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! 

What Day Is It Again ?

So yesterday, I wished you all a good weekend and that should have given you a clue - senility and the art of forgetting what day it is/was is becoming a habit for me.

I was absolutely sure yesterday was Friday and I blame our friend Sarah. As I had arranged to run her to the airport for her trip to Dublin, I just (stupidly) assumed it was the start of the weekend. I mean most people go away for weekends on Fridays - not Thursdays!

I even phoned the piscine repair shop to find out if the spare part I ordered  for Sarah and David's pool was in, previously having been told it was due to arrive on FRIDAY!

To further complicate matters for everybody around me, I told Sarah's mum and dad (who are looking after their house and Charlie, the dog), that I'd pop round tomorrow and  fit the part as it was Saturday and I had nothing else to do! And of course, it was Thursday when I said this!

Then there was the mad dash to find my 'fancy dress party' outfit - my Barcelona football shirt - because the party was the following night. Not so! I've got another day to find to find that elusive shirt.

Then the realisation that as it was Saturday the following day, I'd not have to 'watch' the stock market (it's been quite lively this week). It's one of my hobbies and if I'm particularly lucky, I might make enough to cover the cost of J's weekly nail technician who visits the house and who looks like a supermodel and makes me forget even more things! But as I thought it was Friday (when in fact it was Thursday), I was rather crestfallen that my, so far, successful trading week had ended.

And finally, I sat on the terrace last night working out that I'd been a 'good' boy and had made a pack of ciggies last me four days, when, in fact, I'd been smoking like a chimney. Still in the land of senility, I wandered in to the lounge to put the Friday night football game on and found that there was no game on  - it was Thursday!

Never mind - go to bed and forget it. Tomorrow's the weekend - or is it? Whatever - have another great weekend.

The Electrician's Dance

So we’re back to MS Word albeit on J’s netbook which has Windows 7 on it so hopefully no more Google formatting issues although as W7 is new to me, there might still be a few glitches around.

As we head into the weekend it’s going to be busy. Today, I’ve to take our friend Sarah to the airport who is off to Dublin with her hubby for the weekend and then I’ve got to find a shop selling a Barcelona football shirt. We have a 40^th birthday party on Saturday which has a Spanish theme despite me telling the hostess that theme parties were just a burden on everybody going (yup – I’m an old fuddy duddy) and whilst I said to J a Spanish theme could be fulfilled by taking a bottle or two or Rioja, J told me to ‘get real’ and make an effort so my ‘effort’ will be to turn up in a Barcelona shirt. That’ll do it – don’t you think?

Yesterday was quite busy as the stock market roared back into life so that kept me fully occupied trying to make some dosh (or filthy capitalist lucre as my ‘friend’ Eddie calls it) to help pay for a rather expensive reunion I’ve got at the end of the month, and then later on my afternoon was disturbed by some tradesmen.

During the afternoon, there was a loud knock on the door (virtually unheard of because nobody ever knocks, they just push the door open, shout and come in) and it was a gardener and an electrician. The end house’s pool had stopped working and they wanted a guided tour of all the electricity systems – originally, three of the villas shared a pool so there was shared electricity - and they wanted my knowledge of the system to help them work out what the problem was.

I spoke French (I was so proud of myself) and explained that there were four meters and a simple test was to open the meter doors, and the meter which wasn’t turning was most likely to be for the pool which wasn’t working.

I saw them look at each other in a way which said, ‘you know – he’s right’. They looked and one wheel wasn’t turning. ‘Ah ha – it’s this one’, said the electrician.   We all nodded in agreement. The French do a lot of nodding!

Then it was off to the next link up the (electricity) chain, a box half way up the drive where all exterior power is distributed to the various houses. As they went to open the door, I said ‘attention – il y a une neste des paques’ – there is a wasps nest. Unfortunately, what I'd said was 'there is a nest of Easters' which means absolutely nothing. What I should have said was 'il y a un nid des guepes'. But coming from the guy who used to ask for a 'frog' instead of a spoon, and a lightbulb to light his cigarette, I think things are progressing nicely!

They looked at the nest, but being tradesmen and hence used to this sort of thing they shrugged (the French do a lot of shrugging) and the electrician started testing the various circuits. As he got to the third set of fuses, he gave an almighty shout and jumped into the air with a sort of strange little dance . The gardener, jumped in sympathy but the electrician hadn’t received a shock, he thought a wasp had stung his ankle. In fact, it wasn’t a wasp but a nettle which he had brushed against. Hilarity all round (in French).

A couple of more tests and they’d fixed the problem. As we shook hands and went our separate ways, the gardener thanked me and said I was ‘tres gentil’, which is what J says when she introduces Shadow to guests for the first time! Did he mean that I was very gentle? If I’d thought that I’d have run a mile.

C’est la vie as we French say and have a great weekend.

PS – ‘tres gentil’ means ‘very kind’. I also think in a doggy sense, it means ‘very gentle’ which still worries me!  

Theology and Lasagne

The good news is that Wolfgang (PC engineer) is back and J is making an emergency visit to his house on Thursday with two very sick PCs. The bad news is that of the six PCs we have in the house (yes - I know) only two, J's netbook and Guy's Dell Laptop, are working - the others I could write a book about. Let's hope Wolfgang's trusty screwdriver can do the trick.

But my otherwise fraught day with wonky PCs, my car tyre puncture place still shut, my mobile supplier ripping me off and a huge unexpected bill from the local government office, was lightened by two young men who came to dinner last night.

They arrived with 'Irish Dave'  who has featured in these pages before at the following URL: (http://tomsfrenchblog.blogspot.com/2010/02/death-at-dinner.html)  and are studying Theology at Queen's University in Belfast, Northern Ireland. For some reason, I'd always wanted to talk to theology students and we had a great chat about their course work and hopes and aspirations following graduation. Amazingly, I managed to behave myself, probably because neither of them were drinking alcohol which limited my intake, which I can't admit to very often!

It was a great night and it was terrific seeing them wolf down J's lasagne and just sit on the terrace enjoying a late summer evening  - they are camping and have been 'roughing' it for the last two weeks.

And that's it - I'm so frustrated with Google's blogging 'compose' editor I can't type any more. It's completely useless and is the reason why I usually write my articles in MS Word and transfer them into my blogging template but as Kitty's PC (just working and no more) does not have Word on it, I'm reduced to typing, retyping and correcting Google's random placement of my words and phrases.

C'mon Google - get it sorted out.

Old Blogs For The Next Few Days

Apologies - J's PC has packed up and as that was the one I was using whilst mine is being fixed, I'm left with having to grab Kitty's laptop between 6 hour bouts of her MSMing. So what's the problem with the blogs? The problem is all my scripts etc are on J's PC and it's  completely ******.

Do other people have these problems? I seem to recall at BT that every 2 years or so, my PC, despite it's 'self fixing' abilities, eventually got so screwed up that I had to take it to the software guys who would say 'sorry - your software has become unstable' which I assumed meant that it had tried to fix itself so many times that it just got fed up and gave up! A new software install was required and if you hadn't been prudent enough to keep a back-up, then all your data was lost. Luckily, I must have had a feeling that J's laptop was about to expire as I took a full back up of my date the night before - lucky or what?

Unfortunately, J, who is doing her degree course on her laptop, did not and never does. Memory sticks are for films!

Anyway, whilst we wait for Wolfgang, our laptop man Friday to return from his month long holiday, I am reduced to using my iPhone, J's netbook which is  so small I can't even see the print with my glasses on and, as I said, grabbing Kitty's which doesn't have office on it.

So apologies as we try and sort ourselves out. Just to keep you going, here is my very first blog posting - some 550 postings and two years ago ......

http://tomsfrenchblog.blogspot.com/2008/06/another-fabulous-day-in-paradise.html

What My Wife Does To Irritate Me

I was listening to Talksport radio the other day and I was in stitches. Men, the station’s listeners are mainly of the male species,  were phoning in with the things their wives do which irritates them. It was hysterical.

It made me think of the things J does which irritate me:

J and I have an agreement that last out of bed, makes it. So why, when it’s my turn to make it, the bed has to be made within 10 minutes but when it’s J’s turn, the bed remains unmade - because it’s airing?

Why, when she’s had all day to tell me something, does she wait until the moment I pick up the phone to call my brother and then starts talking to me?

Why, on the very rare occasion I use the jeep, generally to go to the tip, there’s only enough petrol to get me out of the drive?

Why, when Coco is ‘her’ cat, do I have to feed her and when Shadow is ‘her’ dog, I have to pay his vet bills?

Why did she get me to pay extra for a ‘night-time’ delay switch on the washing machine and dishwasher and then switches them on at 9am in the morning? Our overnight electricity is 40% cheaper!

Why does J wait until I say I’m going to the DIY store and then give me a shopping list for the supermarket which has been lying in her bag for several days?

Why, when I take J out for a meal, is the bill around €100 and when she takes me out for a meal, the bill is less than €30?

Why does she move my shaving mirror and my soap every time she’s in the bathroom?

Why does she leave her ‘leg razor’ lying blade-up in the shower cubicle – every time she uses it?

Why does J buy ultra-luxurious toilet paper for her bathroom and recycled, rough rubbish for mine?

Why does J have to move a sun lounger around for 30 minutes before lying down on it?

Why does my wife buy two types of orange juice, expensive and cheap and, yup, you’ve guessed it, I get the cheap stuff whilst she drinks the expensive brand?

But, even after all that she’s still not that bad!

And This Guy Criticises Youngsters For Their Taste !

Sometimes, like during the last few weeks, I struggle for something to write about and then, out of the blue, one of my favourite subjects pops up and it’s manna from heaven.

If I tell you it’s a footballer (and this is where the girls switch off – or so J says) and his taste in just about everything is so bad, you feel physically sick, you’ll know it’s good old Stephen Ireland featuring again. You may already have worked it out from the photo above, although that stupid hoodie he’s wearing might have confused you a bit. Why doesn’t the idiot just wear a burka if he wants to look a prat? It’s probably the car that allowed you to guess who it was anyway.

Now, I don’t have anything personal against Mr Ireland. He hasn’t scored a hat-trick of goals against my team nor crocked one of our best players, in fact I don’t think he’s even played against Rangers, it’s just that the guy is a 100 carat dipstick, a total wazzock, a stunning example of what can happen to a young man, when his wealth overtakes his ability to handle it sensibly and the size of his ego overtakes that of his bank balance.

So what’s he up to now? Well his last team, Manchester City, decided to trade him for an Aston Villa player, and once on Villa soil, Mr Ireland let rip at his previous employers and his former teammates, castigating young reserve footballers for coming to ‘work’ with £10,000 watches on their wrists.

This, from the guy who has a £10,000 fish tank installed in his bedroom, and who, reputedly, is trying to find a firm to install a glass floor in his kitchen under which he’ll have sharks swimming in a tank! You couldn’t make it up!

This is the guy who told so many porkies, particularly when he did not want to represent his country, Ireland, that eventually the authorities worked out that all three of his grandmothers had died – yup – all three! The game was up after that.

But of course, his main crime against humanity is what he does to cars. Now I love, just love the Audi R8, and having seen what he’s done to his (see picture), I actually think I’ll get a flight to Birmingham and tell him what I think of his taste. It stinks.

See this other post about Mr Ireland and his love of ruining nice cars:

 http://tomsfrenchblog.blogspot.com/2010/01/loads-money-no-sense.html

And talking of guys who have absolutely no taste, Nigel has recounted a story of when he went on a client trip to the Netherlands. See what he has to say at the following URL:

http://monaconigel.blogspot.com/

Sorry About The Language, But ....

This post is short and concise.  It’s about the BP oil spill in the Gulf.

I’ve no interest in BP at this juncture. I don’t own any shares in the company directly although my pension fund probably does but the shares will recover so that’s not a problem. What is, is the detail of some of the claims coming out regarding the oil spill and which are being considered in the US courts.

Now I have no objection to those who suffered directly from the oil spill claiming some recompense, the fishermen, the cafe and restaurant owners and those whose livelihood depends on the highly polluted sea and beaches, but what I do object to in principle is the rash of claims from people who can’t sell their houses (they probably weren’t selling anyway), those hundreds of miles away who claim the smell of oil is affecting their health and worst of all, those, some thousands of miles away, who are now claiming that the pain and injury inflicted on wildlife in particular and America in general is causing them mental anguish. Mental anguish ! Two thousand miles away!

What a load of bollocks! What a load of litigious crap!

And worst of all, America has a system where this sort of claim (the mental anguish one) is actually acceptable to the courts and when worked out at an ‘agreed’ formula of €31 per household, means BP will have to pay some $3 blllion to the US Government!

What a load of bollocks!  Sorry America, I love your country but this is – no I won’t say it again. 

Injustices and The Col De Vence

J and I are sitting on the terrace after dinner. ‘I think I’ll take you for lunch in the mountains tomorrow’, she says.

In an effort to stem the flood of red ink which appears on her bank statements, I said we shouldn’t bother, ‘after all darling, we’ve had a lot of vet’s bills this month’.

‘You’re right of course – we’ll do it another time’, she replies.

The following morning, I come in from cutting the lavender and notice she’s all washed and made up. “I’m off to Mandelieu with Keren. Don’t wait for me – I’ll be lunching out.’ And with that the jeep shot off down the drive.

An hour later, I remembered Kitty was supposed to be going to a friend’s house. “It’s ok’ she said, ‘mummy is taking me.’

‘I don’t think so Kitty – she’s off. I’ll have to take you on the scooter.’ (the Alfa’s puncture hasn’t been fixed yet).

‘But Thomas – it’s in Coursegoules – it’s miles up in the mountains. Your scooter will never make it.’

And so we set off, heading through Vence, up the hill past the luxurious hotel, the Chateau St Martin and then into the mountain hinterland. And Kitty was right, well almost. The poor old 102cc Honda struggled and struggled, slowing down to 40 km/h at one stage and only just overtaking some poor tourists who had obviously hired bikes and thought they’d go out for a nice ride in the country!

Once at the top (see picture – the Col, despite Kitty standing in front of the sign!) we stopped for a look at the view and to allow the Honda to cool down. It was stunning at the Col. 1000 metres high (3,300 ft). The air was fresh and there was total silence. Then off we continued to Coursegoules, a village literally stuck onto the side of a mountain and where Kitty’s schoolfriend, Mary lives. We reached the village and as we passed one of the small bistros with pavement tables, I suddenly became very hungry.

‘Fancy some lunch Kitty’, I asked. ‘Oh yes Thomas – great.’

I parked the scooter and we were  just heading back to the main restaurant when Kitty’s phone rang. ‘Sorry Thomas, Mary’s waiting for me – they’re just about to serve lunch and they’ve invited me to join them’.

And that was that. There’s nothing sadder than a poor old lonely guy having lunch on his own so I got back on the Honda and headed round the mountain, still hungry, having been ‘dumped’ twice in the one day. The injustice of it all! 

Immigrants - How Sarkozy is Dealing With Them

We’ve all got immigration stories. My youngest son bought his first house in a slightly shabby area of Glasgow only to find that the place went totally downhill when the council turned a housing estate across from his very presentable flat into an immigration and asylum seekers enclave. Within months, the longer-established residents whose houses faced the estate, re-christened the area, Bosnia! The place was a complete tip. Tim did well to sell when he did.

My brother (Robert) lives in a nice area just to the west of Glasgow, but once again instead of tearing down the no longer desirable high-rise flats located half a mile from his house, the council have filled them with asylum seekers waiting for their cases to be heard. That’s ok, but the pond populated with beautiful, elegant swans, no more than 200 yards from his house, is no more. Well, the pond is still there but the swans are not – guess where they’ve gone? And when they disappear, they seem to do so at the dead of night!

Now down here in the south of France, things are slightly different – there are quite a few Moroccan and Algerian  immigrants in the local area but generally there is work for them with no shortage of villas going up requiring their excellent building skills. The Polish people are terrific carpenters and true to their race characteristics, are terrifically hard workers. If building work dries up, they will paint or do gardening.

But things are different in Marseille. There, Sarkozy’s storm-troopers are rounding up Roma immigrants (gypsies) and are turfing them out of France using a law which maybe the UK should consider. The law says, that despite the fact that, in many cases, their countries of origin, e.g. Romania and Bulgaria, are members of the EEC, the Roma immigrants can be sent home if they do not have ‘adequate means or resources to support themselves’. My god, if the UK authorities adopted this type of legal requirement, the population would fall by several million!

But back to Marseille. When I was there a few years ago, I got lost in my car and ended up in an area where the first thing you did was to lock your doors and hope that you didn’t break down. It was like the ‘Bosnia’ area of Glasgow I described earlier, but far closer to the elegant centre of that great Mediterranean city. It was crying out for a clean-up and it seems that Sarkozy has finally got around to it.

Good or bad, the Romas (and it’s not a targeted programme aimed at these EEC citizens, it’s just that they have formed an enclave within a slum), are being rounded up if they have no jobs or work papers are being ‘repatriated’ back to their home countries, no doubt on nice scheduled aircraft and with €300 in their pocket. The problem is, being EEC citizens, they simply spend their €300 in their homeland and then hop on the next lorry heading south and hey-presto, they’re back in Marseille!

Sharks and Crocs

No longer will I be able to laugh at Angie and her mum, Tina, complaining about the millipedes and spiders wandering around the terrace. ‘But you’ve got crocodiles and racoons wandering around your garden and sharks swimming all over the place in Florida’, I say. ‘Compared to that, bugs are positively civilised.’

But no more – last week the beaches down here were closed because of a sighting of a ‘2 metre shark’. I was initially sceptical as to whether it was a shark but I read a report which described the situation as follows:

“The sighting was reported by a lifeguard patrolling in a motorboat who saw a 7 feet long shark. Immediately after the news, lifeguards at the beach raised a red flag which signifies danger and asked tourists not to go into the water. There was a rumour that it was a Great White but lifeguards have not confirmed the report. Swimming was banned at Cagnes-sur-Mer, Villeneuve-Loubet and Saint-Laurent-du-Var at least for Tuesday with lifeguards insisting they may check out the ocean (it’s a sea) before allowing tourists back in the water (what about the locals ?)”

And if that wasn’t bad enough, our northern cousins had a croc to deal with – apparently.

Beaches along the French coast of the English Channel were closed after a killer crocodile was spotted lurking in the sea. The alarm was raised after two men said they had seen a 12ft monster near the northern French port of Boulogne, less than 30 miles from Britain's south coast. When more warnings came in, officials decided to close all nearby beaches, packed with high-season holidaymakers.

In a very rare bit of French humour, locals have decided to call the beast,  ‘Croc Monsieur’ after the commonly eaten toasted sandwich of the same name but spelled Croque. It now turns out however that the ‘croc’ was actually a piece of wood! How come several French fishermen, on different boats, all made the same mistake?

Down here, sharks are a bit more of a serious matter, but ironically a shark joke appeared in my e-mail in-tray on exactly the same day as the sighting. Here it is:

The Pope was cruising along the beach in the Pope-mobile when there was a frantic commotion just off-shore. A helpless man, wearing a Celtic football shirt was struggling frantically to free himself from the jaws of a 25 foot shark.

As the Pope watched in horror, a speedboat pulled up with three men wearing Rangers football jerseys. One quickly fired a harpoon into the shark's side while the other two reached out and pulled the hapless Celtic fan from the water. Then, using long clubs, the three beat the shark to death and hauled it into the boat.

Immediately the Pope shouted and summoned them to him. "I give you my blessing for your brave actions. I heard that there is bitter hatred between Rangers and Celtic football  fans, but now I have seen with my own eyes that this is not true."

As the Pope drove off, the harpooner asked his friends: "Who was that?"

"It was the Pope," one replied. "He is in direct contact with God and has access to all of God's wisdom and knowledge."

"Well" the harpooner said, looking at the blood soaked, shark ravaged Celtic fan in the bottom of the boat,   "he may have access to God and his wisdom, but he doesn't know anything about shark fishing. Is our bait holding up OK or do we need to get another one?"

It's All Boring

I’m feeling a bit sorry for myself today. It’s still all quiet at Le Brin with just Shadow panting and Coco moaning and meanwhile J is having a whale of a time at Blackpool’s Pleasure Beach. I’ve been getting texts from her all day interrupting various activities (mainly lunch) telling me she’s ‘been on the Big One’ (the UK’s highest rollercoaster) and she’s ‘going to die’ (wait till you get home darling!) and ‘it was great’ (yeah). And this from the woman who won’t even go on the back of my scooter!

And then I go and get a puncture on my Alfa and it just happens to be the repair the guy did a few months ago so I’ve got the unenviable job of going back and complaining – in French. Still, once it’s fixed, I’ll stop having to pump up the tyre every time I use the car so I suppose it’s been a long time coming. I should have got it fixed ages ago but sometimes these things just fix themselves – but not this one!

My tedium is only relieved by some cleaners I got in to spruce up the house, preparing it for J’s return. It’s amazing to see some Russian girls wearing French maid outfits and I have to say, they’ve taken my strict instructions not to kneel down but to bend over, to heart. It’s costing me a fortune but I might as well die happy! 

And so that’s it – I couldn’t be bothered writing so last night I just watched the Red-Bull X-Riders championship held in the shadow of the Pyramids and the Sphinx. You can see some of the highlights at the following URL (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=do4OjTTBdRA) and whilst I was looking for it I found a guy doing what was described as the world’s scariest bike ride. Now this one’s good because the rider has a camera on his helmet – it’s amazing. It even amazes him that he completes some of the tricks as you can hear when he makes them. Anyway – have a look – that’s it from me (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OrbSRLiIdOk).

And finally, if Tan (who’s in Cyprus) reads this having managed to get some sort of internet connection – yes, I have cleaned your pool. Boy – you owe me big time!

And no – I haven’t forgotten the picture.

£300 Fine for Two Feet !

Back in 1992 or thereabouts the government of the day (must’ve been Conservative) introduced a means tested fine system. I remember reading about fines of thousands of pounds for relatively simple offences and some poor kid on benefits was fined £1200 for throwing away a crisp packet. There were cases in the papers virtually every day.

A short time after the new system was introduced, I was driving to work and came up to a set of lights which had those cameras which snapped you if you went through them at red. Just as I approached the lights they changed to orange and I knew if I carried on, the inevitable flash would follow so I slammed on my brakes and stopped with my front wheels just over the line by about 2 feet. 

I breathed a sigh of relief at my ability to stop in time, but was then dragged back to reality because about a nano-second later the flash came. I couldn’t believe it and went to work in a right strop but I tried to reassure myself that when whoever checked the photos saw that I was only just over the line, they’d let me off, maybe with a warning.

No such luck! A week later a rather official looking envelope arrived and I read the contents with dread – they had fined me £300 which was the default amount for my TS10 motoring offence and which was a sizeable sum back then in 92. Of course, I could appeal but if I lost the appeal, the fine would be levied in proportion to my salary and that could have been a lot more. I swallowed hard and paid my £300 but unfortunately a few months later my friend decided to appeal her fine (also £300) and when the case was finished, she had to cough up £1,200 for a similar offence!

It was daylight robbery, and from memory, the scheme didn’t last long. There were too many stories of people on wages of £100 a week being fined £500 for stupid, trivial offences.

Fast forward to the present day and some poor Swedish bloke has just been means tested fined the astonishing amount of £650,000 (read that again - £650,000) for a speeding offence in Switzerland. OK – he was doing 300kmh and he earns a lot of cash, but £650,000? Somebody’s having a laugh and they’re probably laughing all the way to the Swiss Police Bank.   

And just a bit of nostalgia here – a picture of my licence with my £300 fine on it. I just couldn’t hand it in!  And sorry it's the wrong way up - good old Google editing again and yes, I did try (for about 30 minutes actually) to 'rotate and flip' it!!!!!

PF6 - Aaaaagh !

I read the other day of a gaffe made by one of the new MP’s elected to Parliament. A constituent wrote to her, and one of her back-room staff handling the complaint sent the MP an e-mail basically saying that the sex education issue the constituent was raising was a joke and included all sorts of sex-related asides, some relating to the constituent. Unfortunately, the aide also copied the e-mail to the constituent!

Been there, done that and it nearly cost me my job.

I hadn’t long been a manager in IBM and of course, any complaints with either the sale or the after-sales service would come to me and this particular customer would call or write weekly to complain about something or the other. And then he managed to get hold of my e-mail address and bombarded me with diatribes about this that and the other. All unjustified in my opinion. He was just a complete moaner.

And then one day he sent me an e-mail complaining bitterly about a female systems engineer who was quite upset by what she’d read because he’d actually been vindictive enough to copy her on the e-mail.

As she worked at one of our other offices and was uncontactable, I sent her the e-mail with some reassuring words about how good her work was and ‘not to let that little ****** get her down, he was a complete ****, a total time waster and if I could get rid of his contract with IBM by snapping my fingers, I’d do it immediately.’

I sat back quietly satisfied that I had supported my staff member and then she came on the phone. ‘Do you know you copied the e-mail you sent me to the customer’, she said.

Aghast, I looked at my ‘sent mail’ and sure enough, his address was on the distribution list. I don’t know what I’d done but it had been copied to him. I called him immediately but he wasn’t at his office. I tried to ‘retrieve’ the e-mail but it was obvious that he’d already received and read it.

I waited for the inevitable and it didn’t take long.

The call came through. It was from the UK CEO’s office they said. I prepared my apologies and resignation speech. I was almost clearing my desk when a familiar voice came on the phone. It was my skiing buddy, a girl called Nadine who had shot to the top in IBM and was now the CEO’s PA.

‘Tom, I’m going to delete this e-mail which is sitting in the CEO’s in-tray.’ I’ll send the client an e-mail saying you’re being ‘dealt with’ but watch your e-mail buttons in future.

Phew! 

PS – what I’d done of course with IBM’s Office E-Mail system was to ‘reply all - PF6’ instead of forwarding to just my staff member!

Extracting The Urine

It was Shadow’s big day at the vet’s yesterday. I think he knew something was afoot when he wasn’t allowed any dinner the night before and was locked in my bedroom all night (despite his snoring) and was then dragged out for a walk at 8am on Monday morning. I don’t suppose the brushing I gave him for thirty minutes reassured him either or the fact that his lead was put on and he was then bundled into the car. Whatever his feelings, we arrived at the vet’s at 9.15 and I allowed him a few sniffs around the grounds before I dragged him, reluctantly, into the surgery.

A quick check of his mouth and the vet (5 foot nothing and size zero) said that his infection was much better but she’d recommend another week of steroids just to make sure. ‘Another 40 euros just to make sure’, was my thought!

I then mentioned Shadow’s panting again (I’d mentioned it last week which made her look in his mouth) and she said she’d recommend a full set of blood tests. ‘How much’, I asked. ‘Oh – only 100 euros’ she said. At that point I made sure she saw his lead which is a well worn, bitten piece of leather held onto his collar by an old climbing carrabina, but it didn’t make any difference, it was still 100 euros.

I held Shadow as she stuck three needles into his legs and extracted syringes full of blood. He struggled a bit, snapped once or twice but eventually gave in as she took enough blood to start a doggy blood bank. ‘What happens now?’ I asked. ‘It’s sent off to Paris’ she replied. ‘You’ll have the results by Friday’.

‘Is there anything else’, I asked. ‘We could do a urine test’, she answered.

At that point I started taking down my trousers but she shouted, ‘No No – the urine test is for Shadow. Let’s take him outside and you get him to sniff around and stimulate him’, she said.

‘Stimulate him?’ ‘The only time Shadow is stimulated is when J comes back from Ed’s with a bag full of dinosaur bones’, I pointed out, but she insisted and so I walked Shadow around the grounds and she followed on her hands and knees with a beaker. Of course Shadow knew something wasn’t quite right and refused to urinate – he’s such a good dog. It was probably something to do with the huge one he’d done when I’d taken him out that morning after being locked in all night!

‘Ok – I’ll have to take it manually’, she said. At this point, I was wondering what a nurse in a hospital would do with a male patient. I was soon to find out.

Back on the table, she said I should hold him firmly and she proceeded to stick a two foot long wire up his ‘willy’. I couldn’t look but obviously Shadow didn’t like it – I mean his ‘willy’ has never been, well, used before. He was ‘done’ before he knew what it was for and so to have this sort of bodily invasion was anathema to him (or do I mean catheter ?)    

Anyway, after several pokes and prods and a few snaps (what if I hadn’t been there holding him in a vice like grip ?) she said it was all done and gave me the bill. €165!

At this point I tried hard not to use a colloquialism (are you taking the p***) so I said, ‘are you extracting the urine’, to which she replied, ‘Oh, I forgot about that, thanks for reminding me – the bill is actually €205’!

Picture is of a traumatised Shadow back at home after his ordeal.

It's All Quiet at Le Brin

Peace, perfect peace. It’s just me and the animals.

Guy is in Ireland with his dad whilst Kitty is also in Ireland (Cork), but with some friends she met when she did an exchange trip earlier this year. J is doing a tour of Manchester and the surrounding areas, doing a final clearing out of her late mother’s house. Tan and Angie (and the kids) are in Cyprus. The whole place is deserted.

And so I’m home alone – and it’s great but the weather’s not been so good. Since J left last Thursday, the weather has been awful, culminating in two days of torrential rain and strong winds on Friday and Saturday, and so all the outside jobs I’d planned to do when the neighbours were away have been put on hold with me only starting them on Sunday afternoon. Still, the ground and the plants needed a thorough soaking and that’s precisely what they got. Being a bit of a dope though, I managed to leave the windows on the jeep down and to surpass that, I even left the sun-roof open. What a wazzock!

And as I write this I’m picking thorns out of my flesh. The first job I tackled when the sun came out was to cut down Tan’s dead Bougainvillea which I planted ten years ago and which, each summer, produced masses of purple flowers as it climbed along their terrace pillars. The frost in February had killed it and as they are very difficult to grow up here in the hills, I was resigned to having bare terrace walls next door but then a few shoots came out of the ground a few weeks ago and now it seems to be making up for lost time and is growing at an astonishing rate. The problem is with the old, dead wood and the multitude of razor sharp thorns the plant produces, presumably as some sort of natural defence mechanism. Well, it was no match for my secateurs although quite a few thorns managed to get me and that’s why I’m scratching like mad. If it’s not the brambles it something else!

A final job was to make sure Shadow had ‘nil by mouth’ on Sunday as he was due at the vets again on Monday and if his mouth infection hadn’t cleared up, he was to go under the knife. Poor soul. I’ll update you all in the next posting.

Well, Tan begged me to keep his pool clean when he was away so I’d better get over there and make sure it is as pristine when he returns as it was when he left. Having now mastered keeping a pool nice and blue, he’s desperate for it to remain that way.

Gardener, pool boy, cleaner, dog carer – what a life!  

The picture was taken four years ago – since then the Bougainvillea had grown quite a bit, but alas, is no longer a semblance of its former glory.