My recent blogs have been on weighty historical and politico-economic themes. Imminent blogs will offer more of the same, since the past few weeks have been consumed with reading weighty historical and politico-economic tomes. I will want to share my thoughts on all that before I forget what they are. All the more need, therefore, for a little light relief this week. So I will write in praise of the humble anchovy. Continue reading
France
Fighting old battles
Oh, to be in England now that May is here. Instead we are in France, gloomy and grey, with cloud close to ground level and a fire burning in the grate, while Britain basks in the sun. It is not supposed to be this way round. Continue reading
Plus ça change
Autumn has come early to the Tarn. Normally, the leaves are still green when we leave our house here at the end of October. We watch the gradation of colour as we drive back to England. But this year the colours started changing in late September, and the leaves started falling. The weather has still mostly been warm, but not in the mornings or evenings. The sun has seemed less able to recharge its batteries each day. [read more]
Le jour de gloire est arrivé !
Steady on. One can’t really say that the day of glory has arrived, unless one is Emmanuel Macron. But at least le jour de désastre has been averted, and that is plenty enough to be getting on with. Let’s just forget that a third of French voters supported a party that many would consider crypto-Fascist. [read more]
Philippe Pétain
In presenting Philippe Pétain as one of my nominations for Heroes of the 20th Century, I have an uphill task. As head of the French government in 1940, he signed a peace treaty with Hitler, gave most of the country to the Nazis, ran the rest in collaboration with them, got put on trial for treason in 1945, was found guilty and was sentenced to death. Not the most impressive c.v. to put before the judges. [read more]
France between the wars
I can remember Britain in the 1950s, or at least the parts of it that I knew. I can wind the tape forward until now, and – for all the things that are different – I can see the similarities too. Less easily, I can do the same thing with France, first visited in 1959. [read more]
The Red Army Choir
A piece from the vaults, summer 1999, marginally amended
Well that’s three thousand words knocked off today, so I think I deserve a drink. Off to Villeneuve-sur-Lot for une pression underneath the arches. In fact, it isn’t underneath the arches, partly because there isn’t a bar there and partly because I find I am subject to the Lightning Seeds at full volume. I register with relief that the song is not Three Pints Down My Shirt. An England football anthem played publicly in rural France would be beyond satire. [read more]
Last tango in Parisot
One of the consequences of living a supposedly literary life is being invited to attend, and to speak at, literary festivals. It is not compulsory to accept, but publishers tend to take a dim view of refusals. For me, for the moment, the experience is still a novelty, and I mostly enjoy doing it. But some literary festivals are better than others, of course. The best of all has been the Festilitt in Parisot, which I attended in late October. [read more]
Phil the Pheasant
I have long held a theory, yet to be elevated into a thesis, that the IQs of different species of bird can be measured by the volume of roadkill relative to the local population of the species. By that measure, the dumbest bird is the pheasant, followed closely by the pigeon. The most intelligent is the magpie. [read more
1 July 2016
At 07:28 last Friday, 1 July, I was standing with hundreds of others on the edge of the Lochnagar Crater, near La Boisselle in the valley of the Somme, scattering the petals of poppies into the wind. It was at this place, and at this time, 100 years earlier, that the Battle of the Somme commenced. A vast mine had been laid by the Royal Engineers, and it was the detonation of the mine that acted as the signal for this part of the British offensive. [read more]
