Buddy Can You Spare A Euro?

Posted on September 12, 2011 by emmacalin

I don’t know about you but I felt pretty wretched yesterday. Those awful events are printed on us like unfading tattoos. Gravity seemed pompous and levity seemed flippant and cold. Just to rejoice in life seemed selfish. I hope all Americans realise how deeply Europeans feel their sorrow. Here in France and I know from friends in the UK, yesterday was a very special sombre day. People spoke of little else and they did not speak much.

This morning the good old BBC re-started the world with the news that UK police had raided an illegal “travellers” caravan site and had discovered “slaves”. What this means is that all manner of the ugly, the girls too unattractive for sex, the mentally handicapped, the addicted and the mentally ill etc. had been held captive by greedy gangmasters and used as slave labour without pay. Now, to polite middle class British Society this matter appears to be astonishing. These days I can posture as a polite lady offering French cuisine tips, chatting about fruit jam, the entertainment at restaurants and chortling at my good fortune in life. You see – I’ve got a bit of money (AND DON’T KID YOURSELVES – THAT IS WHAT IT’S ALL ABOUT). It was not always thus. Once upon a time as a result of my own failings and lusts I ended up poor and somewhat dispossessed. I had to bear all manner of trouble. Compared to the suffering of many people’s lives it was nothing. I wrote a story titled “Sub Prime”. From the dozens of short stories I have churned out this is the only one I try to promote. The rest are trash market dictated product to be quite frank. All I can say about this story is that it is true and that these things go on. It’s free on Smashwords because I don’t want any money from it. It would be free on Amazon but they do not seem to allow us Indie Authors to price at zero. If the word “Gangmaster” is only something you’ve heard pronounced in a journalistic voice on the media then spend the entire sum of nothing and get an insight. I was lucky – I was a migrating bird touching down to re-fuel. There are many flightless birds.

Oh No – money takes the world to ground. Awful wailings and gnashings of imperfectly formed teeth in the French banking world. OK – you buy securities that aren’t secure at higher than their value and ghastly gimlet eyed bean counters poke at your balloons. Look – we all know the direction this is heading. Let’s hope that it doesn’t end up with guys in uniform bellowing simplicities into hungry ears. Now, why would anyone think that could happen?

Emma thinx: Justice: One man one second to act. All men for ever to judge.

Baloney and trap

Posted on September 7, 2011 by emmacalin

So – why don’t I do some kinda shock jock analysis of everything that needs sorting out in the world? Well, fortunately I don’t need to because I heard on the UK news that all of the trouble during the recent loot-fest was caused by “The Feral Underclass.” Both the Minister of Justice and the Mayor of London have identified this group as the baddies. Dear oh dear – perhaps industry can get itself out of recession by manufacturing millions of traps baited with fashion trainers and iPods. The Mayor of St Savinien has a similar scheme to get rid of feral cats but without the iPods. But – there is a serious issue here and that sent me in search of statistics. Since I live in France I get to see the UK from afar and since I’m English I get to see France from some kinda tangent. If there’s one thing to get me craving some nice anecdotal evidence, it is the pursuit of statistical answers. The distribution of Wealth in France is less equal than in the UK according to the Financial Times. (The top 10% own 61% of the wealth as opposed to 56% in the UK). These figures are a little old but they show that there is no huge difference. Youth unemployment rates are higher in France than in the UK i.e. 20% against 23.4% (First quarter of 2011).

Now, there are innumerable papers and studies and if you really wanna learn up, I recommend Eurostat Home. So – where does that get a scholastically challenged middle aged romance writer? Simple – it gets me talking to the taxi lady, the mechanic who towed my car and the truck driver who delivered our building materials. All of these guys presented themselves as absolute gentlepersons who could just as well have been schoolteachers or lawyers. In a nutshell they were “educated”. The minimum wage in France is 1,365 Euros per month.($1918) and £1,085 ($1734) in the UK. Prices are higher in France so effectively there is little difference. We have class issues here in France too. So far no one has turned feral, although a few rugby players look a bit wild.

So, when I hear senior UK leaders describing tranches of the population as a “feral underclass” I really do wonder where we go from here.(Well, it has me staying in France!). We need to include everyone in the aims of our world, we need to define the nature of our societies, we need to think about the system of parallel communities that has grown up around the multi cultural experiment. And we need love enforcement. These days I kinda re-live the spirit of my childhood. All adults are looking out for all kids. The Jesuit quotation “Give me the child till it is seven and I will show you the man” has a lot of clout here. Now, I spent a good part of my life in those south London streets among the feral kids. I’ll tell you something about kids. THEY ARE KIDS and we’re all terrified of them very largely because an educated elite class has “expertised” the things we knew as wisdom and told us we were stupid, brutal and old fashioned. Their liberal dictatorship ordered us stand aside while they sorted out society. The intellectual overclass CRIMINALISED THE PRACTICE OF WISDOM. If you need a class enemy – that is where you start. The traps will catch the ferals.

Wow! I’m really becoming a right old cow.

Emma thinx: Wisdom – truth in unbranded trainers.

Writes of Passage

Posted on September 4, 2011 by emmacalin

A calm Sunday with tea and hot baguette served in bed while church bells marked out a time beyond my own boundaries. How lucky I am. How wretched the lives of so many others. I have so much because so many have so little. Well, today I have been writing. Fellow writers will know that there are always 50 reasons not to write. The trouble with computers is that once you switch them on the world reaches a hand out of the screen and grabs your throat. Since I have been Kindlicated I have been on Twitter – or rather I should say that Gilles has been putting me on there because I keep pushing all the wrong keys. Today I saw that a guy called Bert Carson was following me. I clicked his link and got to his books. Now, this guy served in Vietnam, has been a priest and a car salesman. Now, the the last 2 jobs are probably fairly similar – but this guy writes like he was born with a pen in his hand and jumped out of helicopters into leech infested mud. Now, just think about that. My only contact with rice is when I cook a curry. So, e-publishing has finally swept away the gatekeepers of the “who is allowed to be a writer club”. He’s too old for any tree book publisher but finally we are allowed to read his stuff.

This kinda thing gives me real hope. However, be sure that the old elites still have wealth and control of other media. I listened to a book show on the BBC yesterday and a couple of old tree book writers, (You know- the kinda people who are introduced as Yvonne Yourleatherboots – the famous novelist and literary critic), talked about “my bookshop presence”.(Look – the only literary critics that matter now are YOU lot). These guys are in denial but soon enough the old gatekeepers will try and stage a counter-offensive. Outfits like Amazon will not control who uploads their stuff but they can control who gets seen, talked about and read not least by pricing policies. I’m reading Bert Carson’s “Fourth and Forever”. My review will go on Amazon. If you check out this guy just remember that this is a revolution. It will have to be defended and re-won probably several times. The French Revolution led to the dictatorship of Napoleon. But they got there in the end.

God – I’m getting to be an old battle-axe. Just checked in the mirror. No whiskers yet. And that brings me on to the subject of hairdressing. In central St Savinien there are 3 bakers, 2 butchers, 1 pharmacy, 1 bar and at least 6 hairdressers. This gives me a huge choice and I must make an enormous confession. I have never used any of them! For the past 15 years I have been loyal to the same hairdresser in the UK. Luckily business allows me to return to England every few months and I try frantically to get an appointment- even if it means a kitchen table special out of hours. Now, men have witnessed my child-births but not one has been allowed to see me in mid foil bleach spiked head red faced mode. In this transcendental phase the same hairdresser has learned of my loves, pregnancies, careers and romantic heroes. If a woman is not loyal to her coiffeuse then there is no hope. There is also the small matter of what she knows about me, even though I’m almost certain she’d never say a word….. The fact that there are so many hairdressers in a small town must mean something. I think that important government statistics should produce ratios of population to hairdressers. It’s the kinda media guff that gets that final news slot.

Big treat tonight. An English roast for my man. Chicken is so dear here but I bought one. An evening chicken for a morning hot baguette is a fair reward.

Emma thinx: That loser – what’s his story?

Fry up – Fries down.

Posted on August 29, 2011 by emmacalin

Then I saw it! The evidence of another world – of other beings beyond our experience. There on the road between Saintes and St Savinien the signs were unmistakeable. A brown paper bag, several wrappers for fries and a couple of Big Mac boxes. At last the French have caught up. Hot hatch boy racers with boom box sound systems had already arrived as a kind of robot advance guard. Graffiti scribbling foot soldiers had already tagged the whole of the Paris metro with coded maps and tags. Now, they feel strong enough to attack the hinterland and throw their trash from cars to show us their might. Possibly the evidence was planted by holidaying foreigners – yes – that must be the answer! In any event my general impression of my part of France is that it is immaculate by most international standards. To me, the sight of such poor conduct was quite shocking and unexpected. In my old stamping grounds of South London, whole tribes and generations of rats and pigeons are sustained by discarded fast food and its containers. Charente Maritime, even in urban concentrations is not littered in any way. I think it all comes down to my old theory of social etiquette. If others don’t do it – YOU don’t do it. There is still a sense of continuity between what the oldies did and what YOU do. At my curry soirée I encountered a most interesting Anglophile who had spent time in England. She acknowledged the contributions of the Brits to the world and to the notion of democracy. Then she said “But – the democracy and freedom you have created has destroyed you – you are choking in a liberty of everything – and in the end an infinite everything is a nothing because it has no shape. ” Now, I know it’s rare – but I wish I’d said that. The view from a distance is often the best.

Let me return to the matter of recycled waste. Normal household waste is collected regularly from communal bins and the service is fantastic. A community elder assured me that recyclable waste is collected every 15 days at night. Now, having debated this matter many times with neighbours – some of whom believe that there is no pattern other than the winged shrug of the gods, a few nights ago I left the windows open on Re-cyclemas Eve. I felt like a kid. Perhaps I would see the truth of the sac. I awoke at 2 am. A truck pulled up. A young lady in a baseball cap with pony tail jumped off and scooped the pile. Look – if you’re reading this don’t tell the children. Let them keep their dreams for just a little longer.

Cooking moules marinières tonight. In Carrefour they have scoured the globe to find the finest wines of the European community and blended them into a most fabulous “Spécial Fruits de Mer” for about a quid (£1 sterling or $1.60 cents). My advice: If you are buying trash wine for a low low price, mixed (blended) plonk is often the best because they bung some sweet in with the sour. Garlic, onion, wine and sea food – I want to live for ever.

Emma thinx: An infinity of everything shapes nothing.

Ye Olde Fromage shoppe

Posted on August 28, 2011 by emmacalin

Tourism – good or bad; discuss. And indeed we do here in Charente Maritime. I’m sure that there are many university courses about the long term economics. I mean, will there always be a group of people with money who will be able to be tourists? Many huge cruise liners essentially contain tourists within their own travelling country and cut off income to all those hideous foreigners. Travel is likely to become more and more expensive and therefore more exclusive as wages stagnate or more likely fall back. If you go for Tourism at all costs then you may let real industry wither and watch the dust blowing through your themed gift shop and cafe complex if the punters don’t come. In St.Savinien I hear both sides of this debate. If you fill the street with cafes and restaurants you could hardly retain the calmness and “local” feel that currently is its charm. Without some kind of work the young will have to leave and the town will have no income or commerce. Personally I would like to take a long term overview. My fear is that however hard you try, if wages fall and folks become poorer and poorer you may end up chasing a phantom dream. I think we need to know how the super rich intend to treat the poor…..but I could almost make a guess.

As for last night’s soiree – all the curry disappeared and no one died. I had a bop about to Lady Gaga and discussed Kant and morality with a couple of profs. Guests turned up with all manner of extra foods and party fare. Imagine my astonishment to find a lady running about with plates and cutlery to help with washing up. Then she started on the work tops and the stove, explaining that she could not just simply be a guest and HAD to help. I had never met her before but she was fantastic and she’ll always be on my invitation list.

Emma thinx: Tourism – Lifting for 2 weeks the blindness of 50.

Staying on track.

Posted on August 20, 2011 by emmacalin

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Some folk just seem to skim coolly above most of us don’t they? They float noiselessly between their past and their future triumphs. As they pass they give a regal nod at us mudlarks scrambling for pennies and scrabbling to pick up the shopping that has just fallen on the supermarket floor when our eternal shopping bag handle fell short of eternity. (Is this whole everlasting carrier bag lark just a way to get folk back to the idea of FAITH. Some of these churchy guys are pretty sharp at psychology). Anyway – back to the mud. Last night I went to a piano recital at one of my neighbour’s château. YES – that’s right – OK – My neighbour has a château and I went to a recital. Now – In France I am foreign, therefore I am neither posh-oui nor posh-non. In England I could go to such an event but I would have to keep me gob shut cos one squeak of the old Sahff Lundin vowels would have me sent to the kitchens to put me uniform on. However, sometimes you come across a cool dude who just has to be admired. The recital was given by the superb Alice Rosset. She is a native of Charente Maritime and the region is rightly proud of her. She played Bach, Bartok, Rachmaninoff and Brahms. She was fantastic. I had not heard much Bartok before – I think it’s for very sophisticated folk who put their clothes on back to front and walk backwards in order to understand the shadows cast by the future on the fleeting present of appearance and expectation. SEE – I could be ARTY. Anyway – there she is playing this beautiful music and the 2140 hours to Bordeaux rattles past. Was she fazed? Non! She just played on. The girl’s a trouper and she walked on the stone driveway of the château with no shoes. If her everlasting carrier bag broke she’d just lift the shopping off the floor with a twitch of her eyebrow. Bravo!!

Now, the above ramble reminds me of some advice I received in bed from a very cynical guy. He told me that you could never beat the English class system – but you could merely side step it. You can never quite get the vowels and arrogance of the posh Anglo. So – be foreign. At first I thought he was joking but this guy used to take me to receptions and the like at places like embassies and the Foreign and Come on it’s all my wealth Office. There was no way I could pull off the My Fair Lady Act, so I went accent-uh-sexi-rissima. I don’t know what they thought – but no one asked me what school I’d been to or if I had been at the races when The Right Honourable Foreskin – Smythe had won the golden fleece.

Hair dryer humid wind here today. It’s a greenhouse of bursting juice. If you fell dead to the soil here you would decay in seconds among the worms and eat-you-pedes of NATURE. Life is sweet juice. The market will close with strangers hosing away to gutters whatever is left of what you nearly became….

Emma thinx: Drink deep the juice. In the hour glass is sand.

Eat Shit – Dog’s Breath!

Posted on August 11, 2011 by emmacalin

It’s over. Gilles was off work today and finished La Terrasse. The feeling is a bit like the ending of the Tour De France. In some ways I just can’t believe it’s over. A full meeting of the Tribunal de Terrasse took place. The newly planted grape bush (VIGNE) was applauded. I felt re-accepted into the community. Visitors piled in, including the local Angel of all beasts. “C’est formidable! – what a job – oh yes- when you said ten days I discussed it with my husband – he says ‘no way’- he knows of zeese mattairs”. A lot of kissing and hand shaking followed with advice about soil for grape bushes and something called “cépage”. A neighbour muttered about new plants being close to his wall.

It’s just not like England you know! Now – I am a Francophile. This is why I am here. However, anyone not French thinking of living in France must accept that this is an entirely different culture. In a sense you are interfered with in a manner beyond all normal Anglo Saxon boundaries. Your speech, behaviour and gardening are matters of public debate and concern. However, all manner of other stuff is secret and private. All kinds of disputes and dis-likings are hinted at but never explained. One neighbour mentioned another resident and asked if I had an opinion. I had very little to say. “He is an old Schnook” she informed me. Later on I saw them chatting. He was saying that the new road works might affect her drains and that she should join him in talking to Monsieur Le Maire. She shrugged and glanced at me. This is how you deal with Schnooks. The point of this ramble is that here you are somehow public property, but locked in to a secret society of alliance and opinion. This is France.

Amongst all the gardening advice came much guidance on the civil disorder in the UK. ” Army commandos – yes this is the thing. Shoot them dead. All this stuff of no job etc – this is a pretext. Yes – shoot them dead and guillotine the others. It is interesting to me that as yet no one has defended the action of the rioters and looters. I don’t suppose they care, but this is a street politics society. No sympathy here guys!

My neighbour’s dog wandered in to the garden and ate a lot of the cat shit. To be honest I’ve never been very sentimental about animals. I would like to dress this up for you but you cannot deny bald facts. I must build it in to my next super swoon love Romance. He has a dog. She has a cat. They meet over a dog’s dinner. It’s about mutual need…..C’mon all you movie guys – this has to be the blockbuster of all time!

Emma thinx: The truth can be revolting. No revolution can change it.

Nailing it!

Posted on August 9, 2011 by emmacalin

To all problems there are several answers. Sometimes we have been shown the way to do things. Sometimes you already know instinctively or most often you put forward some idea based on your own life – whether or not it has worked out for you. Several callers today have raised the issue of the riots in England. Responses range between – “Oh yes – we have the same problems here – they put all the no hopers together and – bof – they smash the place up.. it is normal quoi?” An old die hard hippy assured me of the answer – “I say – put your sack on your back and go off to find the road….this works every time.” Watch out for petrol bomb throwing peace and love hippies coming your way guys. The fact is that no one knows what to do. The French suffer similar nonsense with about the same frequency. Very few problems cannot be solved with a shrug and a long lunch.

A tearful neighbour appeared this afternoon. For a while she chatted about kids and holidays. Suddenly she said “Fremus……is dead.” To my shame I had no idea who this person was. I looked at her with incomprehension. “The dog – he had an operation on his foot – he died.” Given the utter merciless savagery of the human species, it is always a surprise to me how badly we take the death anything close to us. The French are probably about 15% more sentimental about animals that Brits. They also stuff geese with corn by force feeding to create foie gras, eat horses and boil live crabs.

Everything I know about life is this – We favour what we know more than things we don’t know. We love whatever loves us but not necessarily in fair proportion. If you can’t love – don’t hate. If you still hate – know. If you can’t know – learn.

Plants arrive. Gilles has been in full “main verte” mode. He went to Intermarché to get something for dinner and came back with half the Amazon Rain Forest. You can’t take the soil out of these folk. A full set of horny handed digits trumps any boast, accolade or triumph. Who cares about your Ferrari? Look at my fingernails!

Emma thinx: Consistency – the thickness of our contradictions.