The trains are running again almost normally between London and Paris after days of paralysis then disruption caused by snow. On just about any other line a faulty rail service would hardly be the stuff of national headlines, but the Eurostar is different, especially for the British. The train uses Great Britain's only land route to the place known as "abroad".
It is "a rail link that wrought an upheaval in the British imagination", Le Monde said this week. Marc Roche, its London correspondent, explained why the Eurostar breakdown had caused emotion in the UK. Its opening in 1994 meant that "the nation which was at the centre of a colonial empire turned the page on its insular pride..."
Perhaps he should have said residents of southeast England rather than Britain because that is where the 15-year-old cross-Channel train service has had its biggest impact (and where the people who write the headlines live).
We take the Eurostar for granted these days. It has become routine to hop onto a train at the Gare du Nord in the morning rush-hour, spend a day at the office in London and be home for dinner in Paris. On board the trains, they no longer bother to announce the arrival in the tunnel as they did in its early years. I remember the excitement among my usually blasé colleagues when we took the inaugural Eurostar trip in 1994. Just before that, we watched in Calais as the Queen and President François Mitterrand climbed into the back of a royal Rolls Royce parked in one of the shuttle rail wagons. They trundled through the tunnel for 20 minutes and emerged in Kent. It seemed indecently easy when you thought of the great service that those 21 miles of water had performed over the ages as a barrier to continentals.
The fast ride between the two city centres (two hours, 15 minutes) has made Britain easily accessible for northwestern France and Belgium. London-Brussels takes less than two hours. It has been a big factor in the move to London by thousands of young French -- dubbed the Eurostar generation -- since the mid 1990s. Since the fall of the pound in in 2008, Parisians have flocked to shop in London. For them, the rainy island with eccentric habits has become a little less exotic. The high-speed trains have made it simple for people in southeast England to spend weekends in Paris and reach Alpine resorts.
The service has changed the mental landscape. As le Monde noted, the psychological impact has been heavy on the British side. The train is useful for the French who want to visit Britain, but the Channel land-crossing has brought the whole continent closer to England. The majority of passengers are British.
The French do not realise how much the British think about them. British islanders -- especially the English -- define their national character almost in terms of not being the people who live on the other side of the Channel. For France, the "Anglo-Saxon" rival is American before British.
As the ancestral foe, France was the embodiment of abroad, or at least the continental version, with all its attractions and strangeness. Foreigners begin at Calais, they used to say. That was the port where would-be invaders looked across in frustration at the White Cliffs of Dover. . The Channel was what made England different. As recently as 1992, Norman Tebbit, a Conservative politician, said Britain had been blessed by "insularity which has protected us against rabid dogs and dictators alike". Now Calais is an hour by train from London, like Oxford or Winchester.
Of course the Channel rapprochement has not just been caused by the tunnel. Easyjet and other low cost airlines have helped bring Europe closer too. And the Anglo-French entente wrought by the Eurostar should not be overstated. It's not like Manhattan, with its bridges and tunnels to the rest of the nation. England still keeps its distance from its neighbours on the western continent.
Happy Christmas Everyone!
-----
*Note on headline: This alludes to famous British newspaper headline: "Fog in Channel. Continent isolated". It is said to have been run by The Times early in the 20th century, but it is probably apocryphal.
[Link here to book in picture above.]
 President Sarkozy has been caught again compensating for his modest stature. Last June, you may remember, he was snapped standing on a stool to match the height of President Obama during the D-Day ceremonies in Normandy (picture below). This time, we hear that a busload of short people was driven in to stand behind the President when he visited a factory.
Sarkozy's appearance at the Faurecia firm near the Normandy town of Caligny last Thursday was a photo-opportunity for the national television news (picture above). It was designed to show a dynamic Sarkozy, back from the summer break, making a speech to eager workers at the automotive parts plant.
A Belgian television crew decided to show how the Elysée Palace stage-manages these events. It filmed volunteers being driven in from other Faurecia plants as extras to stand around the president. They were picked because they were not taller than Sarkozy's five feet five inches, said Jean-Philippe Schaller, the RTBF tv reporter. Watch on the video below as he asks one of the white-coated volunteers if height was a factor in their casting. "Yes," she says. He persists: "You had to be no taller than the president ?" The employee replies: "Voilà" (That's it).
The Elysée has taken 24 hours to react to the RTBF report -- after it was picked up by the French media. They dismissed the story as "totally preposterous and grotesque" -- but did not actually deny it. The Faurecia company also denied ensuring a low-level crowd, but one of the firm's trade union leaders contradicted this, saying the report is accurate. "We are certain, from sure and reliable sources, that this demand did not come out of the head of a manager at Faurecia and that it absolutely was a request from the Elysée," said Jose De Sa Moreira of the CFDT, one of France's main unions. "Only short people could appear beside the President," he said.
"The request, or order, was given to the top management of Faurecia. As union leaders we just ensured that the people approached were not coerced and that they were not chosen on the grounds of colour or age..." he added.
It's possible that this story is the product of mischief from local anti-Sarkozy forces. One worker said the whole company had been talking about the height restriction in the run-up to the presidential visit. So it could have been a rumour that started it all. But the tale is plausible for anyone who has watched the elaborate way that Sarkozy's appearances are organised.
The French presidency is not much different from the American one or the British Prime Minister's office when it comes to stage-managing appearances. Nothing is left to chance. A prefect -- the local governor -- was sacked a few months ago after police failed to keep demonstrators out of earshot during a Sarkozy visit to a provincial factory. But picking a short crowd does seem to be taking things a little far.
Sarkozy's sensitivity over his petite taille is normal enough. But he sets himself up for mockery with attempts to compensate for it. His stack-heeled loafers are a running joke with cartoonists and comedians.
Height seems to be a criterion for membership of Sarkozy's government. There are few tall men. Bernard Kouchner, the Foreign Minister, and Jean-Louis Borloo, who the super-minister for the environment and transport, are pint-sized. François Fillon, the Prime Minister, is of modest height.
Carla Bruni, who stands nearly five inches taller than her husband, grumbled this summer that people paid too much attention to the fact that she always wore completely flat soles in his presence. "I understand that the media prefer to talk about my pumps more than my global foundation or the fight against illiteracy," she said.
Sarkozy is not the only one to stage-manage appearances. Last month, Luc Chatel, the Education Minister and government spokesman, was caught in the act when he visited a supermarket at Villeneuve-le-Roi, southeast of Paris.
The aisles, normally quiet on an August afternoon, were suddenly full of well-dressed middle-class shoppers who showered praise on a government price freeze on school supplies. It turned out that the women were all from the UMP, Sarkozy's party, and had been driven in for the occasion.
[Below, Belgian tv report on Sarkozy's short crowd]
The future belongs to those who rise early. The English version of that French saying holds that the early bird catches the worm. The Spanish say a quien madruga Dios le ayuda (God helps the early riser). The virtue of a quick start on the day idea is pretty universal and Nicolas Sarkozy preached it in his 2007 presidential campaign along with "work more to earn more".
Well, everyone is wrong, according a group of Belgian, French and Swiss researchers. People who find it hard to get up in the morning perform better for longer than the virtuous early birds who leap from the nest to claim the future, say the team based at the University of Liège.
Led by Christina Schmidt, a neuroscientist, they pitted a volunteer group of 16 young early risers against a gaggle of 15 natural night owls to find out who could perform complicated tasks for longest. For two days in laboratory conditions, the early risers started the day around 7 am and would be ready for bed by 10 or 11 pm. Late starters got up as late as 11 am and went to bed up to 3 am. The results, just published in the journal Science, were conclusive. The night owls stayed alert for longer periods before flagging mentally. After 10 hours of being awake, the early birds showed reduced activity in brain areas linked to attention.
The late risers have more stamina because they are less affected by a mechanism that tells the brain that it needs sleep as their circadian day cycle progresses, the researchers reported.
"We thought that the early morning subjects would perform better in the morning and vice versa," Professor Philippe Peigneux of the Université Libre of Brussels, co-author of the study, told Le Figaro. "In fact, after an hour and a half of sleep there's no difference between the early and late risers. However at the end of the day, the late risers are less tired and have improved their alertness," he said.
The researchers point out the obvious fact that there is a draw-back to being a late riser: your higher efficiency is reduced by being out of phase with the world around you. I'll use that argument in the daily struggle to get my teenage son out of bed and off to school. But I suppose the new European research may have invalidated Benjamin Franklin's dictum 'Early to bed, early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise.'
p
Tintin, the eternal boy reporter, celebrates his 80th birthday tomorrow. Europe's most venerated comic strip hero is being feted across the continent and, thanks to an imminent Steven Spielberg movie, he is at last about to be introduced to Americans.
France has long adored Tintin as one of its own although his creator, Georges Rémy, known as Hergé, was a Brussels-based French-speaking Belgian. That may explain the indignation over the past couple of days over an amusing column by my Times colleague Matthew Parris. Matthew had the effrontery to recite a longstanding assumption in the gay world that the intrepid little foreign correspondent is homosexual.
"What debate can there be when the evidence is so overwhelmingly one-way?," asked Parris [his article]. "A callow, androgynous blonde-quiffed youth in funny trousers and a scarf moving into the country mansion of his best friend, a middle-aged sailor? A sweet-faced lad devoted to a fluffy white toy terrier, whose other closest pals are an inseparable couple of detectives in bowler hats, and whose only serious female friend is an opera diva. And you're telling me Tintin isn't gay?"
It's always fun to interpret innocent-sounding yarns in this way. Alice in Wonderland has been psychoanalysed to death and I remember a tongue-in-cheek US book subjecting Winnie-the-Pooh (A.A. Milne's version, not the Disney travesty) to psycho-sexual literary criticism. But French pride has been needled by the Anglais who has used Tintin's 80th birthday to depict the brave reporter as all-out gay.
"At this age, the hormones are usually asleep," sniffed Les Echos, the business daily. "But for Matthew Parris, it is never too late to wake up the houppette of the nice Belgian hero." Houppette means both quiff and powder puff. What next, wondered les Echos ? Astérix and Obélix as lovers ? "That's perhaps the next subject for a column by Matthew Parris."
Le Figaro hammered Matthew for "reviving this old fable". It hauled in Serge Tisseron, a celebrity psychiatrist, to explain that claiming the hero as gay "is a lovely revenge for a homosexual". "The problem is that the sexual dimension is totally absent. Tintin is a creature whose sex is never defined. Beware of launching into a sexual reading of Herge's works... In reality all the characters in Tintin are children."
Figaro's article produced a torrent of mainly conservative internet comments pointing out that Hergé was drawing and writing at a time when boys' adventure stories were allowed to be violent (as Tintin was) but steered well clear of romance or sex. France Info, the public news radio network, even got in on the subject this morning, pointing out that Hergé, who died in 1983, scoffed at the gay Tintin theory after it was aired by studies in the 1970s.
The French defensiveness over Matthew's piece seems a bit overdone. The same protective reaction appears when people investigate Hergé's work during the Nazi occupation of Belgium in the early 1940s and when Tintin is nailed as a proto-fascist.
I agree with Hervé Gattegno, a Tintin fan and well-known Paris investigative journalist, when he said a couple of years ago that it did not matter whether his hero might be gay or not. Born in the Catholic pre-war culture, sex and love were kept out of the stories, he noted. "The values which are defended in the Tintin adventures are those of comradeship, friendship, solidarity and fraternity."
I have been a lifelong Tintinophile. The play with those old-fashioned virtues are what makes Tintin enjoyable -- along with the stunning draughtsmanship of Hergé. His comedy, movie-like scenes and the loving detail of the period machinery, architecture and dress, are wonderfully atmospheric.
Most loyalists are worried about how Spielberg will turn the clean-cut Boy's Own lad into a global movie hero. But the producer need not worry about the Tintin being outed. Hollywood has never had a problem with Superman, Batman and the other clingy-suited, all-bulging, all-American super-heroes.
There is an excuse today for some musical nostalgia. Jacques Brel died exactly 30 years ago. Most people reading this blog will need no introduction. But I'll provide a little since some otherwise well-educated colleagues in London told me that they had never heard of the man who is probably the most widely revered French-language singer-poet of modern times.
Brel was a Belgian who wrote and sang passionate, bitter, sardonic ballads in the 1950s and 1960s before retiring young to the south Pacific and dying of lung cancer at the age of 49. He was a magnetic performer and an admired actor and film director. For people who lived those years, his anthems -- Madeleine, Les Bourgeois, Le Plat Pays, La Valse à Quatre Temps, Le Port d'Amsterdam -- are as much part of the soul as Beatles tunes are for English-speakers of that generation. Non-Francophones certainly know Ne Me Quitte Pas, which was reprised by Sinatra, Nina Simone, David Bowie and many others as If You Go Away.
The air is full of those tunes today and not just for the oldies. Abd Al Malik, a rap artist, has just had a hit with Brel's Ces gens-là. Brel's records still sell over 200,000 a year in France, more than those of any dead artist, including Edith Piaf and Serge Gainsbourg.
Last night an anonymous Belgian paid 108,000 euros (150,000 dollars) for the little notebook in which Brel composed Amsterdam [picture below and video]. The item was one of 94 of Brel's possessions that were auctioned by Sotheby's in Paris. The whole lot, including guitars, assorted other manuscripts and papers, brought in over a million euros (1.4 million dollars).
The first such sale of a popular entertainer's memorabilia in France was preceded by a spat between the owners and Brel's widow and daughters who claimed that they had no right to them. This is because they were passed down to relatives by Sylvie Rivet, the mistress with whom Brel lived for most of the 1960s. France Brel, 55, one of the daughters, said: "It is odious and mean. We have tried all kinds of ways to stop the sale...These things are unuseable because we are the only ones who have the rights to have them."
Brel, a politically engagé satirist, would certainly have been amused at the unseemly squabble and the rush to buy his things.
The singer is regarded more than ever as a Gallic treasure and monument to the tradition of chanson française. President Sarkozy carries his songs in his iPod, according to Carla Bruni. But he is worshipped in Belgium as one of the country's immortals. Brel, born in a comfortable Brussels family, had a love-hate tie to the country that he left as a young man. "I am attached to my country but it stirs in me great anger," he said. He had no time for the quarrel, greater now than ever, between the Dutch-speaking Flemish and the French speakers of the southern half. Anyone trying to get a feel for Belgium should listen to Brel singing Le Plat Pays, his melancholic ode to Belgium, in both French and Dutch.
"Miche", as Brel called his wife, is visiting his grave in the Marquesas Islands today. He is buried there near the tomb of Gauguin. In Tahiti yesterday, she said: "Jacques would never have imagined that 30 years on, they would be still be commemorating him year after year, from one generation to another."
Brel became a passionate aviator and was running his own air service in the islands at the time of his death. His pilot's licence and other flying souvenirs sold at Sotheby's for 34,350 euros (see the photo of his plane on my last post).
 Watching the mess in Georgia, we should not get too smug about breakaway provinces on the fringe of central Asia. An ugly struggle for ethnic separation is brewing only an hour's train trip north from Paris.
I'm talking about Belgium. The divorce between northern Flanders and Wallonia, the southern French-speaking half, has been anticipated for so long that people in France do not give it much thought. "Are the Belgians mad?", France-Inter, a state radio station, asked its listeners in a jokey poll this month.
France takes a condescending, affectionate approach to its small neighbour. The butt of jokes, Belgians are seen as slow-witted frites (chips/French fries) eaters with a creative genius that produced Art Nouveau, Hergé, the father of Tintin, and entertainers who move to France when they make it. The latest of these is Cécile de France, one of the cinema's hottest young stars [picture below]. Otherwise, Belgium is Brussels, the French-speaking seat of the European bureacracy and source of many French ills.
This cosy view may be in for a jolt if the six million Dutch-speakers succeed in what seems like an unstoppable push to extract rich Flanders from its unhappy 178-year marriage to Wallonia.
France has just had a wake-up with an opinion poll that found that 49 percent of Walloons would like to be annexed by France if Flanders splits off. An extraordinary 60 percent of the French said that would be fine by them.
Continue reading "Will France move into Belgium?" »
The English-speaking world can never fathom the French and continental passion for comic strips. That disparaging expression does not do justice to the Bande Dessinée, the genre more respectfully known in English as the graphic novel. In the French-speaking countries and beyond, the BD, with its heroes from Belgium's Tintin to Switzerland's modern Titeuf, are not just for kids. They are revered and treated as a serious, ninth art of a kind that mixes the novel and cinema.
La BD (pronounced bédé) is big business. Last year 34 million albums were sold in France. As further proof, a Paris sale of original comic art broke world records last weekend. A cover illustration for a Tintin album went for 764,200 euros (1.22 million dollars). The indian ink and gouache, bought by an anonymous French collector, was drawn in 1932 by Hergé for Tintin en Amerique, the third adventure of his intrepid boy reporter [picture above]. The previous BD record was 177,000 euros, paid a year ago for a drawing by Enki Bilal, one of the titans of the French BD [picture below]
The ecstatic Artcurial saleroom said the auction of 653 items earned 3.4 million euros. "This marks the veritable consecration of the bande dessinée," said Eric Leroy, the house's expert. "People are no long ashamed to say that they collect BDs. The market is expanding fast."
As an honorary Gaul, I have long been a Tintinophile. The nostalgia-inducing tales have a certain magic. Like many French, I recognise lines from his adventures that have passed into the language. For example, everyone knew what le Monde meant the other day when it noted that the bad reputation of one of President Sarkozy's ministers "clings to him like Captain Haddock's Band-Aid" (Le sparadrap du capitaine Haddock). This refers to a running gag involving the whisky-soaked mariner in Tintin's Affaire Tournesol and Vol 714 pour Sydney. On a flight to Beijing with a French Prime Minister a few years ago, I noticed that his staff were briefing up by reading Le Lotus Bleu, Tintin's tale of late 1930s China.
I can also understand the attraction of some of the masters like Bilal, who created post-apocalyptic world that draws heavily on old Soviet bloc life. And yes, Art Spiegelman has shown in the USA how the comic strip can be used to high brow ends. Yet... I still find it hard to take the bande dessinée as serious art, with its high-brown criticism, annual festival at Angoulême and venerated stars. In the past week, the media have feted the publication of the latest adventure of Blake and Mortimer, a pair of old world military Englishmen who exclaim "by Jove" on every second page. Le Monde's literary supplement on Friday ran a cover on a new BD version of Dickens' Oliver Twist.
A lot of creative work goes into the art and plot of a BD album. They have come a long way from the American comic strips for kids that inspired them in the early 20th century. It's also fair to note that the thriving genre is accessible to young creative talent in a way that the movie industry and classical publishing are not. But I still see them as fast food beside entertainment that takes more mental effort to consume. I'm happy to be contradicted by my French regulars and anyone else, so fire away....
PS: I see that Steven Spielberg is likely to cast Thomas Sangster, a 17-year-old English actor as Tintin when he makes a long-awaited movie version of the cartoon hero this year. Movies of comic strip heroes are rarely as good as the original. I'll stick to the cardboard and paper version.
[Blake and Mortimer's latest]
Bilal's Bleu Sang sold for record price in 2007]
 Much of the world thinks of France as a sunny Latin place with vineyards, windows with shutters and a fine art de vivre. Many French also prefer that image and look down on the bits that do not fit the picture, especially those along the northern fringe next to England and Belgium.
This week, the far northerners -- a tribe that calls itself Ch'tis -- are celebrating a chance to shake off their uncouth image as potato-guzzling beer-drinkers who dwell in a rain-soaked rust-belt.
The excuse is the opening in Lille yesterday of Bienvenue chez les Ch'tis, a film that makes fun of the region's unflattering stereotype in order to show the people as warmer and generally nicer than those in the sunny south.
Starring and directed by Dany Boon, the film has won critical praise and seems destined to become a hit. So it should boost the much-maligned Ch'ti country, the old port and mining area which runs from Calais eastwards to about Maubeuge (I have a fondness for this area of red-brick terrace houses and tall bell towers from four years living in nearby Brussels in the late 1990s).
Dany Boon is a popular stand-up comedian and actor who is a native Ch'ti or Ch'timi. The name comes from Picardy patois. Like comedies about England's "Geordie" northeast, much of the film's fun stems from a working class dialect so impenetrable that it needs subtitles. In Ch'ti, "ch" replaces "s" and it includes expressions from old Picard and Flemish as well from the Italian, Polish and other migrants of a century ago. The Ch'ti language splash in yesterday's Voix du Nord was: Dany Boon, Bienvenue à s'baraque!" ('welcome home'). Instead of a "chortie nachional" (sortie national-- national release) the film has started with a "chortie ch'timi". Have a look at the promotion site, with the CNN parody "ChtiNN, une chaîne qui ne perd pas le nord".
Continue reading "Self-mockery in France's unlovely north " »
Categories
Select from the dropdown
Times Online blogs
More from Times Online
|
Now that we have observations in German on M. Bremner's blog (wilkommen, Herr Koenig), why not one in Sanskrit / Hindi ? Give it a truly international cachet, what ?
Anyway, here goes : Hamarey mitron ko, shubh navvarsh. Google Translation will provide the answer.
On the issue of rail transport, the quality of the TGV and the French Railways in general goes back to the old notion of public goods and services that genuinely serve the citizens. However, that is a very complex debate that must wait for one of CB's future posts that will deal exclusively with this subject.
Posted by: Jay Bhattacharjee | 26 Dec 2009 15:58:33
Among viewers of BBC’s ‘Dateline London’, Marc Roche is well known for getting the wrong end of the stick on most matters pertaining to England and the English. London correspondents from places as far apart as Saudi Arabia, Jamaica, or Portugal been known to raise their collective eyebrows at the correspondent’s dotty ‘insights’. So it is with: Eurostar was, ‘a rail link that wrought an upheaval in the British imagination’ or that, thanks to Eurostar, ‘the nation which was at the centre of a colonial empire turned the page on its insular pride’.
The chronology is inaccurate; the cod anthropology unsound. That some ‘Le Monde’ readers should take this kind of chit-chat seriously is of concern. Further down, monsieur Roche produces another couple of (unsupported) ‘beauts’.
The first is: ‘The construction of the ‘Chunnel’, a few tens of kilometres long under a stretch of the sea, has altered the perceptions the British have of the ‘Frenchies’ and their beautiful country.’ [‘La construction du "chunnel" de quelques dizaines de kilomètres sous un bras de mer a modifié les perceptions qu'ont les Britanniques des "Frenchies" et de leur beau pays.’] Monsieur Roche should realise that London and the UK are not one and the same, that ordinary folk travel low-cost air, don’t go to France anyway, and that if he wishes to view the species ‘francophilus britannicus’ he would do better to visit a car-ferry port.
The second is: ‘Nothing better illustrates better the popularity of Eurostar than the glass case that the country of Elizabeth II gave it in the renovated Saint Pancras station, in London.’ [‘Rien n'illustre mieux la popularité de l'Eurostar que l'écrin de verre que le pays d'Elizabeth II lui a offert en la gare rénovée de Saint-Pancras, à Londres.’] I suggest this make-over has much more to say about New Labour and ‘bien penseance à la Tony Blair’ than about the well-springs of the British soul.
Posted by: Rick | 26 Dec 2009 11:04:26
@ Johnathan Hayes -
per EU directive, all member states have segregated ownership and operations of their national rail infrastructure from that of the rolling stock. For example, the French network operator is called RFF and the train operator SNCF. As of 1/1/2010, protectionist rules against cross-border rail traffic have to be waived and all train operators treated equally by the infrastructure operators when it comes to trackage fees and slots on the timetable.
There are some cross-border high-speed services already, but those are based on bilateral or multilateral agreements between individual member states and typically limited to a specific operator. For better or worse, the EU directive will do for rail transportation - both passenger and freight - what its open skies policy did for flights many years ago, though the transition will take longer.
Posted by: rafael | 26 Dec 2009 10:26:26
There exactly (and with the little yellow man, you may "walk" near, on your left, highspeed railway, on your right motorway.. fantastic)
http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=fr&geocode=&q=mory&sll=50.16712,2.87303&sspn=0.001189,0.003433&ie=UTF8&hq=&hnear=Mory,+Pas-de-Calais,+Nord-Pas-de-Calais,+France&ll=50.167608,2.873354&spn=0.004701,0.013733&t=k&z=16
Posted by: Francois D | 26 Dec 2009 10:09:19
Merry Christmas and best wishes for next year. Joyeux Noel et meilleurs voeux pour la nouvelle année.
Long live for this blog and thank you Charles for your tolerant writings.
About the post and the Eurostar.
I have never taken the eurostar, preferring the tunnel or the boat for fares. Eurostar is for a new generation of people: those who live in megapoles and not between cities. They will represent the majority of the world population, those who have purchasing power.
I often walks in the northern France countryside, and often sees that long yellow snake, fast and noisy.
If you take the Eurostar, remember about 40 minutes after departure from Paris, you may look in the fields some irregularities, kinds of bumps in the ground. They correspond to Great War trenches. Farmers know what they mean but I'm not sure that one percent of hurried eurostar travelers know. Cemeteries, in majority british, just remind you. There is one, very little, on your right, even just between the highspeed railway and the motorway A1.
Without them, you could not enjoy this train practice. The few hours lost due to snow in comparison to these sacrifices are derisories.
Posted by: Francois D | 26 Dec 2009 09:49:00
Aren't the Britons and the English language wonderful?
In just one short head line they can define their position in this world :
The continent of Great Britain cut of from the island of Europe.
Lovely.
Fröhliche Weihnachten und ein glückliches neus Jahr.
Posted by: Heinz Koenig | 26 Dec 2009 09:18:57
Anglo Friends, n'abusez pas du Pudding !
DODO
Merci mais - trop tard!!
Même si j'avais vu l'avertissement ce matin, je pense que j'aurais tout de même abusé - mais ce sont (il y en avait deux) des French Christmas Puddings - faits maison par une française et flambés en Armagnac - rien à voir avec les nôtres.
Un pas en avant celui ou celle qui n'en aurait pas abusé . . . :)
PS I think Azloon might be joking - he's more likely to "think of something (else)" before setting off!! ;D
Posted by: dot king | 25 Dec 2009 17:36:53
Is this the 64th time or the 65th time that Johnny Hallyday has topped the personality of the year list?
ATASTEOFGARLIC
If it were either, that would mean that he started topping the Personality of the Year lists at age 1 or 2 - ie before anyone except his parents had heard of him - he's 66.
Posted by: dot king | 25 Dec 2009 17:26:45
Thanks for yet another great post, Charles - your blog has been one of my best "finds" this year.
A French friend posted on my Facebook page something about a recent announcement of a new French rail service to compete with SNCF with discount fares. This seems a fanciful notion - the cost of building a whole new rail system would be prohibitive, and I bet the SNCF would resist sharing its track network. Has anyone heard anything about this?
I love the TGV, I have to say; just back from a couple weeks zipping around in northern and eastern France, and the ease, efficiency and comfort are staggering for someone used to the sluggish, grubby Amtrak service on the Northeast corridor between NYC and Boston.
Really, high speed rail is one of the great missed opportunities in the US, the Land of the Automobile. If only they'd redirect some of the airline subsidy money toward rail projects...
Merry Christmas/Joyeux Noel a tous!
[Thank you Jonathan. And yes, there is a plan to have an Italian high-speed train operating a service from Italy to Paris, stopping at French stations for French passengers along the way. It's part of the European Union deregulation of railways. There is already competition on freight. They are about to open to passenger service. The Italian trains should be running in 2012. It's a revolution for France and not at all popular with the unions or public opinion, which is devoted to the state monopoly on rail service. CB]
Posted by: Jonathan Hayes | 25 Dec 2009 16:17:08
AZLOON would do well to stop in Avignon , it's quite a nice town ,even Popes liked it and as a base to roam in the south it's quite central.
Sure Marseille/ Nice is not a TGV line yet (the plans have been agreed to make it so ) but as scenic train ride goes , it's not that bad.
Rocket:I agree such an investment is a political choice but the north east corridor line would be a no-brainer.
That would need someone willing to knock heads together and that has a political price.
Posted by: Julio | 25 Dec 2009 10:09:39
Is this the 64th time or the 65th time that Johnny Hallyday has topped the personality of the year list?
[I think it's about the 49th time. CB]
Posted by: aTasteOfGarlic.com | 25 Dec 2009 09:38:35
AZ
If you take the TGV to the south of France you must know before hand that after Marseilles it is no longer high speed. It's a bitch going from Marseilles to Nice and takes about 2.5 hours on a 150 something km run as the crow flies.
http://www.mapcrow.info/Distance_between_Nice_FR_and_Marseille_FR.html
Other than that it flies from on the Paris - Marseille run. 3 hours
Posted by: rocket | 24 Dec 2009 22:37:12
Julio
"First California , then ATL-Miami then some place in the midwest (I started questioning his sanity at that point ) and finally the north east corridor."
Don't forget that to launch a TGV (high speed rail)in the US you have to float a bond issue (because it is a state issue not a national issue)and the voters reject it just as they did on the Miami to Orlando plans for high speed rail soem years ago. I personally knew one of the individuals who came to France (wined and dined by the SNCF as well as 4 star hotel (in fact this woman presided over my wife and my wedding in Florida) She was all for the project but the voters in Florda rejected the cost.
I'm sure in California it will never see the light of day either.
Posted by: rocket | 24 Dec 2009 22:31:28
One of the reasons that Christine Lagarde comes off much better in English may be because English is less of a mitigating language than French. In other words one can speak English using sentence construction which is much more direct and to the point and not necessarily have to worry about rubbing certain sensiblities in as in French. Especially in the case when we listen to the current President of France answer a question.
There is less sensitivity to this kind of speaking in the English language than there is in French.
In other words English and certainly American English is less deferential than French both in it's structure and vocabulary
Posted by: rocket | 24 Dec 2009 22:18:39
Dot, now you have me thinking (which is always dangerous): what is karma for crazy people? I sure hope not sanity. I think I'd rather kill myself. :)
Posted by: azloon | 24 Dec 2009 18:58:51
Thanks Julio
I suspect the TGF is much slower.
Posted by: azloon | 24 Dec 2009 18:54:15
Merry Christmas, and maybe a white one, yes?
AZLOON
Thank you, and same sentiments returned, though I think I can be sure your Christmas won't be white - looks like ours is going to be grey, mild and damp, but I haven't yet watched the weather forecast.
PS: LOCO also has KARMA in his(?) name, which sort of tips the "checks and balances" ? :)
Posted by: dot king | 24 Dec 2009 17:27:16
Joyeux Noël à tous ! Merci Charles pour vos chroniques, et chers Anglo Friends, n'abusez pas du Pudding !
Posted by: DODO | 24 Dec 2009 17:19:42
Charles! you wrote at one stage that Lagarde was inept(coupling her with Dati). I have held her in high regard ever since her junior ministerial posts. Of course I was impressed with her English. Maybe, with lack of practice, her English is less brilliant now.
[I think, thomasine, that I said that she was politically inept, which she was at the time. She was a neophyte in politics and made a few grosses bourdes, like telling impoverished French people that they should get on bicycles. She learnt quickly and emerged as an international figure, as I reported a few months ago when she appeared on the Jon Stewart show. CB]
Posted by: thomasine | 24 Dec 2009 17:13:20
AZLOON : You'll have better results if you book a seat on the TGV to get to the south of France.
Just sayin'.
The Transport secretary (or whatever it's called) was saying on Jon Stewart that high speed rail was not that far in the US (maybe it was TARP money maybe not)
First California , then ATL-Miami then some place in the midwest (I started questioning his sanity at that point ) and finally the north east corridor.
Anyway Merry Xmas to ya'll.
Posted by: Julio | 24 Dec 2009 16:24:59
oops, et Joyeux Noel !!
Posted by: azloon | 24 Dec 2009 14:36:22
Ever since I heard of the plans for the Chunnel, I have been fascinated by the idea. Sometime in 2010, I plan to hop the 5 pm British Air non-stop flight to London from Phoenix, switch to the Eurostar to Paris, then the TGF to the south of France. What I'll do when I get there, I have no idea, but I'll think of something. As my favorite bumper sticker proclaims: DON'T DIE WONDERING.
Posted by: azloon | 24 Dec 2009 14:31:51
KARMADELOCO
Anyone with a name with 'Loco' in it can't be all bad, this coming from a Loonie.
I read your website comments again, and I don't at all object to your basic argument. Any campaign advocating snooping on your neighbors clearly has the possibilities for abuse. And coming from the LA Police, it should be treated with some suspicion.
But we have checks and balances to offset abuse. Courts, normally, won't tolerate false arrests.That is not to say that the CIA and FBI didn't make highly questionable arrests immediately post 9/11, but local police did not.
I do get your point and essentially agree with it. I just don't believe it rises to the level of threat that you obviously do.
DOT
This is not Americans doing 'subtle.' Since this issue's context is 'densely' American, I am able to follow it's thread, and my eyes don't gloss over as they do when a post, such as yours about French pop culture mentions too many unfamiliar names, TV shows, and other strange (for me) cultural references. My curiosity (and brain capacity) has it's (clearly evident) limits. Merry Christmas, and maybe a white one, yes?
Posted by: azloon | 24 Dec 2009 14:21:36
Didn't Cameron promised to bring high speed rail to Britain if elected ?
Everybody knows how worthy his promises are but still
London to Glasgow via Manchester in a reasonable time (by continental standard ,of course) would help the SW immensely.
Posted by: Julio | 24 Dec 2009 14:17:37
we must say no, and unfortunatly you don't understand french, I explain perfectly what I mean in my article
KARMADELOCO
C'est vrai, votre Anglais n'est pas parfait, mais mon Français me permet de comprendre parfaitement ce que je lis en Français et en Anglais.
Je vois les choses autrement, et j'ai le droit d'exprimer ce que je pense dans les deux langues si je le veux.
Et je pense que ce clip, malgré votre avis là-dessus, a pour but de DECOURAGER la délation plutôt que d'appeler les gens à s'y mettre.
Après, vous avez le droit de dire NO! si vous le voulez, mais de là aller jusqu'à dire que si les gens ne sont pas d'accord avec vous, c'est parce qu'ils ne comprennent pas le Français - alors ça, c'est de l'arrogance.
Avez-vous même remarqué que ce que je dis n'est pas en accord avec ce que dit Azloon?
Posted by: dot king | 24 Dec 2009 14:04:10
I wish everybody a Very Happy Christmas and All Good Fortune in the Coming Year.
Posted by: Rick | 24 Dec 2009 12:27:18
azloon, dot king
well, thanks for your comments
but I don't agree, it's the same act,denonciations, patriot act
we must say no, and unfortunatly you don't understand french, I explain perfectly what I mean in my article
this clip is trash, cause the message of LA police is completly rotten
my english is not perfect, exuse me
Posted by: karmadeloco | 24 Dec 2009 10:31:38
TO AZLOON,
Mme Lagarde speaks pretty good Spanish, although not as well as the remarkable linguistic dexterity attained in that language by one Dominique de Villepin.
Posted by: richard jones | 24 Dec 2009 09:54:38
Greek Internet alles upgescrewed. Mais Joyeux Fêtes!!!!!!!
Posted by: richard jones | 24 Dec 2009 09:50:47
Have I been brutally censored because I wished a merry Christmas to you all ?
Did the "War on Christmas" waged by the liberal/communist/socialist/secular been won that quickly even of these shores ?
or maybe my rant against polling firms was to hard to stomach ?
or did it just vanished in one of those internet tubes ?
Who knows ?
and who cares ?
Posted by: Julio | 24 Dec 2009 08:29:19
I do wish you hadn't mentioned Anne Roumanoff. She is constantly on the TV here and the very sight of her and her red trademark outfits make me want to vomit.
And as for Bruni. It must only be in Paris that they talk of her because I never here her name mentioned here in South West France.
As for personalities; Christine Lagarde deserves to be N°1. but why Johnny Hallyday? As you say, there is no accounting for taste
Posted by: W Dunseith | 24 Dec 2009 08:28:48
Christine Lagarde certainly does a very good interview in English. And I love seeing her in photos of meetings of the world's top economic ministers. She is usually the lone woman and has such a commanding and assured presence.
Posted by: Judith | 24 Dec 2009 06:01:41
i am sorry rayanne
Posted by: jack | 24 Dec 2009 05:24:35
AZLOON,
Thanks for your interesting and funny link regarding Mme Lagarde. As one would say in French, "elle a vraiment de la classe". She adapts to her audience, out of true courtesy, rather than expecting her foreign audience to adapt to her. BTW, the latter attitude is not uncommon with people who happen to be less intelligent than they believe :).
The interviewer is also not bad, although he speaks way too fast for my clumsy ears... I am wondering if he sports his brand new béret in public :).
Posted by: Daniel Strohl | 23 Dec 2009 21:43:44
More & more people know that blog are good for every one where we get lots of information any topics !!!
Posted by: Increase Penis Size | 23 Dec 2009 20:10:07
I have zero confidence in polling firms. None.
If they can't do their job when it actually matters (1995 and 2002 presidential elections , referendum on the EU constitution ) what are the chance of them doing it right for such a meaningless one ?
I won't mention how OpinionWay works, if it's not worth investigating by the parliament who am I to judge it ?
As for the "results" almost all of it is irrelevant to me ,my life or anything I care about except maybe the demented proposal to have le dauphin get that fromage at La Defense ( but worry not , he'll get the region in 2 years time)
and maybe that nutter coaching the national team and the FA keeping him in his job .
Congrats to them !
And fellas buy yourselves some good wines ( nothing under 500€ ) , you have deserved it !
Anyway Merry Xmas to ya'll !
Posted by: Julio | 23 Dec 2009 18:33:15
And I'm not even that old!
Posted by: Johnny Foreigner | 23 Dec 2009 17:59:04
DOT
I tend to agree with you - swearing outside your mother tongue can never be the same because it doesn't get imbued with the rich cultural heritage of it being "naughty" words. I know a German bloke who says "shit" for EVERY minor inconvenience in life, for example missing a gear in his car and so on. It can be a bit tiresome to English ears, but I suspect from his own cultural references it is standard practice, so I don't criticise.
That's why I rarely swear in French. I do sometimes in English but usually only for comedic effect for those who are "in on the joke". Or if I am a little bit cross :-)
I actually find it wearisome when the chap in the street replaces every adjective with "f*ckin" in general conversation. It's not so much that it's ignorant, just a sad reflection on the education standards in the UK.
I know that swear words are only bad because we make them so. But I would never get rid of them, because they help define a culture and language.
I notice that the French are far more likely to swear than I am used to, indeed a girl I worked with was known by us as Mlle "Oh je suis c*n ; Pardon!" and thus I wonder if it has the same taboo in French culture as it does in English.
Posted by: Johnny Foreigner | 23 Dec 2009 17:58:22
I thought that video was to have the opposite effect on délation and dénonciation - showing that such simple seemingly innocuous actions can lead to rise of a dictator and the Holocaust is surely a dissuasion tactic?
Of course those with a short attention span might not get to the point where they might get the point.
Karmadeloco, I think the video IS saying NO.
I see it as a denunciation of the Patriotism Act, not as an encouragement to spy on everyone.
This is the USA doing "subtle", I think.
Posted by: dot king | 23 Dec 2009 17:48:35
Karmadeloco
That video is bit of a stretch, tho I get your point. The Patriot Act was enacted in a moment of national fear and loathing, and was excessive, and repulsive in certain respects. But Gestapo, Stasi ?? Not quite.
We're not exactly talking here about turning in Jews for deportation to death camps. We're concerned with people who want to blow us up. The tactic may be misguided, and the tone a bit creepy, but the goal is entirely legitimate. I have always thought the American intelligence-gathering mechanism was been a bit inept. But asking citizens for info about people with evil intention makes perfect sense to me.
Posted by: azloon | 23 Dec 2009 16:00:14
I think that curse words lose their impact across language and cultural boundaries. And anyway, I don't think she cares.
LEX
I agree with you about that - the only thing is, Foresti's show is about motherhood - her becoming a mother - and when you know the true significance of the word in American English (I don't think it's that widespread in English anglais) then doesn't it leave you with an uncomfortable feeling?
I saw her interviewed the other evening (yet more promo) and she talked about how her daughter, a toddler, came to rehearsals with her. It's sad somehow to think that one of the first written words a child might become familiar with should be "motherf-cker".
I don't think either that just because Foresti doesn't care, is a reason to import, quite unnecessarily, what amounts to an extreme of linguistic vulgarity - it's violent language, isn't it?
I might feel differently if I could see humour in it, even tucked deeply away, but I can't.
It makes me cringe for her ignorance.
Posted by: dot king | 23 Dec 2009 14:46:12
"People sometimes tell pollsters what they feel they ought to say."
This is a very misunderstood and underestimated fact of life. The question put to the respondent may be (fashionably) limited and/or loaded in one direction, and of course the answer is not secret.
Were such polls able to glean better responses than "Marie-Antionette" replies things might be different.
However Jean Sarkozy may have scored some high marks because of his very humble and mature climb-down from the candidacy for the top job at EPAD. The fact that he was in line for a good supporting role may have been forgotten during the polling.
Nevertheless I cannot recall his father showing the same sort of humility and maturity in recent times - but I might be wrong.
Joyeuses fêtes a tous.
Posted by: john gregory flinn | 23 Dec 2009 13:04:52
you can't write this. Cause when a country realise this kind of program, i's impossible to write this paper see it :
http://karmadeloco.wordpress.com/2009/12/19/no/
if you don't understand french, go directly at the end of the paper, at the window
you can find this program on this page so
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xbiox5_no_news
But i hope one of your reporter speak feench, cause you can't say that,
I say NO
karmadeloco
Posted by: karmadeloco | 23 Dec 2009 12:08:08
TO RICHARD Pardon? Comprends pas .
. .
Posted by: dot king | 23 Dec 2009 11:14:08
Don't you think that against malice, they could use a very cool design ? All I can find in blogs about design is the picture on top of the article. I found nice pics on Flickr : http://www.flickr.com/photos/45274544@N04/4156954649/in/photostream/
I hope they'll make the effort.
Posted by: Deizi | 23 Dec 2009 10:20:45
DOT KING, I applaud your ‘diplomatic’ efforts to impart Lancastrian standards. (But let’s keep stumm about Friday nights in Darwen, Doncaster or Derby, shall we?)
Not having the REMOTEST wish ever to own a Ferrari or similar, I’m well placed to judge that an expensive, well engineered Italian sports car doesn’t qualify as ‘bling’ (i.e. cheap and nasty). Indeed, ROCKET’s remark was perceptive. There is a strain of censoriousness in attitudes shown to the visible signs of success – which is more than somewhat at variance with France’s traditional role of purveyor of luxury good to the rich and idle!
As for the snide aside that monsieur Anelka is illiterate, my word what a field day Dr S Freud would have had with that! And DOMINIQUEII, your ‘absolute right to adulation’ is – as I’m sure you’ll admit! – rather putting words into ROCKET’s mouth: all the poor chap wrote was ‘Yes, the initial responses to this post are living proof of what Mr. Anelka puts forward’ and ‘Thank you for the second confirmation’.
As for JOHNY’s wishful thinking (‘France may be at times hypocritical, as you say. but it certainly has a better quality of life than England’), patriotism impels my observation that we do BOTH better... and that a country un-provided with that most obvious of civic amenities known, not without reason, as the ‘Public Convenience’ falls far short of the mark not only for ‘quality of life’ but even for half-way civilised existence.
So, SURCOUF, singing the – anything but politically correct! – ‘Marseillaise’ serves as some kind of demonstration of one’s patriotic reliability. I don’t recall this being a problem when an impeccably white Afrikaner Pieter de Villiers locked the scrum for France.
Posted by: Rick | 23 Dec 2009 09:21:12
CB/Mary
I believe Lagarde was on the Daily Show, much hipper than Leno, and linked below. Jon Stewart tried to start his questioning of her as soon as they had both sat down, and she, before answering his first question, said, "first of all, bonjour.' So French, and appealing. Stewart, ever the wise-ass, said 'hola.'
http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/mon-april-27-2009/christine-lagarde
Posted by: azloon | 22 Dec 2009 23:56:59
[Thank you Mary. Yes I saw her on Leno and did a blog post on it at the time. She comes over much better in English than French, lighter and more humorous. CB]
That's why I rarely speak French because you come across as a pompous ass once you have mastered the French language.
English is so much less cul serré (tight assed)
Posted by: rocket | 22 Dec 2009 23:16:31
Charles,
Did you, as a regular Vélib rider, notice a sharp increase, starting early autumn, in the availability of functioning bikes at the docking stations? I certainly did.
It was startling. Things went from you being pretty sure, when you saw, say, five docked bikes, that none of them would be working, to having reasonable hope, even if there were, say, three docked bikes, that you could find one that works.
This was something I noticed at home in the 10th and nearby in the 19th, at work in the 16th, along my commute in the 8th and the 9th, and down in the 3rd, 4th, and 13th, where I often pedal.
What surprised me was that nobody was reporting on this change. All the more so since the earlier reports of widespread vandalism had been a big story.
Rather, the narrative seems to continue unchanged. Your colleagues at the New York Times filed a story on October 30th, several weeks after everything got better, that read like a retread of your own blog posting of July 16th, from back in the bad old days.
I'm not implying that Vélib vandalism has ceased, as your own recent observations corroborate, but rather that the situation has improved dramatically.
[Yes tf, I certainly did notice that. They seem to have made a big effort in about September to deal with repairs. I noticed more Velib personnel out in the early morning (I take one at 7.15am, which is early here) and there were suddenly repair people around, along the Boulevard Pereire in the 17eme. It's true there are fewer bikes, but they are in better repair. Decaux has negotiated a new deal with the Mairie in which they don't lose so much money. Delanoe is taking on some of the costs of vandalism. In return they promised a better service. There were stories in le Parisien and elsewhere in October about that. Decaux reported for the first time that each new Velib cost 600 euros per bike, not the 400 that we all thought. CB]
Posted by: tf | 22 Dec 2009 22:57:24
IMHO (but I can be wrong...), Allègre is disliked because he knows everything about almost every matter he's asked about - which is a lot. He's a true scientist, and a very good one, but his scientific field is geochemistry, which has no connection with climate issues ; IPPC experts seem to be more trustworthy than him about global warming.
Posted by: Toinou | 22 Dec 2009 22:00:12