7th September. Sad to hear yesterday of the demise of that great French actor - Jean-Paul Belmondo - who for many epitomised the charm of the Frenchman with his confident swagger, sheer likeability and easy charisma. With his face, there was only ever going to be one job for him and he found it early on. He was one of a dwindling number of film stars who could, without any exaggeration at all, be said to be irreplaceable. He was to generations of French filmgoers what Sean Connery (and Kirk Douglas before him) had been to the Anglophone world - a larger-than-life character who, by some strange magic or alchemy, was able to dominate every scene of his films. To many French men, he typified the French man they'd like to have been. Ask yourself: who's left? Over the weekend, we had 3 days of bullfights at Les Arènes nearby.. The bullring is on my early morning dog-walking route and I think it was on Sunday morning that I saw a "suit of lights" hanging up on a garment rail inside the grounds of the bullring as vans were unloaded. It struck me that the spectacle of the bullfighters and the whole carefully calibrated charade of the presentation is designed to divert and distract the viewing public from the essential cruelty of bullfighting. Hemingway fell for the spectacle in the twenties and wrote "Death in the Afternoon" - what many have subsequently described as the 'bible' of bullfighting - where he wrote of: “the emotional and spiritual intensity and pure classic beauty that can be produced by a man, an animal, and a piece of scarlet serge draped on a stick.” (conveniently forgetting the sword) I'm not sure that the bull would agree with him. There's no mention of the cruelty in Hemingway's world. As an activity, it is abhorrent, medieval, cruel and decadent and it has no place in France, let alone Europe.
I remember reading "Death in the Afternoon" as a 20 year old and I have to confess that Hemingway's persuasive prose had me nodding along with him. This is the problem when you confuse the reality of bullfighting with a description of it written by an author at the peak of his powers. I remember trying to convince a girlfriend at the time that bullfighting was a noble art.. (having read his book but never having seen a bullfight) How wrong can you be.
If I were to go into a field and start stabbing a bull or a cow with a sword, I'd fully expect - and deserve - to be arrested for cruelty to animals. However, in a bullring, matadors are applauded.
Later on in the day, during the mid-afternoon dog promenade, I crossed paths with 4 elegantly dressed, coiffed and perfumed ladies who were en route to witness 6 bulls being put to death for their evening entertainment. I would have liked to have thrown the contents of a dustbin over all of them (and more). 2nd September. The sky has suddenly gone black - as in black - here - and a few minutes ago a lady from a flat behind us called to say our garage door was open and that there as a storm coming.. Moments later, the sky was full of lightning and now the rain is now falling in sheets like a monsoon. There are some kind people around. Merci beaucoup! I should have taken a photo of the western sky - a dense black wedge of mammatus cloud - black as night - was driving in from the sea and it split the sky - with clear blue sky showing on either side. I've seen mammatus cloud before but this was an extreme example of it (the cloud was denser and blacker than any of the photos shown in these two links). There were multiple soundless flashes of lightning within this mass and then suddenly the skies opened with a torrential downpour accompanied by lightning flashes and violent crashes of thunder.One good thing to come out of the Covid 19 global pandemic has been the eruption of virtual choirs.. here's one with Judy Collins' "Amazing Grace":Apparently there's a shortage of Heavy Goods Vehicle (HGV) drivers in the UK..
Yesterday marked our 14th year since arriving in the Pays basque in September 2007. I meant to post on the subject yesterday but I ended up in a stressful online electronic tangle with a Forex trading company that we'd been using since February. In the middle of a routine monthly online transaction to change our £ sterling to euros, they suddenly demanded to know my employment status, then they asked for a photograph - not a scan or a photocopy - but a photograph of my passport - and finally to surrender control of my mobile phone to them so that they could take a "selfie" of me. I wasn't sure if their site had been hacked or not but I thought the security measures they were taking were out of all proportion to the risk. And under the pressure to complete the transaction I started responding to their demands before I suddenly realised that they were excessive and potentially damaging to me. Why hadn't they emailed all their clients to brief them on their new security policy so that we could read through it in slow time and prepare the necessary info for them? To launch into these bizarre requests in the middle of a transaction caused other sites I was using to time out - amid great frustration.
I pulled the plug on that nonsense and started googling for an alternative Forex dealer. Finally, after starting the abortive transfer process at around 11am - I finally completed the monthly currency exchange with a new Forex dealer at 9.30pm.. Phew! In between all of that, I called my UK bank* to brief them on what had happened and to ask them to block any requests from the offending company to transfer money from our account.
* This involved an inordinately long time waiting on their "Customer Service Department" (ahem!) to pick up the phone.. I gave up the first time after waiting 18 minutes stuck in a queueing system. Aaaarrgghh! Breathe deeply - and now r e l a x.
29th August. This is the weekend of le Grand Retour (the big return) when those holidaymakers with children will be making the great trek back home. Not a day to be out and about on France's autoroutes, especially those heading towards Paris.
25th August. Earlier I was half-listening to someone on the radio prattling on (and on) about the joys of WFH as he called it.. (it's known as working from home to the rest of us). It struck me that one of the reasons why we've enjoyed the last 14 years so much is because we too have been 'working from home' - if you can call work taking the dog for a run on the beach; exploring mountain passes in the Pyrenees; having lunch out in Basque villages where life stops at lunchtime; wondering which pair of shorts to wear or any one of a thousand other things. If this is WFH, then long may it continue.
23rd August. I really don't understand anti-vaxxers - I remember thinking right at the start of it all, that the only way that we'll be able to defeat Covid would be via mass vaccination. Yet the anti-vaxxers have all kinds of fanciful theories - ranging from the bizarre - Bill Gates wants to inject us with tracking devices - to the nonsensical - such as Boris Johnson is "behind" it - whatever that means. Then there are those benighted anti-vaxxers here in France who shout "Liberté" when they are really making an anti-Government protest. If ever I met an anti-vaxxer, I'd be tempted to show him/her this.
We paid a visit to Biarritz yesterday morning and found a table at the Bleu Café on the Grande Plage - but someone has had the bright idea of installing some OTT monster parasols.. so now there's just a letterbox view of the sea. There's still nowhere else we'd like to be on a Sunday morning though!
21st August. Out in the car this morning for some minor shopping, and at a set of lights there was a young man standing in front of three lanes of stationary traffic juggling 3 Indian clubs before darting among the cars looking for tips.. The summer always brings more than a few of these 'hopefuls' down here - I once saw a lady in town waving a 6 foot ribbon around in the hope of capturing spare change from passers-by. Her 'act' couldn't have been more minimalistic.. There are no words sufficient to describe the human tragedy that is unfolding in Afghanistan in the wake of the decision to pull out. Without wishing to point fingers at any individuals, it's clear that, in the West, we have too many politicians and not enough statesmen. In fact, no statesmen. It seems to have escaped our politicians' attention that there's an unbridgeable gulf between our Occidental concepts of democracy, law, education for all - and the type of society that the Taliban seem to want to impose - backed by Sharia law - where medieval punishments such as stonings for adultery and hand amputation for theft are de rigueur.
There's one ray of sunshine as far as I'm conerned (you may think it trivial - and you're probably right) but perhaps the day is fast approaching when I'll no longer have to endure listening to the BBC 'journalists' talking about Afghanistarn, Karble and the Talibarn. It might be a small thing but these languid Home Counties pronunciations have had me gritting my teeth for 20 years. The last time I looked, the diminutive of Stanley isn't Starn - it's Stan; and Karble should be Ka-bull (Ka to rhyme with cat) and Talibarn should of course be Talibann.. I think I'm fighting a losing bartle though! 😀
20th August. Blue skies this morning.. At last! 😎
Here's Scotland looking at its best.. (music from the soundtrack of the cult film "Local Hero") 19th August. For all dog owners 'out there' who think they know their dogs, here's a cautionary tale.. I went out in the garden this afternoon to see Nutty (our cocker spaniel) standing astride a fluttering fledgling. When he saw me coming, he grabbed it and disappeared with it like a flash into the 'jungle' - some big bushes that are his preserve. We managed to catch him in a pincer movement - but too late.. he'd eaten it. First lizards and now fledglings.. he's a serial killer. He's the fourth cocker we've had but he's the first (that we know of) to eat other species. Not good.
I had a good ride (on my ebike) early this cool morning along the banks of the olive green Nive - and, to my surprise, for such a beautiful river, there wasn't a single boat out on the water.
However, there was quite a few holiday makers with loose toddlers on the towpath, along with roller-bladers plus a couple of anti-social lycra-clad cyclists riding two abreast - so I had to keep a watchful eye out when passing them. I rode as far as the footbridge at Villefranque - I think I did about 30km in total. I know, it's hardly Tour de France territory but it's better than not doing it. 17th August. I've just spotted an account in an English newspaper of a bizarre construction that's appeared adjacent to London's Marble Arch.. a 25m (82 feet) high artificial hill (or mound) that's cost £6m (so far). It's designed to attract people to come and shop in Oxford Street.. How threadbare must your imagination be to think that something as ill-conceived as this could possibly bring people back into central London and not only that, but people would pay to climb up it? In failing miserably to touch the human spirit, this project is akin to the loosely-named Millennium Dome.. that was anything but and could easily have been charged with an offense under the Trade Descriptions Act. What to say except that somewhere in London the lunatics are running the asylum..
And in other news, from the roof of London's Dorchester Hotel nearby, read this review of their 'Polo Lounge' and weep.. (The bread basket is £16. The salads start at £28. A bowl of pasta is £38. A steak is £135. Proof that I'm not making this up!)
Far from encouraging me to visit the self-proclaimed "world-class city", stories like these have the opposite effect on me. I'm more than happy to leave them to it.
This is Silbury Hill - and it was built around 4,500 years ago.. without fanfare. More photos here and more info here.
12th August. Just cooling down after driving back home through the massed holiday traffic from Ascain where we had lunch at Restaurant Larralde with a friend who's going through a rocky patch in her personal life. There were a few long tables set out under the trees for family parties of Basques - very traditional. It was warm and heavy until, with a sudden rolling crash of thunder up in the mountains behind us, the spattering of drops turned into an instant downpour - forcing groups from unprotected tables to scurry indoors clutching their glasses of wine.. while the waitresses quickly stripped the tables that were bearing the brunt. We were dry under a big umbrella.. Minutes later, it was all over and the garden dried out quickly under a hot sun. It normally takes us ½ hour to drive there - today, it took 1 hour 20 mins.. I don't think I've seen holiday traffic as bad as this for a loong time. It was a tad gray so I think people had decided to give the beaches a miss - so the roads were full - as were the restaurants. Fortunately, we'd booked.
This was playing on the radio earlier.. 11th August. I wouldn't have thought this was possible - but - never say never. Here's the Joscho Stephan Trio in a dazzling display of technical virtuosity as they present their acoustic version of Jimi Hendrix's epic sixties single "Hey Joe" as you've never heard it before.. (the few bars from 2.49 to 3.05 do it for me) Caution - do not try this at home!
9th August. Just back from a trip to the coast to give the pooch a leg stretch.. On the way back, on a two lane road, a young lad on a scooter filtered down the middle of the road with inches to spare on either side.. The problem was, he had a full size long board attached loosely to a support on his scooter. Another one for the Darwin Awards. Make yourself a cup of tea/coffee/whatever or pour yourself a cold one and relax with this video (no music or commentary - just the sound of the sea) of the endless motion of the Atlantic as it surges up against the beaches and rocks at Biarritz: 5th August. No prizes for guessing the title of this next piece - it's catching! ("Dark Eyes" - it starts at 0.50 if you want to cut to the chase!)
Just back from a trip to Grand Frais (just by the airport at Biarritz) - a supermarket chain that specialises in f-r-e-s-h produce. I seldom make reference here to food shopping in supermarkets but to anyone planning on visiting France I'd say make sure you pay Grand Frais a visit.. they have stores all over France. They're unlike any other food shop that I know of and it makes shopping a pleasure.. rather than the stress of hunting down what you want in France's crowded giant-sized supermarkets. Their fruit and veg is incredibly fresh, with some of it gleaming as clouds of water vapour drift across the spotlit displays. It's also human-sized.. If I wander off to look, say, at the cheese - then unlike at the ultra large supermarkets that straddle a few post codes, finding Madame again was a simple matter. Needless to say, I have no connection with Grand Frais other than as a satisfied customer.. 4th August. Stuck at home but feel like an early evening stroll around Biarritz? Try this (I suggest you ignore the first 55 seconds) and see what you think.. it's best in full screen (with something cold!). Our favorite place for wave-watching (and people watching) is the Bleu Café - it shows up at 9.20:
What would be your first reaction to an admittedly innovative carbon fibre ¾ scale acoustic guitar (that contains no wood) that was made in China (where else..?). Before you heard it play, I suspect your initial impression might be less than favourable - but it appears to have received an overwhelmingly positive reaction from the guitar community.. The oddly-named Lava Me 2* comes with some slick built-in electronics that allow volume, reverb, delay and other effects (like chorus).. More here. Given the choice between this though and a traditional wooden guitar, for me the aesthetics win every time. Yes, the Lava Me 2 might sound good but, in comparison, it looks like a child's toy. * it sounds like an Italian DJ attempting to pronounce the title of the Beatles first record..😎1st August. Here are images of a migrant encampment set up in the Place des Vosges - one of the most glorious locations in all of Paris - filmed just before the French authorities moved them on.
The EU seemingly does not have a policy for dealing with the issue of uncontrolled migration. We've seen the people-trafficking gangs exploiting those who wish to move to the EU - and those who wish to move from the EU to the UK. This is one of the major human tragedies that affects us in Europe and yet the EU seems unwilling or unable to address it. Despite it being a Europe-wide issue, there's a deafening silence from Brussels. Unfortunately for those in Brussels who are studiously looking the other way, this problem isn't going to disappear. In my view, the migrant crisis owes much to the Schengen Agreement - which, as you know, led to the abolishment of the signatories national borders, to build a Europe without borders known as the “Schengen Area”. In an ideal world, this was all very laudable but in reality it was and still is an impractical policy that ignored the darker side of human nature. It was obviously dreamed up after one too many exotic cigarettes.. but the EU being the EU, it will continue with Schengen as to do otherwise would be an admission that one of its key policies is not fit for purpose.
According to this, the EU is the largest donor of development aid in the world. It is committed to increasing its contribution, and to donating at least 0.7% of its gross national income a year. But financial aid alone is not enough to sustainably reduce poverty.
Political action is needed to overcome challenges in governance, trade regimes and geography, and to make best use of the opportunities arising from globalisation.
So - what is the EU doing to bring a halt to the number of migrants who are mobile in Europe? What is the EU doing to ensure that its development aid reaches those for whom it is intended?
Meanwhile - where's summer?
