The invasion continues…

…and other news items

We’ve collected a few snippets of news recently, many from our excellent monthly English-language newspaper ‘The Connexion’, which tickled or otherwise intrigued us. The first four demonstrate that the British invasion of France and the growth of Anglo-Saxon influence continue.

Tour of London

The 2007 Tour de France will start from London. Apparently Ken Livingstone sees this as matching his greener vision for the capital. From London, the competitors will head for Canterbury and then, presumably after donning water wings, for Dunkerque.

You wouldn’t believe your mince pies

The owner of the ‘A La Crème Anglaise’ food shop in the Brittany reports a surprising number of French people buying mince pies – ‘Twigletts’ are also popular. We hope they are not labouring under a misapprehension as ‘mince’ in French means slim. If so, they’re in for a shock next time they get on the scales. What next, we wonder: Shepherds Pies, Russian Spies?

Continuing the Christmas theme, a butcher who supplies turkeys to none other than Delia Smith has begun trading in France. He has encountered a problem he didn’t suffer from in England. Pine Martens appear to like his turkeys as much as Delia does.

President Canute

President Chirac was irritated that in the lead-up to the invasion of Iraq, the 24-hour international news media was dominated by CNN and the BBC which presented to the world an Anglo-Saxon (in Jacques’ mouth that is definitely a swear word) view of the situation. Three years later he has his wish of an international 24-hour news channel which presents a French view of the world. France 24, which broadcasts simultaneously on different channels in French and English, hopes to roll back the tide of influence of those accursed Americans and British. Ha! Having had a quick look at both, we reckon that Al Jazeera English is much the better bet.

How typically British

Doing our bit for the take over by stealth of France, we had five friends around on Saturday night for a traditional British meal. After aperitifs with dry roast nuts, pistachio nuts and chilli-flavoured tortilla chips, we sat them down to a choice of four different Indian dishes, with side dishes and chapattis, followed by a sherry trifle. Pascal, who has very conservative tastes in food, said the trifle was the only English dessert he has enjoyed. Our only failure was that we couldn’t persuade them to drink four or five pints of lager with the curries.

Haven’t you got a gnome to go to?

Limoges appears to have emerged has the HQ of the French Garden Gnome Liberation Front (FNLJ). Owners who discovered that they were gnomeless were left notes saying that due to the heat wave the gnomes needed fresh air. Seventy-nine of these little people were found on a riverbank, 86 in a school playground and more were found beside a swimming pool.

Our suspicions confirmed.

We heard on the radio that researchers have discovered that cats can suffer from a form of dementia very similar to Alzheimer’s disease. We could have told them that.

Seasons Greetings

This will be our last blog of 2006 so we would like to take this opportunity to wish our millions of readers a Happy Christmas and a Fruitful and Healthy New Year.
 

Back on the treadmill

Reference has been made in two previous blogs to Mrs A having found a job. It’s now time to report a little more on this.

When we first decided to come across here, Mrs A had two concerns. The first was that, still being young and having enjoyed her work, she would miss being gainfully employed. The second was that, bless her, she felt sensitive about not making a financial contribution to our life out here. So, shortly after we arrived, she went to the local education department to enquire about the possibility of working as an English Language Assistant in a local school. The response was disappointing, with reference being made to her lack of teaching qualifications and the existence of many qualified French people searching for such positions.

Imagine our surprise when, more than four years later, a friend who works in the education department approached Mrs A and told her that they were short of a language assistant this year and if she could get an application and CV, both in French of course, in within five days, she would stand a good chance. Well, to cut short a long story, two weeks later, without interview, references or training, Mrs A was turned loose on the first of her groups of 8-year-olds!

The job is for 9 months working in 4 schools and a teacher training establishment for 12 hours a week. Once preparation, travelling and ‘dead time’ between lessons are taken into account, that expands to around 30 hours.

For the most part, Mrs A quite enjoys working with the children although each class has a few children, boys of course, who present challenges to the maintenance of discipline. It has to be said, though, that Mrs A, once so concerned about missing work, now finds that being tied to other peoples timescales and prioirities is an infringement of her personal liberty. It seems that after nearly five years, Mrs A’s strong work ethic is now firmly directed to the home and to our voluntary work. Now that’s what I call a positive change!