and that I have just received an enormous bill for our rates.

But I get home and think that well, Shadow, poor thing, deserves to live his last couple of years in good health, we do need our PCs for a variety of reasons and in fact, the cause of the huge rates bill was that the discount given for a new build house had run out and I had forgotten that fact.

I sat down for a cup of coffee. Relax Thomas – things are never as bad as they seem.

And then I open a letter from the taxman saying I’ve underpaid my tax to the tune of €2000!

Where’s my gun? Or the poison? Or my stash of pills? I can’t even throw myself under a train as the buggers are on strike!

PS – the picture is of the firemen in Cagnes showing their ability to light fires and then NOT put them out – as they’re on strike!

Glasgow 60 Years On - Nothing Much Changes

I’m reading a book at the moment. ‘The Long Glasgow Kiss’, by Craig Russell and before you romantics out there think it’s bit of Scottish ‘chick lit’, a Glasgow Kiss is a headbutt designed to maximise the damage to an opponent’s  face. I’ve still to find out where the ‘Long’ comes from but needless to say, the story is a violent one with characters such as Twinkletoes McBride, so-called because he cuts off rival’s toes with a boltcutter, and ‘Small Change McFarlane, so named because he didn’t make as much money as his rival gangsters, Handsome Johnny Cohen (his good looks), Hammer Murphy (for obvious reasons) and Willie Sneddon (so bad he didn’t have a nickname).

See a previous article I did on Glasgow gangster’s names - http://tomsfrenchblog.blogspot.com/2009/02/no-mean-city.html

Russell’s book is set in Glasgow in the 1950s and whilst I was born in 1951, I grew up knowing many of the places he describes; Rottenrow the main maternity hospital; Dennistoun, an area once quite prosperous, but by the 50s, a slum; the Clydeside markets and the fancy tea shops in Sauchiehall Street.

Of course, the book is mainly about the gangsters who are portrayed by Russell as reasonable guys as long as you didn't upset them, but who could be psychopathic when the need arose. The fact that the vast majority of their respective victims were Glasgow’s lowlife and fellow hoodlums is used to give them a sort of sense of respectability they probably don’t deserve.

And so as I was reading this increasingly violent book, news came through on my Scottish blog feed about the latest outbreak of violence in Glasgow. Now to call this latest episode ‘an outbreak of violence’ is to refer to World War II as a skirmish.

Needless to say it’s an inter-gang dispute and whilst the police, no doubt, would happily let these modern-day gangsters kill each other off in an orderly fashion, they have a social responsibility to try and catch those involved and so the papers have been full of the police raids, the weapons recovered, the injuries suffered by the latest ‘victims’ and their relationships with those already dead.   

This latest bout goes back a few months when a gangster called Kevin ‘Gerbil’ Carroll (the mind boggles !) was gunned down in a supermarket car park. His fellow hoods and known associates are now being targeted and last week, a couple of brothers were caught and ‘punished’.

The first brother, a James Hanlon was caught in the street and whilst being held down by eight men, had holes bored in his head with power drills. As ‘Sponge’ Hanlon was recovering (it’s amazing what doctors can do these days), his brother Bryan’s, car was rammed and he was dragged out onto the street where he had his genitals cut off by a gang wielding knives, chisels and hammers. Needless to say, he’s in a bad way and I’m tempted to wonder what his nickname will be if and when he recovers –possibly Wee Willie Hanlon ? (I hope they don’t read my blog).

And so, as I head back to Glasgow at the end of this month for a reunion with my mates methinks I should stay locked up in my hotel. If they know Tam ‘The Bam’ Cupples is in town, who knows what they’ll try and do to me?  

What A Fight !

Saturday night TV was rubbish. I was flicking through the channels looking for something to watch when I happened upon the boxing on Sky. I’d seen all the trailers for the fight during the week but as the Scottish boy didn’t stand a chance, and I hate to see one of my own take a beating, I had decided not to subject myself to more mediocre Scottish performances and had let it slip from my mind. But as I flicked through the channel, I saw that the fight was being held in the Kelvin Hall in Glasgow and that renewed my interest somewhat.

It was the muli-tattooed  boy from just outside Glasgow (Coatbridge), Ricky Burns, the boxer, against the world champion slugger from Puerto Rico, Roman Martinez. The odds in favour of the champion were overwhelming and it looked justified when the fight started and within a minute, Burns was dumped on his backside by a swinging right hander from the champion. It looked all over but Burns managed to hang on until the bell.

Burns came out for round 2 and despite a few lucky punches landed by the champ, the boy from Scotland beat the Puerto Rican around the ring, and repeated the performance for the next 4 rounds. The crowd, totally biased as you would expect, were going wild. The stupid cut-throat gestures made by Martinez every time he saw Burns in the fight preliminaries, and indeed in the ring itself, had obviously riled Burns – he was showing the square jawed champion that you don’t do that to a boy from Glasgow.

But in the 7^th, Martinez again landed some swinging right handers, and a vicious upper cut nearly floored the local hero. It looked like Martinez was back in the fight and despite Burns having won more rounds, the bookies, amazingly, still had the world champion as the favourite. Was this testament to the Peurto Rican’s staying power? Glasgow, no Scotland,  collectively held its breath. 

Credit to Burns though. He took the 8^th comfortably, but in the 9^th, Martinez again had the local boy staggering around the ring after a series of punishing combinations. Were the bookies correct?

Burns came out in the 10^th and proceeded to box the world champion into a state of walking unconsciousness. The 11^th was reasonably even with Burns dancing and boxing his way out of trouble until the end of the round when Martinez managed to land a blow with that swinging right hander - a lucky punch, but one which again nearly floored the challenger.

One last round. Martinez was desperate with wild swings sapping what little energy he had left. Blood was pouring from his mouth as it had been for most of the fight and he looked a beaten man but a world champion is never more dangerous than when on the brink of defeat and the whole of Scotland willed Burns to keep out of reach of the wild punches aimed in his direction.

The bell went, the fight was over and ……………. we had a new Scottish world champion, and I was hoarse. What a fight! The local boy done good!