Allez Nice

The Nice Football Strip

Now Guy does not like football at all. At school a few years ago, the teacher obviously lost patience with Guy’s lack of interest in the game and sent him off. It was Guy’s first and last involvement with 'the wonderful game', at least for a while.

A few years back, in 2005 to be precise, my mate Steve was over at the same time as the European Super Cup was being played in Monaco. It was Liverpool versus Moscow and Guy went along with Steve and thoroughly enjoyed the experience, standing as he was with the boisterous and noisy Liverpool supporters.

And that was it. Nothing. No further interest, until Saturday morning when Guy said he was going to the Nice versus Marseille football match on the Sunday evening. I thought maybe it was a scam to get even more money out of me and to go out with a girl, but no, he was going with a bunch of his mates and I dropped him in Vence in pouring rain and off he went.

Nice Stadium - The Only Covered Bit !

Now Nice and Marseille is a sort of local derby down here and the Marseille fans are not the nicest people on earth when their team is not doing well but if they won Sunday’s game they would go top of the league whilst good old Nice is down in the lower reaches of the table. It was a classic David versus Goliath story with the added attraction of the local rivalry. 

Kitty was also out on Sunday afternoon and with J in the deepest recesses of the African jungle, I had the house to myself and so it became a football day. I had one game on the TV and I managed to get the Nice game on my PC but as usual, whilst the Nice game was quite good, it wasn’t as interesting as the fan’s forum which sits alongside the screen showing the game and allows fans to make comments about the match they’re watching.

Fan’s Forums are a hoot. The ones I have on when I’m watching Rangers on the PC are full of hatred, invective, swear words and frequent references to the Pope. Every second comment has to be erased by the ‘moderator’, who, by his or her actions, then becomes the target, a figure of hatred, not the other team and the fans then switch their attack. It’s hysterical and not to be taken too seriously.

The Nice forum however was quite different. It was all so good natured with lots of ‘allez Nice’ and ‘allez OM’ (Olympic Marseille) going on. At one stage when one of the players skied a ball well over the bar someone said ‘he’s just killed a bird’. I couldn’t believe it. And then a word I’d never seen before came up and I assumed it was a swear word but no, it turned out to be the word for striker or attacker! And to top it all, someone obviously watching the players skidding about on the soaking wet grass, asked if it always rained in Nice. How sweet!

Getting back to the game itself though, and as I hinted before, it rained from start to finish and as Nice’s council owned stadium is an utter dump, I assumed poor Guy with his €13 ticket would be standing in the pouring rain (which he was) but also assumed that with the game tied at nil-nil and neither side showing any real desire to be the winners, he would leave early (he didn't).

Nice Celebrate Their Win

And guess what happened? Lowly Nice scored with the last kick of the game to send Marseille back along the coast with their tails between their legs.

Allez Nice. Allez Nice.

So What Do You Do All Day ?

That’s a question I get asked about ten times a week. On Tuesday when I was in the Post Office (yes it was open) there was somebody I knew in the queue and the usual questions started – ‘How are you. You’re retired aren’t you? What do you do all day?’

My Housework Apron

Well, for those of you with more time on your hands than you care to admit and are happy to read this, here is what Tuesday was all about.

I’d spoken to the kids the night before to establish what the school run times would be and luck of lucks, it was a late start. Up at 7am to check the weather to see if Guy can use his scooter for school. It was still wet but not raining (amazing!) so he could use his scooter and I wouldn’t need to run him into town. Then I made his breakfast and saw him off at 7.45am with the usual, ‘drive carefully’ and then check to see if Kitty had given up the warmth of her electric blanket and was getting ready for school.

She was and then it was back in the kitchen to make her breakfast. I ran her down to the bus stop (in my robe) at 8.25am and then luxury, back to bed and watch breakfast TV whilst doing my e-mails until 9.30am.

I’d noticed on my trips in and out of the kitchen that the cats had had yet another biology lesson during the night (see picture – not for the squeamish) but decided to leave the clearing up of the mess until later.

Shadow, who was still asleep on the carpet in the lounge, then had his throat forced open to get his medicine. You’d think after 3 months of this, he’d be acquiescent by now but no, there is the daily struggle to hold his mouth open, squirt the medicine down his throat and then hold his jaws together so he doesn’t spit it out. He hates the sight of that syringe and looks for the nearest open door when I approach with it in my hand!

Mince and Tatties

Next was the prep of that night’s dinner. Scottish mince and tatties (potatoes) which took until about 10.30am to organise. This will be a real treat for the kids as before J went off on her travels, she filled the fridge to bursting point with pasta and chicken. After three days of chicken the kids start revolting so we move onto pasta and after three days of that, they’re revolting again so we move back to chicken! I can’t say I blame them but it’s the missus who buys it – I just cook it according to the sell-by date.

However, I do feel a bit guilty about giving them so much chicken. There’s a myth (probably true) that says eating too much chicken gives you a high pitched voice (because of the hormones they’re stuffed with) and I believe that in their early lives, the Bee Gees were fed chicken regularly and that accounts for their falsetto voices. I don’t know if it’s true or not but Guy’s voice has certainly risen an octave or two since J went away.

At 11am I decided to try the post office again (you’ll see from earlier in this post that I was successful) and finally managed to get my Xmas cards posted. I bought some ciggies in the Midi and Coco gave me a glass of wine – so nice of him, even at 11.30am!

Back home, I looked at the blood and guts on the floor (I removed the guts before taking the picture) and decided that it just had to be cleared up but as the floors were covered in footprints (dog’s, cat’s and kid’s) I would wash all the floors together.

Job done, then it was emptying the dishwasher, load the washing machine and then sit down at 1pm to watch a bit of lunchtime TV. I’ll have lunch a bit later – the blood and guts have put me off somewhat.

Lunch finished at 2pm, I watch the news, and then get the log fire ready for the evening when it gets cold.

The afternoon was quite quiet. I did a bit more t-cutting of Sam’s heap (sorry – car), covered up my log pile and looked at Kitty’s Xmas list – all fourteen pages of it! Guy arrived at 5.30pm, I made him a warm snack and then picked Kitty up from the bus stop. She got a warm snack also – I’m such a good papa!

Kitty had an appointment in town at 6.30pm at the doctors so it was back in the car, drive to town, drop her off (she insists on going in on her own) and then do some food shopping before picking her up and getting home at 7.30pm.

Dinner (yes – Scottish mince which Kitty said was ‘distinctly sub-standard – little madam!)  and then clear up before packing the kids off to bed at 10pm when I can finally settle down and watch Rangers play their final European Champion’s League game in Turkey. But the channel has been moved and I can’t see it so over to Tan’s for the night.

And they say, ‘and what can you possibly do all day?’ 

Zzzzzzzzzzz.

Wikileaks - For or Against ?

The Wikileaks leaked e-mails and cables have been causing havoc in the diplomatic world but I reckon we’ve not even touched the surface of what’s been happening behind diplomatic walls as the world’s leaders are exposed as hypocrites.

I’ve no real problem with Wiki releasing transcripts of ‘private’ cables being sent back and forth across the Atlantic describing David Cameron as ‘lightweight’,  John Prescott as ‘bizarre’ and 'a womaniser’ and Gordon Brown as ‘aggressive and uncontrollable’. And I’ve no real issue about them releasing details of reports where the Americans thought the British did a crap job in parts of Afghanistan.

This is a two way street and I’m sure nothing of this nature which was released would have been a surprise, after all, the British press called into question David Cameron’s abilities before he became PM and everybody knew Prescott was a complete and utter dope who was just good company when you wanted to drink beer and chase women and even Brown’s staff were reporting him for bullying in the workplace. These guys would have seen the papers and the TV and would have known what people thought of them, so the fact that some info of this nature was winging its way across to the White House in US prepared reports would not have been a major surprise.

What I do have a problem with though is the leaking of details of the very high diplomatic issues which could really cause unrest, and in particular, the positions adopted by the Arab world in their view of Iran.

We all know it’s only a matter of time before a missile strike takes out Iran’s nuclear facilities (although how they contain any nuclear material fallout I’m not sure), and privately, I’m sure Mr Ahvegotadinnerjacket, the so called elected president of the Iran’s People’s Republic, will undoubtedly know that the Arab leaders, whilst shaking his hand would probably prefer to have their hands round his neck, but to release cables with the Arabs saying that the US should ‘cut off the head of the snake’, ie. Iran, is highly irresponsible in the extreme.

We know now that the Arabs don’t fear Israel, they fear Iran and the Arab’s do not fear Israel’s nuclear weapons, they desperately hope that the Jewish state will use them to rid the region of it’s unruly neighbour, the Persians.

And what will happen the next time Mr Ahvegotadinnerjacket meets an Arab leader. How can he possibly shake the hand of a person who he knows wants him dead? And how will Israel now behave given that the Arabs are all in awe of their military capability and secretly wish that they’d bomb Tehran to dust?

Probably, the public will see no difference. All the usual diplomacy will go on behind closed doors but maybe, just maybe some of those ‘private’ reports and cables will be watered down now and they’ll watch what they’re saying – even in private.        

Stop Press - I see the founder of Wikileaks was arrested yesterday. Sounds like trumped up charges of rape to me to get him out of the way for a while. Haven't they realised that whilst individuals can be silenced, web sites go on forever. Why didn't they just get the CIA to hack into Wikileaks and shut it down if it was such a problem?

Maybe they have - I couldn't access the site this morning!

Single Parenting and A Strategy for Xmas Cards

With J in deepest Africa for a couple of weeks, I have been left sole responsibility of Guy and Kitty. I suppose it’s some sort of compliment that my wife feels happy enough with my parental stewardship and that she can go off on her travels but the kids behave perfectly when she’s away, more so than when she’s at home (maybe a psychologist can work that one out) but I wasn’t too happy when Kitty came home the other night and said that one of her teachers, aware of her ‘single parent status’, asked if she was being fed properly. Cheek!

Not my lasagne - mine was better !

Fed properly! I made a lasagne the other night. My first attempt. The recipe was copied to the letter (apart from the grated nutmeg – I didn’t have any) from my cooking bible, Delia Smith. It was delicious and the testament to my prowess in the kitchen came from the mouths of my two ‘babes’ when I asked them, ‘if a lasagne is being made in future, who do you want to make it, your mother or me?’. ‘You’, was the resounding chorus. Boy, did I feel chuffed.

And then on Friday, the kids set off for school. Kitty being dropped off by car (instead of by scooter) at the bus stop at 7.20am with me in my dressing gown desperately hoping I didn’t have an accident, and Guy heading off at 8.45am on his scooter. 

At 9am the phone went. It was too late for Kitty to say the school bus hadn’t turned up and at that time, the only other thing it could be was Guy – premonition said he’d come off of his scooter and that’s exactly what had happened. He’d hit a patch of black ice (verglas not glace noir as you would expect!) and had skidded across the road. I asked him if he wanted picking up in the trailer (I assumed his scooter would be damaged) but he said he’d ride it home so thankfully, both he and the scooter were relatively unscathed.When he got home, he was a bit shaken up so he was packed back off to bed and I got on with the housework – not a problem when you’ve got Talksport on as you do it. J – take note.

Now I hadn’t had a lunch out all week so I suggested to Guy that we go off to the Midi which he was up for so in order to get him riding his scooter again, I said we should go in on our trusty two wheelers. We set off at 11.55am. I wanted to buy some stamps and post a couple of important Xmas cards so I stopped at the village post office and just as I reached the door, the postmistress (all of about 22 years old by the look of her) was pulling down the shutters.

‘Are you closing?’, I asked looking at my watch (it was 2 minutes to 12 – they shut at 12). ‘Yes – I’m closed’, she said (note the past tense). I looked at my watch again. ‘We’re closed’, she reiterated.

I grimaced at her. I couldn’t argue – I don’t have the vocabulary, well not in French, and in any case, there’s not much point in arguing with a French civil servant (where does the word ‘civil’ come into it?). You would have thought with me being a regular and picking up several parcels over the last couple of weeks (including two car tyres!) and quite obviously being a regular, she'd have shown some mercy - no chance! I looked at the opening hours on the wall (opening hours - that's a laugh)  to work out when to come back in but you'd need to be the memory man to remember all the times they are closed - sorry open! I've been trying to do it for 10 years and still haven't mastered it!

A bit grumpy, I headed off to the Midi where Guy had managed to get a table inside as it was too cold to eat on the terrace.

‘Should I go into Vence and post these Xmas cards?’ I thought, searching in my jacket for them and trying to work out a strategy for actually getting them into the French postal system. Only in France would you need to formulate a strategy to post some cards. 

‘What are you looking for?’ enquired Guy.

‘My cards – the ones I was going to post.’

‘You left them in the hall.’

Aaaagh! Good job I hadn’t managed to sweet talk my way into the post office I thought to myself. That could have been embarrassing.