Stalled

I've stalled. Give me a push to get me going again!

Voicethread and Langoustines

I've just discovered Voicethread via Nancy and I think I like it.
Here's an audio version of a meme Wendz tagged me for a while ago.
Consider yourselves tagged.

With flowers in her hair possibly

It's nearly midnight and I'm lying in bed with the window open. It's a hot night and we have four children sleeping in various berths up here. Now that we've sorted out the mad scarpering from one room to the other and the disputes between those who want the light on and those who want it off, they all seem to be sleeping soundly. I can hear faint but familiar snuffling noises and some unfamiliar little snores. I've just finished a novel about an old lady and a Moroccan called Chérif and I'm starting The Time Traveler's Wife. It's hard going though because an unbelievably loud thumping bass is pouring in the windows. Sandi Thom is doing a free gig a couple of kilometres from our house on the Place de la Victoire. I can imagine the heaving crowds, the sweaty bodies and the music vibrating through them. I'm in bed reading — this must be middle age.

News from Choctaw Ridge

...or des nouvelles de Bourg-les-Essonnes

Another thing my brother and I tried to remember last weekend were the words to the song with the brain-wormy line "Billy Joe MacAllister jumped off the Tallahatchie Bridge".

By coincidence, the song came up in a Metafilter post this week along with a link to Billie Gentry's original version. I love the Billie Gentry version with it's unsettling whiney quality and strange narrative (much more than the Sheryl Crowe ersatz version) but I think I actually prefer Joe Dassin's French version. (I've googled everywhere but I'm afraid I just can't find a link to give you an idea of what it sounds like). In a clever transposition, the young man Billie-Joe becomes a young French woman, Marie-Jeanne Guillaume, who throws herself off the "Pont de la Garonne" but like the original it never actually quite descends into the maudlin. One of the things I like is the way all of the cultural references are translated to a French context too:

It was the third of June, another sleepy, dusty Delta day
I was out choppin' cotton and my brother was balin' hay
C'était le quatre juin, le soleil tapait depuis le matin
Je m'occupais de la vigne et mon frère chargeait le foin

And Papa said to Mama as he passed around the blackeyed peas
"Well, Billy Joe never had a lick of sense, pass the biscuits, please"
Et mon père dit à ma mère en nous passant le plat de gratin :
"La Marie-Jeanne, elle n'était pas très maligne, passe-moi donc le pain".

"I'll have another piece of apple pie, you know it don't seem right"
Donne-moi encore un peu de vin, c'est bien injuste la vie

However, in both versions the enigma remains — just what was it exactly that Billie-Joe (or Marie-Jeanne) and the singer were throwing off the bridge last Sunday? Answers in the comments please.

Fame!

Thanks to my brother's fishy brush with royalty, I'm a tenuous connection nominee chez Moobs.
I'm such a sucker for hand-me-down glory.

Birthday weekend

Forgive me blog for I have neglected you but I’ve been busy celebrating my Mum’s birthday-with-a-zero-in-it. She arrived last week with my brother et al when the temperatures were just hitting 30°C. They left on Sunday in torrential rain and chilly winds. Weekend highlights included: a couple of nights in La Grange aux Amis; a memorable meal in Domme at a restaurant called Cabanoix et Chataîgnes (if you go you must try the foie gras and cocoa); multiple glasses of champagne; lavender kir; and a visit to Sarlat market on Saturday morning where we loaded up with cherries and chanterelle mushrooms, roast chicken and dried magret stuffed with foie gras. Now it's my own foie that is gras.

One of the things my brother and I reminisced about was a series we used to watch on TV after school. It was called Yao and told the black-and-white story of a little boy in Africa. It had strange haunting music, but google as I might, I can't find the music or a video excerpt although I have discovered that it was actually a French series and took place in the Côte d'Ivoire. Has anyone else ever seen Yao ?

My son the comedian

Him: I've got a sore head [obvious ploy to get out of having his hair washed].

Me: Never mind. I'll just chop your head off.

Him: T'es folle. I'd have a sore neck then.

The pictures on our walls

These are the pictures that we have on our downstairs walls.

a) One of them is the original Alison Auldjo painting that I mentioned in a previous post. I bought it with money my Mum gave me for a big birthday.

b) One of them was given to me by a friend from Glasgow. He bought it in a shop in the posh Prince's Square shopping centre.

c) One of them is a very cheap print from a shop called Alinéa, France's answer to Ikea

d) One of them is an engraving bought in an antiques shop in the Dordogne a couple of summers ago.

e) One is a Picasso print given to me by a friend who stayed with us for a few days a couple of weeks after Z was born.

f) And one of them was a present from my parents when they came over to France to see me defend my thesis and get my PhD.

So which is which? Answers in the comments. Let's call them:
1 2 3
4 5 6

Wild Knowledge

A couple of months ago, as if by magic, a switch was tripped in Z's brain circuitry and he could read. Suddenly, the laborious sessions of sounding out every letter then every syllable; of thinking about what sound every vowel combination might represent were over and whole sentences flowed effortlessly from his eyes to his mouth.

Two months on, it is still a source of wonder that a little brain should be able to do so much in such a short time. All text has become fodder for the reading machine he has in his head: cereal packets at breakfast, books in bed, shop signs in the street, his papa's outsize copy of l'Equipe.

My vicarious sense of accomplishment is nevertheless tinged with a little regret. It is one more milestone passed, one more thing he can do for himself, one more step away from me and the dependent days of cuddly babyhood. Clearly, I can no longer protect him from what Francis Spufford calls "the intensity of a solitary encounter with wild knowledge".

Shock of Recognition

I've been busily bookmooching over the past couple of weeks — sending paperbacks off and receiving them too. One of those I mooched is by Carol Shields and called The Box Garden. The novel came out in 1977 and in many ways contemporary references seems almost as exotic as those found in Jane Austen with mentions of permapress dresses, vistadomes, consumerism, communes, back-combing and the Women's Movement (with capital letters).
I'm only half-way through the book, but here's a snippet that provided a jolt of recognition:

G. tends to forget exact references. Information seeps beneath her pores, for she is an intelligent woman, but it is always disjointed, disassociated; she's never never been the same since she underwent shock therapy.

In a couple of days I'll be referring to that book with the green cover, you know, the one by the Canadian author called Caroline thingy that takes place in the eighties or was it the seventies? And I don't even have the excuse of shock therapy....yet.


Give away your books at BookMooch.com

Still Missing

Madeleine McCann missing in Portugal. Have you seen her?
Please contact: +351 289 884 500, + 351 282 405 400, +351 218 641 000

Madeleine McCann desapareceu em Portugal. Tem informações sobre o seu paradeiro?
Por favor contacte: 289 884 500, 282 405 400, 218 641 000, 112

Click on the photo above if you'd like to stick this missing poster on your own blog. It's important not to forget.

Saturday Night Meme

Deborah suggested I do this meme which she first saw at Marrickvillia. It's a bit different and after a day of trudging around Bordeaux International Fair it is about as much as I can cope with.

1. PICK OUT A SCAR YOU HAVE, AND EXPLAIN HOW YOU GOT IT
I have several small scars on my tummy from a laparoscopic cholecystectomy I had in 1999. After several nights of pain and sleeplessness, I came to the conclusion that I had gall stones. There were some clues: my Mum had had her gall bladder out, my Dad had had his out and my grandfather had had his out. The first radiologist still managed to miss the 2.5cm gall stone on the x-ray, and concluded that I was suffering from dyspepsia. House he was not. My operation was scheduled for 10th November and I went into hospital the night before. They woke me up at about six, put me in a gown and splattered orange antiseptic liquid all over my tummy. I lay rigid in bed until the doctors came round about 6 hours later and told me that they'd had a long procedure in the O.R. and just couldn't fit me in. Could I come back, not the next day which was a public holiday, but in two days time?

2. WHAT IS ON THE WALLS IN YOUR ROOM?
An abstract painting by a Scottish artist called Alison Auldjo. And some prints.

3. WHAT DOES YOUR PHONE LOOK LIKE?...like a phone

4. WHAT MUSIC DO YOU LISTEN TO?
My taste in music is eclectic. (Eclectic is the new skinny, don't you know?) At the moment I'm still listening to that damned Mika over and over again. But the musical highlight of my week is whatever Julien does on La Nouvelle Star. He's a genius.

5. WHAT IS YOUR CURRENT DESKTOP PICTURE?
A dandelion.

6. WHAT DO YOU WANT MORE THAN ANYTHING RIGHT NOW?
I would quite like an article I have to finish next week to write itself.

7. DO YOU BELIEVE IN GAY MARRIAGE?
Absolutely

8. WHAT TIME WERE YOU BORN?
In the middle of the night, I think.

9. ARE YOUR PARENTS STILL TOGETHER?
My dad died in 1994. Otherwise, I'm sure they would be.

10. WHAT ARE YOU LISTENING TO?
The noisy fan on my Powerbook.

11. DO YOU GET SCARED OF THE DARK?
I don't particularly like being outside at night in the country in the dark.

12. THE LAST PERSON TO MAKE YOU CRY?
I have tears in my eyes every time I read the news about Madeleine McCann. And now I want to score out my silly answer to question 6 and replace it with the wish that she is returned to her parents very, very soon.

13. WHAT IS YOUR FAVOURITE COLOGNE / PERFUME?
At the moment Kenzo's Flower. I also like Guerlain's Champs Elysées.

14. WHAT KIND OF HAIR/EYE COLOUR DO YOU LIKE ON THE OPPOSITE SEX?
I really couldn't care less.

15. DO YOU LIKE PAIN KILLERS?
Yes. I also frequently think how fortunate I am to have had my children in the age of epidurals. Overdosing on House MD is making me want to try Vicodin in large quantities. Call me impressionable.

16. ARE YOU TOO SHY TO ASK SOMEONE OUT?
Come back and ask me that question in my next life, because it's just not topical any more!

17. FAVE PIZZA TOPPING?
I like all pizzas except those that include smoked salmon and/or pineapples which I like fine, just not on pizzas..

18. IF YOU COULD EAT ANYTHING RIGHT NOW, WHAT WOULD IT BE?
I'm not really too hungry at the moment because I went out for lunch today and had a delicious foie frais pané with orange powder and asparagus, a fish trio in broccoli sauce and some strawberry melba.

19. WHO WAS THE LAST PERSON YOU MADE MAD?
A person at work. An extremely satisfying experience.

20. IS ANYONE IN LOVE WITH YOU?
I certainly hope so. (P. is nodding his head)

Now it's your turn. Go on, you know you want to.

Miserable

The polls had been predicting this for months but that didn't make the inevitable morning-after feeling any easier to shake off. Parents at the school gate were subdued.

Bonjour. Ca va?
Bof.

Colleagues at work were depressed. Two of my friends are married to Algerians: they are frankly uneasy. I seem to be destined to forever live among people who vote against the mainstream. I lived for years in a Scotland that voted Labour but was subjected to Thatcher. Now I live in a Ségolene-voting South-West France that faces five years of "le petit excité". There were plenty of people in the streets of Bordeaux last night, but they definitely weren't celebrating — they were lamenting. If you don't know anything about Nicholas Sarkozy, think Bush and Berlusconi rolled into one massive ego. Think megalomania. Think increased social inequality. Think friends in big business. Think tax breaks for the rich and diminishing public health care. Think repression. Think America's new lapdog.

I'm off to do what it takes to have my say in five-years' time.

I've been thinking

... or maybe just letting thoughts lap over my consciousness like intermittent waves. I've been thinking about all the things I have to get done this week - reports to write, exam papers to mark, an interpreting job to prepare. I've been thinking about how quickly E. is slipping out of infanthood - when did 4 year-olds start going to slumber parties? And about how taking just one child out in the evening changes the dynamics of the event and makes it much more leisurely and yes, pleasurable. I've been thinking about the city I live in and how much it has changed since I arrived here all those years ago when people paddling in a miroir d'eau on the quais would have been unthinkable. I'm thinking about the summer - Scotland or the Dordogne first? I've been wondering about BookMooch etiquette — isn't it a bit cheeky of someone who'll only send books to "their own country" to ask me to send one to theirs? I've been thinking (and talking) non-stop about the presidential elections here in France: not Sarko, please please please not Sarko. And about the delectable Hugh Laurie and his stubble - is it reasonable to stay up late into the night to watch all those episodes of House MD in a row? Finally, today, I've been thinking about the very yellowness of gorse bushes under a dark sky in that scrubland that leads into the dunes. And through all of this, that pop song insinuating its gnawing way into my mental background - irritatingly familiar and omnipresent but what was it, where had I heard it? I could be brown, I could be blue, I could be violet sky. It turned out to be Mika's Grace Kelly, first planted in my brain by this man, and I've been listening to it outside my head ever since. Now I need some more thoughts to muffle it.

Thinking blogs

Zoo Mosaic, originally uploaded by Lezzles.

Ha. So Heather thinks that I deserve a thinking blogger award. [Insert self-deprecating but nevertheless sincere remark here. Perhaps something unfavourably comparing own level of cogitation to that of the big gorilla guy photographed above, which would at least justify presence of a mosaic of yesterday's zoo photos in an otherwise completely unrelated post.]

I believe that I now get to make my own nominations.

I have to say that all of the blogs in my sidebar are blogs that I like so much that I pounce on them as soon as they are updated. These, then, are just some of the blogs that I consider to be thinking blogs rather than laughing blogs, or gazing blogs, or keeping-up-to-date blogs, or cooking blogs, or learning-handy-things blogs.

Connaissances (will make you think about poetry and science)
Gin and Teutonic (will make you think about this life abroad)
Meanwhile Here In France (will make you think about beauty in things and in words)
Naked Translations (will make you think about French and English)
Sarah's Books - Used and Rare (will make you think about books and bookselling)
Technologies du Langage (will make you think about language and politics)

April 23rd, Foreigners and Aliens

I spent far too much of yesterday obsessively searching for a half-remembered quote from a book (but which book?) on the subject of April 23rd.

My garbled memory of the passage tells me that April 23rd is not only Saint George's day but also Shakespeare's birthday and Dantes' birthday (or perhaps deathday). For this reason, in some countries (which countries?) the date is associated with literature and it is traditional to give the gift of a book on this day (but to whom?).

I didn't give any bookish presents yesterday but I did join BookMooch which I'd been meaning to do ever since Heather told me about it.

While I was fruitlessly skimming though books looking for the elusive passage (I could clearly visualise it three-quarters of the way down a right-hand page), I came across this much more interesting paragraph about the difference between expatriates and foreigners. I've never liked the term ex-pat and in fact I hadn't ever heard it bandied about much until I started reading so-called ex-pat blogs. Alasdair Reid explains what the word means to him in Whereabouts: Notes on being a Foreigner, a book I mentioned in my last post.

[Expatriates] have left their own countries on a long lead, never quite severing the link with home, never quite adapting themselves to their exile, clinging to one another for company, haunting post-offices, magazine stands, and banks, waiting expectantly for money from home, anything at all from home. Expatriates are generally getting their own countries into perspective, to the point where they feel strong enough, or desperate enough, to return to them. Foreigners, conversely, live where they are, leaving their pasts and countries behind them for the place they take root in. In one sense, they are lucky: they are free to enter a new context unencumbered, with clear eyes, and are often able to savor a place in a way that escapes the inhabitants, for whom it has become habit. But however well a foreigner adapts himself to a place and its inhabitants, however agile he becomes in the lore and the language, there is a line he can never cross, a line of belonging. he will always lack a past and a childhood, which is really what is meant by roots.

The picture above which is me à la Modigliani (and yes, I have to agree, I look more alien than foreign) was created here. You too could see what you would look like if you were black/white/asian/a man/woman etc.

Preserve us not from the list-makers

"Oh Lord, preserve us from the list-makers. And then preserve us from those who comment on the lists" says Judith Flanders. This didn't deter me from having a look at the results of a Waterstones survey in which the bookseller asked its staff to name their favourite five books written since 1982 — the date Waterstones opened its first branch. I liked a lot of the books on the list: The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nightime, The Shipping News, The Poisonwood Bible, The God of Small Things, The Crow Road, Snow Falling on Cedars, Love in the Time of Cholera. Some I thought were tripe: Chocolat, Birdsong, Notes on a Scandal, The Da Vinci Code.

I'm not sure how I would have answered. Perhaps I would have included five of these:

The Songlines by Bruce Chatwin
Footsteps by Richard Holmes
Whereabouts by Alastair Reid
Findings by Kathleen JamieNight Falls on Ardnamurchan by Alasdair Maclean
Morvern Callar by Alan Warner
La Route Bleue by Kenneth White
No Great Mischief Alistair Macleod
The Bean Trees by Barbara Kingsolver

It would seem that I have a penchant for travel books with one-word titles by Scots, preferably called Ala/isd/tair. What about you?

Fave Photo Friday

Holiday Villas in Soulac, originally uploaded by Lezzles.

Soulac is one of those old-fashioned seaside towns that you still come across in France. It's about an hour north of Bordeaux and you drive through the Médoc past prestigious châteaux to get there. Although it isn't nearly as chic and fashionable as places like Arcachon and Cap Ferret, there's something about the atmosphere that makes you feel relaxed: dilapidated villas that sit empty for most of the year, peeling woodwork, sandy gardens and weeds growing in the streets, moules-frites on the seafront, grandmothers in sunhats buying fish at the market, children with buckets and spades on the long sandy beach. If we had a rickety little villa there, I'd paint the shutters red.

Anywhere's nowhere

"Where would you wish to go?" she asked.
"Anywhere, my dear." I replied.
"Anywhere's nowhere." said Miss Jellyby, stopping perversely.
"Let's go somewhere at any rate." said I.
Charles Dickens, Bleak House

Change of Plan

I wanted to go to the Alpujarras in Andalucia and had saved up A Parrot in the Pepper Tree, the last book in the Chris Stewart series that inspired this hankering. I had even found what looked like a lovely little white house with a pool and managed not to be too dismayed by the fact that all of the houses available for rent in the Alpujarras seemed to belong not to earthy Spaniards but to Brits offering massages and exotic cuisine.

As our departure approached, P. became less and less enthusiastic. "13 hours is a long time to spend in a car with two children. It's Easter week, the roads will be packed. The car's making a funny noise." "Don't be so negative", I said.

But when we looked at the weather forecast, even I had to agree that it was a very long way to drive for rain and mediocre temperatures. So we called the whole thing off and went to the Ile d'Oléron and the Dordogne instead.

And the car broke down on the way there.

Oh, and if you ever want to go to the Ile d'Oléron I have a recommendation for where not to stay.