Armistice Day in Tourrettes

I think it was Tuesday or Wednesday when J said we should go to the remembrance service in Tourrettes. I agreed, it would be nice to see how a small French village celebrated Armistice Day which commemorates the armistice signed between the Allies of World War I and Germany at Compiegne, France. The day celebrates the cessation of hostilities on the Western Front, which took effect at eleven o'clock in the morning—the "eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month" of 1918.

The Military gather in the village square

We got to the village early and sat in the bar and watched the square slowly come to life. The first indication of something different happening was a couple of military personnel coming into the Bar des Sports. I asked them if a service was actually going to be held and they said it would commence in the village church at 11am. J, who was rather more interested in their uniforms asked what they were, to which the answer was ‘the Foreign Legion’. And very smart they looked too – I mean, who would say otherwise with two hunks from the FL towering over you?

The village memorial

At 11am, we all trooped into church, J, me and Linda. It was a simple catholic service interspersed with quite a few quiet moments to remember the war dead who are commemorated in a small cenotaph situated outside the church.

The old guys from the village, who normally wander around in baggy jeans and torn jumpers were resplendent in their suits, shirts and ties, something never seen in rural France. We spoke to one of these veterans outside the church who wore his medals with pride and showed interest in Linda’s father’s medals which she carries with her every Armistice Day.

Linda with her father's medals

When we left the church, the sun was shining and the remainder of the service was held outside. Children from the school joined the congregation and the mayor presided over the laying of flowers at the war memorial – note, not a wreath but a bouquet of flowers.

It was all very simple, like the poem below which has become probably the most recited verse on Armistice Day.  

   

In Flanders fields the poppies blow 
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe;
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

Random Thoughts as We Head Towards Xmas

Sorry for reminding you but you can’t have escaped the adverts on telly, the streets lights going up, and any day now we’ll even spot the first Xmas tree and lights in a house. You know it’s coming when you see Twiggy on the adverts and they start advertising Ferrero Rocher, and all the old rock stars bring out a ‘digitally remastered greatest hits’ album.

J has already started planning her, sorry, our Xmas by inviting a bunch of friends round for Xmas lunch and I suspect New Year’s Day. At least I get notice that it’s happening but only because I asked if I needed to get down to the wine store and stock up. “Don‘t forget to get a couple of dozen bottles of champers”, she chipped in, almost as an after-thought.

Of course, she’ll be out of it for quite a bit of the planning time as she’s off to her Kenyan orphanage for two weeks at the start of December so maybe when, sorry, if she returns, there’ll be a marked reluctance to over-indulge given what she’ll have just witnessed in the dumps and the slums, and that’s just in London where her connecting flight lands!

I’ve told her to take a couple of things with her for her trip: a bouquet garni and a couple of cloves of garlic just in case she’s popped into a pot. If you’re going to go, why not taste good so that the natives remember you? Totally oblivious to their starving, she’s only gone and slimmed down quite a bit before her trip. You would have thought that in a supreme act of giving, which is what Xmas is all about – right? she’d have fattened herself up!

So, whilst the kids fantasise about the pressies which will end up under our tree and hope that we parents have a total dearth of imagination and just give them a wad of cash (ha ha!), J is asking, quite simply, for money to help her on her mission.

She’s already raised about 500 euros through a car-boot sale and various other donations and her job, yes – let me repeat that, her job of managing a villa, is contributing towards the rehabilitation and education of one John Felix, whom she found wandering around the Kenyan villages.

Any day now, I expect to see a ‘for sale’ sign outside Le Brin with a small note underneath saying that ‘all proceeds are going to Kenya!

Two Collisions, Different Speeds, Both Big Bangs

The Large Hedron Collider

I’ve written about the Large Hedron Collider (LHC) a couple of times in the past. If you recall, this was the 17 mile ring, 300 feet under the French/Swiss border where scientists were going to smash ions together at unbelievably high speeds and try and reproduce the moments after the ‘big bang’.

Of course, quite a few people, including some eminent scientists, were fearful of the possible results. After all, if the ‘big bang’ caused planets to be formed from debris floating about space  and then for them to be smashed together, what would happen down in that 17 mile ring? It was a doomsday scenario.

After a shaky start where some of the magnets which hurl the ions around the ring failed, the scientists have been gradually performing the experiment at higher and higher speeds until last week when the collisions, officially started by firing lead ions – atoms stripped of their electrons – at almost the speed of light - 670 million miles per hour - in opposite directions around the LHC's underground tunnel at CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, near Geneva.

Flying in opposite directions, the particles were focused into a narrow beam and forced to collide inside the massive ALICE (A Large Ion Collider Experiment) detector.

The impacts threw off thousands of particles and generated temperatures of 10 trillion degrees centigrade, as close as we have ever been to reproducing conditions not seen since the Big Bang 13.75 billion years ago.

And then, with I’m sure unintentional irony, right beside the story in the newspaper I was reading, was the following:

Two freight trains carrying oil and petrol have collided in the Polish city of Bialystok causing a huge explosion. Although the trains were only travelling at around 20 miles per hour in opposite directions around the city, the collision speed reached double that, causing the explosion.

OH - and PS - don't you think it's sweet that the vehicle used to cause the collisions to happen is called after a female - Alice ! How appropriate. They could have saved themselves the 12 billion dollars the experiment cost and simply have come down to Tourrettes and watched J and her pals drive around the town - after all, the Honda looks as if it's been through a few 'big bangs'!

Things Bugging me at the Moment

Yeah – I know – more moaning but what would a retiree do if he didn’t have something to moan about?

Steak Tartare

J and I went to La Source the other day. They only have one Plat du Jour (daily special) which was ray (fish) so I gave that a miss. I really fancied a burger which they had on the ‘menu enfant’ so I asked for that and was about to explain that I would have a bigger portion or pay more when the usual friendly, French ‘non’ was forthcoming. But then she said she’d use steak tartare (raw minced meat served with a raw egg on top) but cook it. That’ll do I said, now proud of the fact that I can truthfully say I’ve had steak tartare. It was ok. No bun of course (it’s rare that you get a bun with a burger in France) but she charged me the full whack for what looked a small serving of steak tartare which is a total rip-off when you consider they normally don’t even cook it. Won’t do that again.

I was coming back from a very rare shopping trip (I said I was off to the DIY store for a couple of things when J thrust a foot-long list into my hands and said, ‘can you get these dear?’) when the Honda started to steam. Now after 9 years and 140,000 km of sterling service it was due a fault but I hate water based problems especially when they involve the radiator, which it did. Being the expert mechanic I am and fearing an overheating job, I took the radiator cap off and stood back only for a stream of green water (anti-freeze) to shoot ten feet in the air and then land on me. I’m not sure if they show ‘the Incredible Hulk’ in France but I did get some strange looks! Anyway, once home and after removing most of the front of the car, I spotted a split in the radiator which will be a long and expensive job but it’s only gone and ‘fixed’ itself. I hate that. You know there’s a problem but it’s fixed itself. Do you continue with the repair or do you just leave it and hope?

I’m now, thanks to my recent cold/fever/whatever, back in that horrible cycle of having to go to bed at 10pm because I’m so tired, only to wake at 2am because you’ve had a good sleep. And so the cycle goes on. The next night I’m tired again at 10pm and on and on it goes.

Websites – they drive me daft at the best of times but it seems that over the past week or so, I’ve found some of the worst on the planet. There’s ‘Pets Online’ where I found Shadow’s thyroid medication for nearly a third of the price that I pay in France but trying to place an order and trying to get through PayPal was a nightmare. J – sorry about the bad language!!!!

Then there is EDF (French electricity supplier). I used to be able to pay my bills online through a third party but for some reason the service was withdrawn, probably because EDF finally moved into the 21^st century and provided an on-line payment service itself. The problem is that it’s over a year since I used the EDF website so I ‘said’ I’d forgotten my password, could I create a new account. EDF – ‘Non’ – you already have an account. Me - OK – I’ve forgotten my password – can you send me a new one? EDF – what’s the answer to your secret question?

If you’ve forgotten your password, how the hell are you going to remember the answer to your secret question when it doesn’t even give you a clue what the secret question is? Oh – and can you reset your secret question? Yes – but only if you know your password! Aaaaagh!

And finally and back to Shadow, who has recovered well from his recent bout of illness. One of the things we thought we’d try during the recuperative process was to give him proper dog food, i.e. meat, for the first time in his life. He does get proper butcher’s meat (off-cuts etc) and of course he gets the occasional dinosaur bone from Ed’s but he’s never had canned dog meat but given the smells he’s making, it might be a short-lived treat.

Shadow sleeps in our bedroom and virtually every night, J digs me in the ribs and says ‘Oi’. “It’s not me – it’s the dog”, I protest, but I don’t think she believes me!

It’s a dog’s life!     

Menton (France) Vs Gisburn (Lancashire)

The Renault Megane

Residents of a quiet Lancashire village have reacted furiously to a Renault advertising campaign which pokes fun at their area by comparing it unfavourably to the South of France. The first in a series of adverts for the French carmaker's Megane model contrasts a sun-drenched swimming pool in Menton, Cote d'Azur, with a puddle in the village of Gisburn, Lancs. Then, a French couple are seen eating at an upmarket restaurant and are compared to an elderly English couple on a picnic bench, and a pair of designer heels are shown alongside a pair of slippers.

Renault and its advertising company said it had selected the village in the Ribble Valley, which has a population of 500, because it had a quiet social scene. The campaign slogan asks: "Can a car change a town?"

Robert Giles, a 43-year-old Gisburn resident, said the advert was "disgusting".

Olivia Lord, 26, said: "It could put people who see the advert off coming to Gisburn, which will damage trade. Renault should have considered the possible after affects on the village more carefully.

But Barry Jones, joint-landlord of the local White Bull pub, said: "It's a humorous campaign. It's a bit of mockery. It deals with the fact that nobody likes the French but by having a test-drive and deciding that despite the fact that it may be French, it is actually quite a good car."

Menton

The campaign, which consisted of newspaper adverts and a 30-second TV slot running for 10 days, follows the journey of Claude, who lives in Menton, as he drives to Gisburn, ostensibly bringing "joie de vivre" to the Lancashire village.

Now, I have to admit that I have yet to visit Gisburn but I have been to Menton many times and I’m pretty sure which town I would prefer to spend some time in. Menton is called the ‘Pearl of France’ which is quite a compliment when you consider the many beautiful towns and cities in this adopted country of mine and whilst I have yet to discover why it managed to get that nickname, there is no doubt that Menton is a lovely spot on the Med.

It’s the last town before the Italian border, sits on a double bay split by a promontory and has the attraction of a large old town on one bay, with a new, modern part on the other bay. It’s just a nice place to spend time. There’s not the hustle and bustle of Nice, nor the overbearing ‘ego’ of Cannes and you can actually park your car which is quite a consideration on the Côte d’Azur.

Gisburn - Lancashire

And of course, it’s only a 5 minute hop into Italy to get great pasta, cheaper wine and ciggies and that more relaxed lifestyle.

Have a look at the advert below then compare Menton and good old Gisburn. It’s no contest really!   

http://www.themeganeexperiment.com/?WT.srch=1#/two-towns/video/documentary

http://www.gisburn.org.uk/index.htm

http://france-for-visitors.com/cote-azur/menton/index.html