A Strife on the Ocean Wave

Posted on July 15, 2011 by emmacalin

Home – yes home and re-toothed. Another fabulous Breakfast at Brittany’s aboard Le Normandie. The restaurant staff are just a delight of friendliness and efficiency. The trip began badly with hundreds of kids running wild on the ferry. Seemingly several coach loads of them were on their way to see historic battlefields in Normandy in order to civilise and pacify them. Let’s hope it works. Looks like a mountain to climb. At least their keepers didn’t seem bothered if I can judge by their absence. A wonderfully politically incorrect broadcast was pushed out by the ship’s staff.

“Children who are travelling in groups. Go now to your cabins and stay there until you come out for breakfast!” A further broadcast asked the would be pacifist historians to “Respect other passengers.”

It’d been centuries since anyone in England spoke thus to brats. Several of them will live their lives as emotional cripples as their creative externalisation of personality expressed in charging downstairs knocking others aside was thwarted.

As I left the UK the phone hacking frenzy appeared to be spreading to the USA. A comforting note was that British politicians have found someone to blame at last. It is of course the police. Why didn’t the Metropolitan Police take all their officers away from suicide bombers and drug cartels and investigate the newspapers, the editors of which dined as courted mates with the prime minster? That’s one tough question. And who should answer it?

Regular readers- (by the way I love you all) must have begun to think that I am obsessed with baguettes. Once I had offloaded my father’s old desk and the tandem bicycle I went to the local Intermarché. I bought une baguette at the cost of 50 cents and gave the Monsieur a one Euro coin. Now, at the time a family of shoppers had arrived with a new baby and there was a kiss-kiss-hand-shaking fest being held over the counter. Le Monsieur gave me change of 50 cents AND my original one Euro which he kept in his hand and not put in the till. I pointed out his kind error.

“You gave me 2 Euros!” He informed me with a flat dismissive finality.

I hackled and argued back. “Non- You gave me too much change – I did not have any 2 Euro coins.”

A shrug of surly wounded pride accompanied the coin as it was tossed into the till. I had hurt him. I felt ashamed.

Emma thinx: Being right is just as likely to land you in the wrong

Breakfast at Brittany’s

Posted on July 13, 2011 by emmacalin

The garage mechanic/roof tiler/drain unblocker/washing machine fixer/brain surgeon/lawyer/dentist are all descendants of the same gene. You have arranged to see them and you guess you’re just another Joe with a worn ball valve solenoid collapsed pipe spring widget divorce synapse enamel issue. They will have seen it all before. You are boring! And yet every time you encounter such people there is a huge intake of breath accompanied by a shaking of the head. Eventually those fateful words emerge ” Oh dear – dear Oh dear – this isn’t the normal sort of thing – dear me- this is more serious than I thought. Don’t know what we can do about this – dear oh dear- who fitted this brain/pipe/marriage/ widget sprocket/tooth?

Does this sort of thing happen to you? Perhaps I just leave things too long.

So, I arrived in England on the overnight ferry. Sat naff sat with me all the way giving me impeccable instructions in French. My wonderful 1997 Mercedes 250 diesel shrugged off her 264,000 mile history and delivered me to Brittany ferries. I slept and awoke to the gourmet breakfast of smoked salmon, boiled egg, ham and cheese. There is also a choice of all manner of juices and fibres for people who have body temples. I don’t do commercial plugs, but Brittany Ferries posh restaurant breakfast buffets are WONDERFUL. So I drove to Rosina’s place, had coffee and set off for the dentist at the little market town of Romsey. I emerged an hour later a new woman. Dear me – I was a big job. I was pinned and shuttered like concrete gate post by a most meticulous guy called Dr Thomas and his lovely assistant Julie. If you’re in the area and need a tooth job – these are the guys.

Then the desk. I collected it from my old house. England no longer seems like home but sometimes neither does France. Tomorrow is the 14th Juillet – the national day with fireworks and well – fireworks. It is a celebration of the storming of La Bastille (a Paris prison) in 1789. I could join in of course but somehow I’m kinda glad to leave it to those born to it. Elgar’s Nimrod from his Enigma Variations, the peel of church bells and the bark of a dog across the meadows this evening are my home. Sometimes I think of all those frontier guys who set out to make the USA and could never come home or know again those subtle rhythms and aromas of their own place. As I have said before, everything that we are and that we have was paid for by some poor soul.

Emma thinx: Home is where the artful are.

Oh Oh Seven!

Posted on July 12, 2011 by emmacalin

In a few minutes time I will be at the wheel of my 14 year old car and taking the do or die auto route to the coast. Luckily the cruise out of control system still works. I set it at 80 mph and point it North. When I first arrived here I was worried about having a right hand drive UK car. My neighbours shrugged and said “Well – here we drive in the middle of the road, so it doesn’t matter”. I keep the vehicle taxed, insured and tested in the UK. I had hoped that Gilles would be able to come with me but he has to work poor soul. Do you think I feel any disquiet that several French ladies have offered to look after him while I am away? OF COURSE I DO NOT! At least none of them cook rabbit.

Look – I live in France and sometimes I don’t always catch what they say on the radio. I thought I heard that the Beckhams have called their child Harper Seven. The French don’t seem sure how to pronounce it. I must be hearing things.

At last a Buddhist hero. The cyclist Johnny Hoogerland was knocked off his bike by a car driven by journalists in the Tour de France.This bike race has always seemed to me like a bike rally that somehow got caught up in a car race. This poor guy hit a barbed wire fence at 40 mph. When interviewed he said “Well, these things happen – no one meant it to be this way – I feel sorry for the guys who did it because they will feel very bad.” Now – these remarks left me feeling utterly inadequate. He has acceptance, mercy and wisdom. He went off to receive 30 stitches weighed down with absolute respect of millions. I just hope that the ambulance chasing lawyers are careful not to knock him off again.

Remember I advised you to keep an eye on the Steroid-EPO team in the Tour. The cats pounced on a minor mouse today – well, sadly no surprise. Look all you Mr Gogetitnows- what sporting world do you want for your OWN kids? Write to me in confidence. I really want to know.

Emma thinx: What name would your child give to you?

O Brave New World

Posted on July 10, 2011 by emmacalin

So, a star in the heavens slips beneath the horizon. The News of the Screws is no more. A pillar of certainty and tradition crumbles and I must confess to a genuine sadness. And I suspect that around the UK it is a shared sadness far more profound that a lot of the puffed up (Oh just look how moral I am) band wagoneering. I am a romantic novelist and I have been a thoroughly wicked woman. At least I know something juicy to write about. They would never have had to spy on me. I would just love to have told them! The decision to close a “toxic” brand is probably correct ……but if you think they won’t be back I wouldn’t get down to the bookies just yet.
Poor Rosina had to get to the Newsagents in England at 6am this morning in order to get my final souvenir copy. She’s a bit posh and probably felt a bit sullied by asking for it. I love her though – she’s a star yah. So, this morning after my portion of baguette I ventured to the tabac for a copy of the French Sunday paper “Le Journal de Dimanche”. The lead story was about a socialist politician. The headline translated roughly as “XXXXXXX – faces rumours about her private life” Wow – did you feel the heat and explosion? Many column inches talked seriously about the Dominic Strauss-Kahn case in New York. Now, this is a sensational story with ambitious prosecutors facing utter humiliation as they come under fire for a botched case driven by what I call “big case boogie”. Meanwhile a French accusatrice alleges a sexual attack some eight years ago. The headline blares out “We have material facts says lawyer” Wow! The problem is that while in the UK they have both the gutter and the cerebral press, few countries have such a fantastic mix. Come on Ozzie tycoons- buy your way into France and give us some Dent de Lion and Murdoch.

All of a sudden copies of my short story “Sub Prime” are ripping up the download statistics (Well, my statistics). We did a free audio download with it on Smashwords.com. If anyone out there reading this knows what’s going on please please let me know.

A day of horrible crashes and heroism in the Tour de France. But a Frenchman Tommy Voeckler has won the yellow jersey as leader of the Tour de France. Mon Dieu merci!

Emma thinx: Your life is the bus ride – not some maybe stop round the bend.

Kangaroo Caught

Posted on July 8, 2011 by emmacalin

Oh dear – there’s trouble at St Rupert’s College. I’ve just seen the Head Boy on the BBC. A wicked colonial student hid in the dorm and saw matron in bed with one of the local police constables. Then he conspired with the editor of the college magazine (a younger but related colonial), and blabbed the story in the campus organ “The Bare Rupert”. Now, much of this will make no sense to my American readers. Watching from France, British politics seems even more upper class. The story is that the most famous British tabloid newspaper “The News of the World” is to shut down almost immediately. Journalists have been hacking phones and paying police for juicy stories. Outrage and disgust sputter from every righteous quarter as the scandal rocks …..well, actually what does it rock? This is a wicked and grubby old world and the people who lead it should be the least surprised. For every spotlight triumph, there is a grim backstage, for every tame tiger there is a cage and whip. Deep beneath it all there is an unspoken issue. Murdoch (who owns the newspaper and a lot of outer space) is a damn Australian. I think they’re gonna have to ban him from the tuck shop. Oh huff puff – just be grateful that we’ve solved world poverty, war and disease otherwise we wouldn’t have the time for this stuff. We bred and fed a bright generation of self seeking shallow thrustoids to tear at one another in pursuit of gain at any moral cost. They did all we expected of them.

All this leads me to starting where I meant to start. Books about romantic novelists who fall in love with super hunks while researching a book where a romantic novelist …..blah blah, do exist. As yet I haven’t written any. When the media becomes the news it has much the same effect on me. The story is a serious one, but it just should not be a surprise to anybody. Let me fill you guys in a little. My book “Knockout” has a police theme. OK – it’s a romance but all the police politics, cynicism and attitudes are authentic. I know this because after my first marriage, I took up with a Scotland Yard cop, who introduced me to Wagner and many aspects of horns and helmets. What I learned was that much of what we see of gloss and celeb glitzywitzy is contrived. I also learned that outside the middle class comfort zone there are many worlds of despair and survival. That filthy guy drunk in the littered doorway has a story but it’s probably too dangerous to ask for it.

Oh – let me be quite honest about the vile, degrading, gutter dredging, over-sexed “News of the World” which is about to die. It was a fantastic paper and provided me with my earliest tingles of sexual pleasure and awareness with its utter filth and and disgusting titivation. I was appalled over and over again every single Sunday.

Emma thinx: Be outraged – it’s the in rage.

Knockout! Available at Amazon.co.uk, Amazon.com, Amazon.com/australia

Sharp Practice

Posted on July 5, 2011 by emmacalin

“Try anything in life once except incest and folk dancing.” These words are attributed to none other than one of my heroes – Oscar Wilde. I suspect that a survey of British folk would reveal the view that folk dancing equated to Morris Dancing. A further survey might reveal a certain element of sniggering and derision as if Morris dancing was a form of train-spotting on acid. Please let me assure any train spotting dancers that this is not my own view. (I was most relieved last week to stop the car near at a railway crossing and chance upon a French train spotter complete with notebook and camera). Returning to the dancing, the French have a completely different view. It is neither eccentric, comic nor quaint. It is the living manifestation of a shared tradition which is rooted in the soil of the soul. Readers will have noted my comments on the relative carelessness with which buildings and bones are treated. This is because France is not a museum. It is a land of living tradition and pride. Old stuff may fall down – this is the nature of time – but love of community and patrimoine is constantly renewed and handed on. France is a country of French people. Any one can enter but it’s not a theme park. The dancers are not entertainers, they are professeurs of pride.

When I first arrived I used to study some odd looking knives in the Intermarché. I thought it was a very blunt peeling knife. Soon enough Gilles explained to me that it was an oyster knife. OK, my experience of shell fish was the whelk and cockle stall at Southend and the best thing about these shell fish was that they didn’t have shells. Next time at the shop I bought knives and 6 oysters. Once I had stopped the bleeding, the oysters were ok. You have been warned. Hold the mollusc in a towel or chain mail gauntlet. I’m told that a scarred palm is a rite of passage.

Emma thinx: If the fall didn’t kill you be proud of your reflexes.

Cyber Splash

Posted on July 3, 2011 by emmacalin

The appeal of most news stories is that somehow it all has something to do with us. The DSK affair involves all of us in France because he is – well – French. Opinion polls here today suggest that at least half the population think he should return to national politics. None of this serious reflection is of interest to Gilles. He has already spent the morning in Lycra on his bike and soon the live TV coverage of la Grande Boucle will start. Now, I’m not sure whether or not to raise issues of waxing and shaving – perhaps I’ll come back to it when I discuss supermarket armpit issues. However, a most serious matter has arisen as a result of the DSK affair. Many Anglo media outlets have suggested that as a man of 62, DSK would not have the sexual drive to chase females. Now, Gilles has taken this matter very much to heart and has asked me to rebut any suggestion that the Euro male in his 60s is not up for it. So, world take note. The old boulangers of France are still baking the best hot baguettes. They do tend to get up early but in my experience this is often the case wherever you are.

News that Facebook has had a slight fall in users has left me wondering if we need to recreate some of the old fashioned social networks. In France some of these have never gone away. The cafe, the street market and the long aisle blocking supermarket chat still rival cyberspace. In the Boulangerie this morning the young assistant spent two or three minutes talking to an old guy about his daughter’s dog. Husbands, wives and children in the same house do not send one another e-mails. Sadly the old town and village lavoirs have fallen out of use. These were areas of a river or stream partitioned to allow the communal washing of laundry and of course the exchange of News, blues and views. Whenever I come across an old lavoir I feel like writing a story where young Primrose Fodderfurrow (Marguerite Vachemouton) (Foundling orphan and probably a misplaced aristocrat) takes her mum’s table linen down to the river and learns that there’s to be a party at the big house (Château). Sounds like a winner to me. Anyone wanna suggest a title? Tell you what – a free copy for the winner!

The word lavoir does of course rhyme with La voix (The voice). The Eurovision song contest of 2009 introduced me to the Swedish entry sung by an opera singer named Malena Ernman. The song, entitled “La voix” is something else and so is she. Check her out here. Spot the “Queen of the Night” pastiche and WOW that dress…

Emma thinx: Know what you don’t know. Know who you do know.

Tribal Reservations

Posted on July 2, 2011 by emmacalin

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We all have our tribe. Being kinda foreign in France but feeling oddly patriotic about her but also still standing for God Save the Queen, I’m not sure whether I’m tribeless or a member of an extra important minority group called “a person of mixed tribe”. I’ve always wanted to be part of an unassailable victimised minority that no one could criticize and that kindly ambitious politicians and lawyers would support. However, even if you’re in the mainstream, blameworthy and guilt ridden tribe, you can still subdivide into cool tribesfolk and mockable tribesfolk. Only if you are in the same tribe can you mock your fellow tribespersons. This is the first law of tribal correctness. In France we have Les CH’TIS. This word, which is pronounced “SSchtee”, signifies the way this community pronounces words with an s sound as a ssch sound. Now, although members of the CH’TIS community are allowed to live anywhere in France, they are only to be found in the North. The whole matter is illuminated brilliantly in a film called “Bienvenue chez les CH’TIS”. If you are a Francophile and want to learn something esoteric about France, the human race and French comedy, watch this film. Amazon has the DVD.

So, if it hasn’t been fixed, made, repaired or planned – I’d better forget it. Today was the start of the Tour de France and today was the end of Gilles. There is of course live coverage, dead coverage, highlight coverage and drug raid coverage. It only goes on for a month. Please please let somebody French win.

I finished “Pregnant with the billionaire’s baby” or “Just one night of love” in the French edition. Poor girl was in a dilemma. Should she go off to live in poverty as a single mother with twins or should she marry the most attractive billionaire in the world with whom she is in love? No! I won’t spoil the ending for you.

Emma thinx: Dilemma – Two books by Jane Austen.

Live Parrot Sketch

Posted on July 1, 2011 by emmacalin

You know that feeling when you come round the corner of your street and find the whole place full of police and fire engines? Maybe you didn’t turn the gas off? OK – no smoke in the air, perhaps it’s merely an escaped amazon parrot. Normally such an event would not come to mind – unless you live where I do.

The cat lady, who I explained is also the dove lady, is actually above all the parrot lady. In 2010 a number of violent storms swept across France around Bastille Day (July 14th). Somehow an aviary was damaged and Cookie, a red amazonian parrot, escaped. Seemingly, Madame had reared the bird after it had been born with a beak defect and could not feed normally. For a couple of days I had heard the occasional sound of what I thought was a parrot. I knew that feral parakeets had taken up residence in Southern England and I always imagined that they had been introduced in order to combat the feral children that colonised much of the UK tabloid press.

As I rounded the corner I came across a knot of sapeurs-pompiers with a couple of Gendarmes. Various ladders led into trees. The cat/dove/parrot lady was going through her normal range “My little man, my flea – oh please – oh-my little flea”. Regular readers will begin to recognise the pattern. A chief fireman was briefing the men “The suspect is wearing a red beret. He answers to the name Cookie.” He said drily. The Gendarmes nodded wisely. Radios echoed from inside vehicles. Squawks filled the air as a parrot rose gracefully from a conifer tree and flapped off across the rooftops. Personnel emerged from the tree. Madame set off in the same direction whilst ladders were retracted and replaced on fire engines.

I expected that Cookie’s career as a fugitive would not end well. Everyday Madame roamed the town with binoculars calling the bird. Several hundred cigarettes were smoked. All hope had faded as a fisherman on the banks of La Charente spotted the bird and threw a net over it. News reached the local radio station France Bleu La Rochelle and the miracle was complete. I have told you before that she is almost certainly some kind of angel although I’ve lost my Observers book of angels.

Just a note on the DSK situation. I do detect that in France there is a feeling that the humiliation of such a French figure is a blow at the National pride – a kinda cultural swipe at the Gallic gonad. I guess that many travelling world controllers are making their own beds just in case.

Emma thinx: NYPD? Bof! – blow that job.

Monarch-Oh!

Posted on June 30, 2011 by emmacalin

Did you wait at traffic lights set up around a hole in the road on your way to work this morning? Have the cable TV guys dug up your footway or is there a spot of resurfacing going on? Well, the French have a concept called “le grand projet”. In essence it is a philosophical idea whereby the imagination of sometimes a visionary individual overrides the mundane everyday drudge of life and of course, all non visionaries. This is why one has the Eiffel tower and the high speed train (Le TGV). Once you have submitted to a grand projet such as the Haussmann creation of Paris, you enter a long period of stasis where the grand projet becomes a battle with counter visionaries. Until 2008 Building height in Paris was restricted to 37 metres (122 feet) and has left us with – well – Paris and HOW LOVELY SHE IS. Maybe I’d go to the barricades to save both Paris and Radio 4. Good job Prince Charles isn’t French! There would be no “monstrous carbuncles” on his watch.(My non UK readers may not know that this was his description of an extension to the National Gallery in London).

Anyway, if I return to the hole in the road, please spare a thought for the folks of a village near me called “Port D’Envaux.” The picture above has an eloquence that I could not hope to beat. Le grand projet is to transform the whole place in one go. Well – no way back now.

Since I mentioned Prince Charles, you may wonder how the French see The British royal family. Having dealt with their own royal issue and robbed themselves of the greatest soap opera on Earth, they have had to content themselves with the tales of Monaco. (They are seldom disappointed). The wedding of the sovereign is now a couple of days away and there is a frenzy of stories, law suits and, shock horror, allegations of a third illegitimate child. (His Serene Highness admits to two). As the British Royal wedding approached I encountered all manner of French folk congratulating me on the happy event. “You will be waving your flags I expect.” said my neighbour seriously. Since they don’t sell union jacks anywhere in France and I don’t carry one I just had to watch the show beamed in on the BBC. Now beat that Monaco!

Yesterday’s attack on President Sarkozy did not give him the chance to respond with his famous “Casse toi pauv’con”. If you want a bleep(ing) translation, get in touch… Now if only John Prescott had been there. See Prezza land a blow for socialism here. Not quite what I had in mind when I wrote “Knockout!”

Emma thinx: Love your lover. Sighs matter.