lundi 29 mars 2004

Local colour When an excited "San Francisco" told me that 'Monty Python and the Holy Grail' (IMDb) was the latest addition to his shelves, he even recited an extract or two. But still I wasn't going to fall for it until Francis started going on about the bonus DVD and its wonders. So I parted with more of next month's budget, sooner than I should have done. Come Sunday afternoon, Marianne persuaded me that it was silly to venture out to see the new Enki Bilal film straight away, when the queue was bound to be enormous. I agreed, feeling that we'd do better to make the most of the fine weather as well. But the Kid had other ideas. She closed the curtains on her side of the apartment, grabbed the 'Grail', along with a few other recent acquisitions, and turned the living room and her Mac into a modest home cinema. But today I can show you what the view from my back window looks like now that spring has arrived. I also took the 'phone for a walk. I've been meaning to blog a few more pictures of le quartier for a while, having written so much about it and some of the people round here. "Graffiti corner" is down at the far end of Thermopyles Street, where some of the local artists have little houses. It's only a few minutes' walk from home, but the cobblestones and a strong sense of community among people lucky enough to live there make the road a village in its own right. One day I'll take some close-ups of the work on the wall. It's prettier than the routine tags and diabolical threats that line the railway tracks. Most of the cottages are tucked away behind iron gates and gardens, making them hard to snap. This is one of the few that isn't fenced off. While local residents are fond of their privacy, it's one of the only roads I know in the whole of Paris where they hold an annual party when the really hot weather arrives. At this time of year, a little jazz band comes out on Saturdays to bring a touch of New Orleans to the corner where Thermopyles Street joins my own. I've never seen anybody drop coins into their hat, but they seem to be there for the fun of it rather than busking for cash. Up by the Pernety Métro station, on a busy junction in Losserand Street, the architecture says you're back in Paris, with its modern phone booths and the only local newspaper kiosk to open on a Sunday. You can't see the Canteen across the road, where Sam gave me no chance to choose what I wanted for lunch. He had one of his specials waiting when I arrived and had even made a tarte tatin, in one of his exquisite excursions from the regular menu. I asked if it was somebody's birthday, but no. Even Sam, who is not a political animal, was celebrating the local election results, which apparently means that a plan to get out the pneumatic drills will go ahead. "Once they've widened the pavement" he explained, "they'll let me put tables outside in summer." The last stop before it became too dark to use the 'phone's little camera was chez Francis, who was in less than saintly disposition. "Nice breasts," he remarked, looking at the obligatory slimming season cover of 'Elle' magazine. "I've noticed. She's plastered up at the corner too. What are you so cheerful about today?" "We won!" "The vote, you mean?" "Oh, please. No politics here. I'm talking about the rugby, you idiot. Gave les rosbifs a thrashing, didn't we?" 10:08:14 PM  link   your views? [] French ping-pong I can't think where Caroline Wyatt gets her ideas about the "ambitious and much-liked Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy" (in a BBC analysis of France's regional election result). Yes, he's ambitious. He's bright. And he's widely detested and even regarded as dangerous in the circles I move in. Caroline must have a different set of French friends. The morning's news cheers me up, of course, apart from the 13 percent of the vote given to the Front National (FN). But when it comes to that 'Reshuffle imminent in France after new poll thrashing for Chirac' (AFP/Yahoo), I'd be willing to bet that the French president won't risk giving the prime minister's job to Sarkozy. This election marks a return to business as normal. During the 23 years I've lived here, the French have almost always voted for "the other lot" -- anybody but those in charge -- when it comes to polls like this regional one. In 2002, though, there was a lapse into madness. During that year's presidential election, people got themselves into such a mess in the first round of voting that they ended up facing a choice between Chirac and FN leader Jean-Marie Le Pen. Though some of my friends wouldn't agree with me, Le Pen (Wikipedia profile) is neither a neo-fascist nor stupid, despite the never forgotten remark about the Holocaust being but "a point of detail" of World War II. But some of the fervour he inspires has created the nearest thing to the Hitler youth this country has at the start of the 21st century. All that is pretty much what the Faithful 5 ¾ might expect to find me writing about the poll. However, the result and the sunshine inspired me to do something less predictable: filling in my complicated tax declaration this morning with something almost approaching alacrity. The tax form is the only document that annually arrives in our letterboxes in a black envelope. I'd planned to postpone filling in mine until the last minute, being unable to dissociate my dislike of dealing with bureaucracy from the heart-sinking feeling this particular civic duty used to give me back in the years when my French was almost as bad as my maths. I would do it online, now that's possible, if I didn't have to send the tax people so many bits of paper to prove that I'm telling the truth. If Chirac does decide to replace the prime minister, an outcome they seem to have taken for granted at the Factory, I wouldn't be surprised if he chooses a woman, Michele Alliot-Marie (the Globalist), the current defence minister. She's uncontroversial and would put up a good performance on telly without representing much of a threat to Chirac himself. But his choices are limited. And dull. It's partly because almost all of them are so boring that I don't write about French politicians very often. I imagine, nevertheless, that the people who make 'Les Guignols de l'Info' are readying a few new puppets right now. The equivalent of Britain's 'Spitting Image' satire -- described in a recent article which is as good an account of French humour (Economist) as any I've read -- is one of the few reasons the Kid still reproaches me for throwing away the TV. 12:58:28 PM  link   your views? []

nick b. 2007 do share, don't steal, please credit under artistic licence terms; contributing friends (pix, other work) retain their rights.