Bean power
So MIDEM , the annual international junket for music business professionals amongst whose ranks I count myself, is comparatively poorly attended this year, a combination of the changes happening in our industry and the recessionary times that are with us or looming, but the idea of using just one entrance and thereby manufacturing a queue for delegates desperate to find out more about the benefits of using Currencies Direct for their foreign exchange needs has all the hallmarks of “made in France”. President Sarkozy has publicly admonished the UK recently for its lack of a manufacturing base, but to descend into creating queues does not seem to be manufacturing in its truest sense. I took this picture of French manufacturing today.
The French way of manufacturing, manufacture a queue.
MIDEM gives us music biz types the annual opportunity to slap each other on the back and praise each others activities and achievements, however, there those amongst us for whom the festival does not go well, and for which no praise is due. Normally the festival runs from Sunday to Thursday, so flights from the UK are usually booked from Saturday to Thursday, and at least one delegate has booked accordingly, even although this year MIDEM runs from Saturday to Tuesday inclusive. This means he missed the first day and will be stuck in Cannes for two days after it has finished.
Business is like air or sex. It does not matter that much until you aren’t getting any. Thus there were a number of delegates fighting for air today, and it had everything to do with the bean salad I had for lunch at Vegaluna on Cannes beach. It is also said that no one is listening until you fart and it seemed to me that wherever I went in the afternoon everybody with whom I came into co tact were all ears. On one level I have a communist streak, everything should be shared out equally and I did my best to spread the equality emitting from my anus around the Palais Des Festivals in Cannes yesterday afternoon. On the other hand I agree with those that think ones personal noxious odours should be kept to them selves, so, a dilemma.
Anyway, the last day of MIDEM is today and I have been invited to lunch on the beach at a restaurant called Goeland where if offered I will avoid anything that contains any kind of bean. The last time I was there, I was seated close a lady who was, well how can I describe her, she was no stranger to a kebab. Her ability to eat what looked like her own bodyweight in fois gras has left an indelible mark on my memory, one that I hope to be able to lay to rest today. Mrs Creosote lives.
Having then spent almost a lifetime working, well, all day for the last two days and with all the preparation I feel I will deserve some rest and recouperation from tomorrow onwards and shall be on the look out for some way of expressing that, and with a large dump of fresh snow up on the nearby mountains, a quick day trip to Greoliere Les Neiges is a possibility, after the incoming Brits depart MIDEM and take this filthy weather with them.
In terms of what, where and in which form this recreation will take place will depend of course on the decisions of that nice lady decorator. Whilst MIDEM has been in full effect I have been master of my own destiny, choosing what I do but with festival drawing to a close things will change. One day you are the dog, the best day you are the tree.
Chris France
Mushy peas don’t hit the spot
I saw sleet in Cannes yesterday afternoon. After a benign winter so far, the arrival in town of loads of Brits desperate for lunch on the beach to do some business was enough to turn the weather very sour indeed. To say I was not at my best today following dinner out with Al Yiddley in Cannes the night before would be like saying Bin Laden had been a bit naughty. I had forgotten that Al, when informed that La Chunga the bar across from the Martinez in Cannes was a known haunt for ladies of the night, had insisting on going there after a fine dinner and three bottles of a very good but vastly overpriced St Emilion Grand Cru, and once again it seemed to be my round. He was desperate to go and dance with the pretty vacant eyed beauties and was a bit indignant when none of them wanted to know. Apparently a fiver and a fish and chips and mushy pea dinner was not quite sufficient for any of then to contemplate incentive for doing the business he had in mind… I have heard it said that good judgment is the result of a bad experience, but the bad experience is usually down to poor judgment.
I took this picture yesterday of the forlorn beach viewed from the Riviera entrance of the Palais Des Festivals in Cannes. The MIDEM festival, now in its 46th year, and I have attended 6or 32 years in succession, is gradually dying as the industry lurches towards global deals rather than territory by territory licensing deals which in the past has provided a wonderful opportunity for expenses led excess in the good times.
Even Cannes looks miserable in the rain
I contemplated this sad state of affairs over a sumptuous lunch in a beach restaurant without a hint of irony, merely the hint of rain drumming on the hastily erected plastic roof coverings. It was a necessary course of action to shake off the lethargy that engulfed me during the morning and it worked, I improved from totally ghastly to merely a bit grizzly after lunch, but even I could not finish the beer I had ordered to test the “hair of the dog” theory.
Today, more of the same, educating the music business and music publishers in particular that they can save 3% or more of foreign currency receipts if they simply use Currencies Direct as the conduit, and then lunch on the beach today at Vegaluna, one of the more stylish beach eateries with yet another lawyer, female this time who, if nothing else, will almost certainly be prettier than Al Yiddley.
One of the upsides of rain in Cannes is that it will fall as much needed snow in the southern Alps and that may give us a chance to zip up to the mountains later in the week for a spot of skiing. Friday looks the best bet. Talking of mountains and skiing leads me to thinking about man mountain Peachy Butterfield who is back from the UK, no doubt loaded up with more Skelmersdale Chardonnay who last year retired from skiing when he realised that what he liked was the lunch and the mountain air. The bit he did not like was the skiing. Me, I like skiing up until lunchtime and then it loses its allure. Also, it does not do to arrive too early on the slopes as it is often icy, and then it is not a good idea to ski too late as it can become heavy. What I think I am saying is that apart from one run from the top of the mountain in perfect snow in the sunshine with a break for a coffee and cognac on the way down, I am with Peachy.
Chris France
MIDEM strikes
MIDEM is upon me, so it was important that I had a quiet day leading up to last night as my lawyer, Al Yiddley, was buying me dinner (no doubt at I my ultimate expense) to celebrate his appointment as my litigation lawyer in a High Court action to be launched very shortly. Thus the call from Currencies Direct Tony “I invented the internet” Coombs at 11 30 am to see if it was convenient to pop around for a cup of tea on the way back from Cap 3000, the local shopping centre was, whilst a welcome diversion from self-imposed temperance, was a dangerous impediment to me keeping a clear head for the evenings festivities, and then subsequently the fullest possible enjoyment of my lawyer taking me out to dinner.
My polite enquiry to Mr Coombs; “Will you have something a little stronger” issued one minute after midday was, I now realise, a statement exhibiting a particularly poor piece of situation management. Initially I thought one bottle of fizz would prove sufficient for him and his wife, the lovely fiery redhead Pat for them to feel that they fully celebrated my birthday. Even the second bottle between four of us seemed to be a scenario that I could drag back from the brink, but when I was forced by that nice lady decorator to open the third bottle, and with the Rioja flowing as well, I began to realise I had a problem.
His gift of some Cohiba Cuban cigars clouded my judgement and I stupidly allowed them to undermine my proposed evening activity by allowing myself the indulgence of entertaining them. However, as is something akin to normal, it was internet’s great one that entertained me.
It started with me asking if he was working on anything worthwhile. Internet 2 was his answer, although he was not big on detail, in fact he refused to supply any more details about what Internet 2 could bestow upon us than the internet we all know and love.
The fun started when we began to discuss the swimming pool he had promised his lovely wife he would install in the garden of their house near Grasse. So far, over a period of thirteen years there seems that any numbers of “reasons” invented by our intrepid inventor which have conspired to allow him to renege on this promise. Can you imagine having a house on the Cote d’Azur with a large garden and sweeping views across tha valley and up to the hills, having a large terraced space ideally suited to the installation of a swimming pool, making a promise to your wife and young children that you would build one, and then finding every excuse under the sun not to give the go ahead for its construction.
The sort of pool that Tony should build?
This seemed like a rich seam of intrigue to mine. The art in these situations is like opening oysters. These tricky little blighters are best opened by sliding a knife into the heart of their being and then forcing them wide open with a series of twisting motions. Let me tell you that in situations such as these I am an artist. So a great deal of fun was had at the expense of our inventor but I have promised not to mention it again, much in the same vein as his promise to have a swimming pool.
And so to Cannes for dinner. Because of the earlier impromtu luncheon I was perhaps not at my best for dinner, or at least if I was then I do not recall the full details. I do recall that we had a drink at The Carlton bar which cost me a little under fifty euros, and then went for at nearby Pastis, a restaurant just behind the Dior shop on the Croisette for a ruinously expensive dinner, so expensive that I felt compelled to pay half the bill, which in itself was more than one would normally want to pay for dinner anywhere. My lawyers alter ego, Al Yiddley was in awesome form and very amusing but I am ashamed to say I recall little of the content except for one phrase “Mushy peadophile” which he used in a context I do not exactly recall and have been racking my brains to imagine any context at all in which it could be used without risking arrest. It will no doubt feature in The Sayings Of Al Yiddley website I intend to launch.
Chris France
All Yiddley in town
MIDEM, the 42nd annual music business gathering starts in Cannes this evening with the NRG awards, a French TV equivalent of the Brits, except it is terminally boring. I was unlucky enough to be able to secure tickets a few years ago and promptly took the opportunity to leave half way through. MIDEM is much more interesting for us old music business veterans because it gives us chaps of a certain the age the chance to get together in a nice environment to reminisce and to remember how important we once were until the infernal digital world came along and downloads destroyed the business as many of us old codgers remembered it. However, it is still a rich hunting ground for new customers for Currencies Direct. I hesitate to think of how much money is being paid or retained by the banks from royalty payments throughout the world in the form of poor foreign exchange rates and also fees for the transfers, something that Currencies Direct does not impose.
I shall be entertained to dinner this evening by the alter ego of my lawyer whose name in costume is Al Yiddley, the Jewish lawyer from Yorkshire. When in London he is a partner in Davenport Lyons, one of the leading London litigation lawyers who will be extracting monies from me in the coming year in a High Court action but when in Cannes and fuelled by the alcoholic delights of the Cote d’Azur comes over all Jewish and Yorkshire. We will start as is the tradition at The Carlton for a glass of champagne or two and head to the old town of Cannes, into le Suquet for dinner, a full report tomorrow probably.
He will no doubt be staying in a suite at The Carlton or The Martinez probably with its own jacuzzi and I imagine that the supply of bath mats will be included in the price, which was not the case when I was staying at a hotel in Earls Court recently where I took this picture. I think it sums up the client lawyer relationship where the client pays the lawyer all his money and leads the life of a comparative pauper as a result, whilst the lawyer lives in the lap of luxury, feeding on the customer, literally. The word parasite comes to mind.
Obviously not included in the price of the room. What does this say about the quality of the hotel?
I say I will be entertained to dinner, but what I probably mean is that I will be entertained at dinner. Nominally, he will pay the bill but these things have a nasty habit of turning up in disguise as “a disbursement” on my bill, effectively recharging me for the dinner which one can be forgiven for thinking is a nice gesture for a client.
Today is a significant birthday for the renowned writer of this column (at my age they are all significant – it means I made it through another year) and it was very thoughtful of sprog 2 to ring the house at 1am this morning to sing Happy Birthday to me accompanied by a number her friends, oblivious of the fact that from England she could have called an hour earlier when I was still awake.
Today has also dawned cloudy and wet, something of a surprise considering the two months of sunny weather we have enjoyed. I blame all the Brits flying in for MIDEM for bringing the dodgy weather with them, but at least if it is wet for a few days we may get some snow and then some skiing in next week.
Chris France
A Fiery book?
Once again it is my duty to report on the poor behaviour and equally poor conduct of the public schoolboy contingent of the idle rich of Valbonne.
Let’s start with tennis. It is one of those little crosses in life which I have to bear that I have as my tennis partner fellow MOG (Moustachiod Old Git) the Wingco. Despite that handicap, the ramifications of which I can discuss freely because he refuses point-blank to read this column or indeed to enter into any discussions about its content, indeed he describes it’s very existence as “ghastly”. Mercurial might be a good description. His play at the net varies between the brilliant and the laughable, but it is at least superior to his open court play where a particularly dodgy backhand is often mercilessly exploited by our opponents. However, despite this handicap, my ability to cover him allowed us to crush our opponents Mr Clipbeard and Blind Drunk Lemon Milsted yesterday.
Lunch was taken this time at upstairs at the Auberge Provencal in Valbonne Square which is a lovely venue to which we do not go enough. It has a large open fire and a nice old ambience. When describing to the Wingco (who also has a nice old ambience) which restaurant we were going to I reminded him that it was where we had staged my book launch last November. He asked if it was that rather down market establishment clearly implying that any place associated with my book had to be down market. Mr Clipbeard had left a nice present for the buyers of his house, a copy of that book as my picture today shows.
A hot topic?
The tennis result was a topic of conversation which both my opponents sought to avoid with little success. We were joined at lunch by Susie and Norman Philpot, old friends from Valbonne who were keen to become Currencies Direct customers and Master Bully Mariner Mundell.
The Master joined in with the tennis discussions because he too has often been put to sword in tennis terms by the MOGS and is none too pleased about it. Regular followers of this column will know that he was the ring leader in the nasty bullying incident in which my beautiful long beard was forcibly removed by him and some jealous public schoolboy cohorts recently, a fact that he tried to mitigate by claiming he was holding me a headlock to stop my head from moving whilst my beard was scythed into submission. He claims that it was act of bravery with one eye on health and safety, but this defence was fatally undermined by the phone call I received from him the following day where I sensed he wanted to apologise, only for him to reduce that impending apology to a “statement of regret” at the last moment. He continued forcefully to deny that he would ever bully, threaten to bully or countenance bullying in way shape or form and when I suggested that the facts stood for themselves he suggested that if I continued to fail to accept his opinion then he personally would organise some water boarding to persuade me he was not indeed a bully. Alternatively a little “bog flushing” (perhaps he meant blog flushing?), another quaint public schoolboy custom of sticking someones head down a toilet and flushing it.
Anyway, a splendidly long and eventually very liquid lunch gathering decamped from the restaurant after 4pm with the sole waitress still in attendance having dozed off and descended on one of the Master’s many properties, this one his apartment in Valbonne Village, to continue discussions about this and any number of other things that seemed desperately important at the time but I cannot recall this morning.
Mr Clipbeard pulls a fast one
“I just need you to move a few boxes for me” was the request from Mr Clipboard (or Mr Clipbeard as he has become known after the enforced removal of my beard in a restaurant “accident” at the end of last year). As a Currencies Direct customer of mine, I felt it was a reasonable request, even if in typical Clipboard style I was told to line up in an orderly fashion at 07 30 to report for duty, properly equipped for boxes, loading of. I am sure some of boxed contained spare clipboards.
What I had not bargained for was an entire morning of acting as an unpaid removal man. As the range and scale of tasks became clear I demanded that at the very least lunch should be offered in payment for my services, a demand that became ever more strident as my car was not the only vehicle being used in the removal process, there was a huge van as well, which was also loaded to capacity before being driven to Plascassier to unload.
Mutinous is a good word to describe my mood when we arrived at our destination because the contents of my car and a lorry the size of Valbonne had to be man-handled up 49 steps to his house, what he called a “minor detail” when challenged. Under immense pressure from myself and the Wingco, he gave in rather too quickly when we demanded lunch as payment at Lou Fassum nearby, the stunning Michelin star restaurant with views down to the sea. It had the effect of keeping the troops myself and the Wingco) quiet, well apart from a lot of cursing and moaning, throughout the longest step class in history as we lugged all those spare clipboards or whatever was in the containers up the longest staircase in Christendom. When finally it was done and the military task had ben fulfilled to his satisfaction, the smirking Mr Clipboard drove us down to Lou Fassum for lunch. It was closed for refurbishment.. He must have known which is why he agreed with such alacrity to our demands. Too exhausted to argue too much we instead adjourned to the Auberge de Provence, pictured today where myself and the Wingco made a memorable effort to extract as much value from a free lunch as possible. Fois Gras with a glass of sauterne, fillet steak, coupe coronel, (the only part of which the military element of the character of Mr Clipbard found favour), the best wine in the house (a cheeky little Bordeaux that was really rather too young to be out on its own) washed down with the most expensive, indeed the only cognac on the menu.
Auberge Provencal at Plascassier
Naturally, after doing the work of six men in the morning I was a little tired in the afternoon, a malaise that I was able to shake off with a refreshing siesta. The afternoon nap was required because early doors at The Queens Legs at 18.30 sharp was also on Mr Clipboards clipboard. This a couple of pints of Guinness destroyed the last vestiges of any attempt to hold onto the shirttails of my post Christmas diet and I retired later to bed aching, fatter and well fed.
Today (again sharp at 10.000am) tennis has been organised at the Vignale Tennis Club in Plascassier. The usual rules apply, if I win expect a fulsome analytical insight into the match and an underlining of the result, but if I lose which has to my memory not never happened then I will find insufficient space in this column to report events. The forth player will be Blind Drunk Lemon Milsted.
Just enough space today to remind you of the theatre production “Barefoot In The Park” starring Jennifer Wilson on 14th and 15th February at the Pre Des Arts in Valbonne, tickets available from their website.
Chris France
Motion sickness
What would you prefer? An evening amongst old friends in beautiful surroundings , pondering the import of world affairs? or more likely gossiping about the foibles of friends and associates amidst a range of great wines and find food and clouds of good cigar smoke emanating from a Cohiba or a Monte Christo, or an evening discussing septic tanks and drainage generally in French?
This stark choice faced that nice lady decorator at the weekend and from the way I have posed the question you will know the answer. Mr Clipboard is back in France to empty one of his many houses prior to its sale completing tomorrow. Obviously everything must go and I have heard rumours that several great wines remained in his cellar. I had lectured him about not moving these too far for fear of taking them away from their best, I deemed that from the wine cellar to the dinner table was the maximum distance one should risk and I was happily considering a convivial evening amongst Chateau Lafite, Pomerol perhaps even Chateau Petrus. This was all set last week until that nice lady decorator received the invitation from our next door neighbours, who are lovely charming people but with whom we have just one thing in common, our sceptic tanks have been condemned.
I should point out here that I have no executive responsibility for social occasions, also as I am not a decorator or indeed at all practical, for instance I do not own any tools, she owns everything and her experience in decorating and renovation over the years has enabled her to collect a good range of knowledge about the general maintenance of houses, so when the invitation to discuss err….going through the motions so to speak, she accepted with alacrity and cancelled our previous engagement. On this theme today’s picture of “art” I found in a hotel in Juan Les Pins the night before last seems to sum up my distress.
Amazing what the French can fashion from a turd.
Delighted I was not. I accept that something needed to be decided about the literally shit position in which we have found ourselves but as Tommy Cooper said “timing is everything”. Thus at 7 30 last night, instead of heading to the feast and sampling some Sancerre we “evacuated” to our neighbours to testiculate (verb meaning to wave your arms around and talk bollocks – necessary as our French, especially that nice lady decorator’s is shall we say quite undeveloped).
It is said that knowledge enriches the soul, but I do not feel more enriched this morning, despite collecting much more knowledge, in fact I feel soiled. I now know uncomfortably more about the workings of these fosse sceptic as the French call them than I ever wanted, graphically engraved in my mind as translating seems to etch the details in my head in some kind of metaphorical indelible pen. Anyway, thankfully we have an answer; mains drainage.
That I must now spend this morning helping clear Mr Clipboard’s last chattels from his mansion, where I shall no doubt spot empty bottles of recently consumed fine wins and Armagnac, deliberately allowed to remain visible to rub it in is like a knife in the heart. I shall have to be satisfied that at least he will be using the services of Currencies Direct to transport the proceeds from the sale from Euros to Pounds stirling, although in a weak moment over a few drinks I did agree to setting the meagre commission I will receive for a nice dinner out.
So to summarise, we turned down great food and drink, the company of close English-speaking friends, an evening of sparkling wit and repartee for hours of sceptic shenanigans. I am not best pleased.
Chris France
Juan Les Pins after sunset
So I went to the post office in Mouans Sartoux. I wanted to post some letters, it’s the sort of thing you would expect to be able to do at any post office. Instead I had to wake up a rather sleepy but suddenly officious young lady at an empty counter who pointed towards the automatic stamp issuing machine where a queue reaching out into the street had formed.
I politely suggested that as I was a bit pressed for time to catch my train to last nights Internations event at Juan Les Pins, perhaps she would be good enough to sell me some stamps. She refused, pointed once again at the machine, and the queue stretching out of the door and on to the street half way to Cannes and promptly began to doze off again, as no customers requiring her services were in sight. Indeed I formed the opinion that her sole reason for living was to tell disgruntled punters such as me that the only way to get a stamp is via the machine. The very jobsworth nature she exhibited reminded me of the lack of service one often receives back in the UK, but seldom in my experience in France (with the notable exception of Paris) so it was a shock to find that creeping malaise appearing in France.
However, arriving at the sublime Juan Les Pins at sunset a little early for the event was the perfect antidote as my picture today I hope depicts. Fifteen years ago I would have instead been aboard a commuter train from London, standing up, cold, tired and soaked through from having been rained on. Maybe the Reverend Jeff is right, there is a god.
On my way to work at Juan Les Pins last night
The Internations organisation is dedicated to providing a forum for different nationalities to meet and network and last night out the 50 or so people attending there were some 22 nationalities represented. You may think that this would have been a rather fallow place in which to find buyers for my book, but I did sell a copy but it was of course a very fertile cross-section into which to promote the services of Currencies Direct.
Amongst those with whom I talked last night were the lovely Lorna who told me a gripping tale of why she split up with her boyfriend. It involved a sheep and a hint of mistreatment but I am glossing over the details. Suffice to say there is a gorgeous Irish girl who should not be available who is out there waiting for Mr Right.
After my piece in this column yesterday about my non invitation to celebrate Mr Humphreys (he was free) birthday, he responds to say that the reason he did not invite us was due to the almost certain dangerous escalation of the bar bill. I pointed out that this was an outrageous and entirely justified slur upon that nice lady decorators character but at the same time I have every sympathy with him.
So today I am on airport duty once again this time for Mr Paul Thornton Allan who kindly designed and printed the pull up poster for my book. I feel sure that if he gets enough publicity for his sterling efforts in this column, he will never seek payment of his bill. My only hope is that his steely eyed but nonetheless beautiful wife and co director never gets to hear of it or I am a gonna.
This evening I have a fascinating prospect in store. We have been invited to our French neighbours to discuss drains. Yes, I know what you are thinking; here I am a doyen of the music business, a senior member of the music publishing elite, the head of an award-winning record company and now a successful author reduced to talking about mains drainage in French. I cannot tell you how much I am looking forward to it.
Chris France
A picture worth 50,000 hits?
A total of 50,000 on this site was reached yesterday. That is a poignant illustration of the numbers of poor souls who want to know the latest gossip concerning the antics of the idle rich in Valbonne. I have mined a very deep seam of fascination with the intrigue and excesses, or so it seems. Just to illustrate this point, I publish today a picture taken over the Christmas period for which I have no explanation.
Nope, I have no idea either and I don't even want to speculate
Yesterday I was on airport duty to ferry the gorgeously athletic Lisa Thornton Allan to the airport. She regaled me with details of an event that took place the night before to which I do not appear to have been invited. Mr Humphreys (he was free, as was dinner for the guests from what I hear) was apparently having a birthday celebration at Le Jarriere a fabulous but expensive restaurant on the way up to Bar Sur Loup, bandit country, up on the northern edges of civilisation, a village that is beautiful but rather basic, a bit like Yorkshire although whilst that doesn’t really have the beauty, it is certainly very basic.
What astounds me is that I was not invited. I shall doubtless receive a written apology in due course. Perhaps it is a question of style? Mr Humphreys as regular readers will know is my style guru, my inspiration for sartorial elegance so perhaps my recent clothing choices have been found wanting? I am at a loss here, I now have a petrol blue cashmere (effect) sweater, a lime green made to measure golfing suit (to match the silver golf shoes picked out with lime green trim in almost the same shade), I have some Kenyan multi coloured patchwork house slacks but all these garments purchased and worn under the careful tutelage of Mr Humphreys has clearly not been sufficient for me to reach top table status, or indeed any table. However, I will not be down hearted and, as the annual sales have started, I shall be going into Cannes today for some personal retail therapy and search for some clothing of which he would approve. I wonder if there is a transvestite factory outlet anywhere nearby?
The local Internations gathering takes place this evening at Hotel Juana in Juan Les Pins and I have decided to take the train from Mouans Sartoux. I am still toying with taking my 2 metre high pull up banner advertising my book, which is also available for kindle machines, which is apparently a tablet used to many to help with reading. This is news to me, I mean how can a tablet make you better educated? But I digress. I have emailed the organiser suggesting that the whole Internations experience could be enhanced by my poster adorning proceedings but have yet to receive a response. She may be so overcome with gratitude for the offer that she has been physically unable to respond or perhaps more likely she is trying to think of a polite way of rejecting it.
I shall of course be metaphorically wearing two hats this evening because in my ambassadorial role as Regional Coordinator (as opposed to Regional Controller as I was described in an email yesterday – I should not be confused with the fat controller in the Thomas The Tank Engine stories, which would be particularly galling after a hard week on a low carb. diet) for Currencies Direct because believe it or not, there are still those amongst us who have not seen the light and are paying their banks 3 – 4% more than they need to on all foreign exchange transfers. Wherever you are and whoever you are, I will find and convert you eventually.
Chris France
Gourdon to walk or beach for lunch?
“It’s a pity those birds cannot hang on to those greasy balls” said that nice lady decorator yesterday afternoon as we toiled in the garden trying to bring it some order. Always a master of the double entendre I did a double take and made a comment of which I am not proud but she had the good grace (or base sense of humour?) to laugh.
She was of course referring to the special balls of bird food she has been fastidiously hanging on our pomegranate tree. It seems that certain species of bird are unable to get sufficient purchase on these spherical bird attractors in order to feed, but I have yet to work out how the balls being greasy had anything to do with it or precisely how it impeded them. She is excited by the range of bird life she has attracted to the garden, at the last count running now to over twenty species she has already identified, of which I found the curlew the most interesting.
I was excited by the prospect of a new way of becoming popular. If only it had been so easy to attract birds when I was younger. I too could have been very good at ensuring my balls were greasy if it ensured it increased my success rate with women, indeed there are several girls…..but that was a long time ago and I do not want to go into that now.
The plan today is, if it remains sunny and warm (it was 17 degrees yesterday afternoon – if you are reading this in the UK, why are you still there?) then we may jump on the train from Mouans Sartoux and go for lunch on the beach at Juan Les Pins. It is something that must be done. 6 weeks of almost exclusively sunny weather requires a considered response by us ex pats, and having considered the possibilities very carefully, I think lunch on the beach is the right thing to do.
It is that or another infernal walk up a mountain, in fact my picture today was taken just before the New Year on just such a walk and depicts a view from the top of the hills behind the beautiful village of Gurdon, looking down into the valley above the village. You may consider that it is akin to looking into the abyss, and that is exactly what the Greeks are doing in terms of their continuing involvement in the Euro. I mention this as it is normal that I mention the wonderful services of Currencies Direct and this seems the obvious place to insert such a reference. The drachma will back in circulation in March.
The donkey track above Gourdon
I am arraigned in the comments section for the quality of the photographs that appear in this column. This is rather unfair as I consider myself to be a writer, indeed a successful writer, rather than a photographer. My preference is for atmospheric shots or if I am honest pictures of embarrassing digressions or better still humiliating examples of private excess. Quality is not my photographic watchword, shocking is. The fact that some photos I have published are shocking actually quite pleases me.
Hotel Juana is the venue for an Internations networking event on Monday. I am considering taking my big pull up poster advertising my book. I have mot asked permission so I hope they will not be too upset at my guerrilla advertising tactics, at least I hope they will be more accommodating than Wayne Brown from Red Radish who did his best to ensure that pull up was hidden from view last Friday at there otherwise splendid supper.
Chris France
Papering over the cracks?
Given the terrible disaster playing out just along the Italian coast, and my sons interest in models, I rang the up market toy shop in Valbonne and asked if they had any construction kits of the Costa Concadia. The shop assistant said he had one left so I asked him to put in on one side for me.
I am not to blame for that joke, it is the clear responsibility of my chief researcher Peter Lynn. Earlier in the week he had already sent me some very tasteless jokes on the same theme that were very funny but far too controversial for this column.
So to Wayne and Lucy’s the Red Radish Secret Supper, so secret that everybody with whom I came into contact knew about it. Wayne Brown with another marketing masterstroke, It was a fun evening, however the fun turned to horror for me when I discovered that a copy of my book had been stolen and placed in the smallest room in the house accompanied by a rough hand-written sign inviting users of the facilities to use the pages for….well I hesitate to say exactly for what private activity but I think you may smell a rat so to speak. I took this picture it in situ as evidence should the police wish to press charges for this crime.
The toilet tissue is obviously for drying the tears of mirth when reading that book
Jill Barber, Canadian singer songwriter sang beautifully, and I was unlucky enough to be seated next to Tony “I invented the internet” Coombs
whose birthday it became after midnight. I put it him that this must mean that it also the birthday of the invention but answer came there none.
Earlier in the day I was dragged from my kennel office to be a lumberjack. “Just a few branches” she said but within minutes the longest triple section ladder in the world was out and I found myself teetering on the top most rung with a bow saw in my hand. I am not saying it was high but I could see the coast of Africa. In an attempt to get something rewarding from the experience I did my utmost to get the enormous bough through which I had been commanded to saw to land on the heinous hound Banjo, but I suspect he realised he was in danger. Just as the monstrous oak was beginning to go I called him over, but he remained obstinately out of range. A triumph for poor training. What on earth that nice lady decorator sees in that crappy cretinous cocker I shall never understand.
Monday sees me at the Internations networking event in the early evening at Hotel Juana at Juan Les Pins. I have not attended any of their networking events for some time and I thought it may be a fertile source of new business for Currencies Direct, and I may take a few books with me as well. The stock is dwindling fast, and not because of my using the recycling facilities as suggested by some of my friends, indeed two more sales yesterday brought the total sold to 141.
So the weekend is upon us and I am expecting a quiet one. MIDEM is moving into view started in Cannes next weekend. I shall no doubt be entertained to dinner eventually at my expense by my northern Jewish lawyer All Yiddley who hails from the very Jewish are called Allwoodley near Leeds. It seems that Joss Stone will be at this annual music biz junket this year and will be talking at some event.I think I would prefer her singing.
Chris France
The suns goes down on the bathroom scales
I heard a story yesterday on Riviera Radio about what seemed to be a serious drugs bust with tragic consequences. It seems that a chap was brandishing a shot-gun and threatening his neighbours over in the Var.
He was distressed because he thought they were stealing his pot plants and was threatening to shoot them (the neighbours not the pot plants). The police were called and, when he pointed the gun at them the police shot him dead. My first thought was that those that live by the gun die by the gun, and that maybe the ganja he was cultivating was of a particularly “high” quality and he was understandably appalled by the prospect of having his stash raided by the local inhabitants. It crossed my mind that given his apparent involvement with the drugs world perhaps he expected to die, but it turns out that he was seventy-five years old and the pot plants in question were lavender plants. Summary justice French style.
A mild day yesterday ended in a spectacular sunset and it was mild enough to sit in the newly repaired pav in early evening for a calming glass of wine, from where I took this picture. A great sunset like this implies a few clouds in the area, so perhaps some hope for the local ski resorts?
Sunset over Valbonne, but who left that light on?
It is not often that the nice lady decorator and myself are in complete agreement, but it happened yesterday. The bathroom scales are charged with the unenviable task of monitoring the weight reduction process in which we are both involved at present. Eating almost nothing and increasing our daily exercise over the past 3 days has seen a considerable improvement in our respective shapes but we both expected support and confirmation from the weighing machine in the bathroom. It has refused to cooperate, and clearly deranged it is doggedly sticking to some readings from last week.
This is clearly a problem with the machine which is battery powered and has an electronic readout. I have tried talking to it, cuddling it, even stamping on it, but it refuses to cooperate, so there is nothing else for it, new batteries will be inserted (very roughly if I get my way) tomorrow, after which, if it fails to cooperate then more drastic action must be contemplated.
Tonight, all thoughts of diets, indeed of restraint of any kind will be cast to the wind as we embrace our first night out this week at the Red Radish secret supper. Jill Barber, an up and coming Canadian singer songwriter will be performing and as there is clearly a commercial element to the evening I shall be bringing with me my pull up poster proclaiming that signed copies of my book will be available to purchase for those very few locals that do not already own a copy. I shall not tell Wayne or Lucy in advance in case they are unhappy at the prospect, and my phone will be off all day so that I cannot be intercepted.
I shall also be checking to ensure that no one is still stuck in the unpleasant grasp of their banks when considering paying bills abroad or moving money around, although I think it might be considered a bit common to mention Currencies Direct out right.
MIDEM, the annual junket for us music biz types starts in just over a week in Cannes, so my presence will be required there for much of the week after next. In fact this will be the 32nd time I have attended, sufficient to gain a gold card membership which seems to entitle me to little more than free buses in Cannes. I can hardly wait.
Chris France
Baileys heaven
Six hundred words a day. That is what this column set out to do, and today I am going to use the longest word since it’s inception. I have never been afraid to use long words but this is a bit scary; hippomonstrosesquippedaliophobia whilst at first look seemed to express a phobia of giant four-legged hippo’s (is there any other sort) is apparently the fear of long words. It has been said by some of my public schoolboy bullying friends that I have a poor understanding of long words but that is intercontinental. I know exactly how to spell bullying.
Yesterday, I was sent to Castorama, a bit like Coventry as no one speaks to you. I was my job to collect some do it yourself materials to repair the pav, our garden pagoda, which suffered some damage in the November storm, which I think was the last time we had significant rainfall. This in itself is a disaster for the local ski slopes such as Greoliere Les Neiges which seemingly could be renamed Greoliere Les Mud. For instance, I hear that Limone, a proper ski resort just cross the Italian border has just three slopes open from a possible 48. We had planned to go there next month to the amazing Aracador, a ski chalet and restaurant on the slopes normally only reached by snowmobile or on skis in winter, now just a short walk up the grassy bank. Anyway, duty was done but not until the first test match against Pakistan had finished for the day, obviously.
Anyone in Valbonne or surrounds have any space for the theatre company to rehearse? The first production is on Feb 14th in Valbonne and the actors have flown in from London but now that their usual rehearsal facility has gone up in smoke they are desperate for somewhere to rehearse. I am getting more and more drawn into the showbiz aspects of what they area doing and I am not alone. I know it is a bit sad, but a distant cousin of Peter Bennet’s', the head honcho of Blue Water and a sponsor of SET, as the theatre group is becoming known, and who was down here racing horses at the Hippodrome at Cagnes sur Mer last week is Entertainments Manager aboard HMS Victory. This is clearly a very important job, and must be a very hard thing to be whilst on the high sea. Being Welsh, John Gwynn will no doubt be aware of what is normally considered to be “entertainment” in Wales, although I thought that involved sheep rather than horses. You learn something new each day.
My picture today was taken at Gatwick a few days ago and shows where Valbonne resident Jude O Sullivan, our renowned leading local consumer of Baileys, would ideally like to live her life. an entire shop dedicated to the sale of the sticky horror drink in four different varieties. Jude, change your will, ask for your ashes to be scattered in front of this shop. I wonder if they have rooms?
The Baileywick of Gatwick
The Red Radish secret supper up at Chateauneuf this Friday seems no longer to be a secret, but looks like being a cracking night out. I think there may be a few places left, at least there were yesterday. Wayne Brown with the lovely Lucy are behind this event is also the founder of FR2day has told me to bring plenty of booze as its going to be a big party.
Almost forgot to mention Currencies Direct and their wonderful foreign exchange services. I know you would have been devastated.
Chris France
Poster notes
Often I feel a little like Brendan Behan who once described himself in this fashion “I am a drinker with writing problems”. The problem is that when I am off the drink, which I was until a St Emilion Grand Cru crept into vision last night, at the behest of that nice lady decorator, my normal flowing verbosity recedes like the sea before a tsunami, thus most of today’s column was written in the glow only a good red wine can provide.
The reason for the early temperance back sliding? Well, thirst, a night off last night and the words of The Lancet which by my interpretation recommends not having long periods of abstinence followed by binges. Better by far to continue a steady intake of one of the finest fluids known to man and full of statins as well!
There was another reason to turn to drink, my French neighbour. Unlike most of the French people I meet down here, who are almost without exception charming, he is from Paris. I suggested to him recently that his hedge was rather high obstructing light and that a cypress tree was in danger of interfering with the coverage of the first Test against Pakistan, but I do not think he is a cricket fan as my complaint received short shrift and effectively the written version of a Gallic shrug.
It seems that we make a lot of noise from time to time, especially in the summer and he is not best pleased about it and is enjoying immensely the prospect of making us suffer in return. Big mistake. We thought we had been very restrained in our rowdiness over the past year, so now, gloves off, we will forget restraint. Big big mistake. I fear we are destined to become bad neighbours. This reminded me that at The France Show last week I met Sally Stone, the ultimate good neighbour, the very high-powered boss of Les Bons Voisins. That’s French for Good Neighbours who specialise in looking after unattended houses. She was amused by my surname, considering it a plot to try to secure here company as a client. When I told her that my mother was determined that her first son would be called Justin, until she married my father, well, she was convinced that anyone who might have been called Justin France was a sales invention and thus a contrived plot. It seems that although there are 30 Les Bons Voisins franchises in existence there is not one down here in the Cote d’Azur. Those looking to start a business down here take note and click here.
A sign of the times?
My picture today shows the pull up for my book designed by the redoubtable Valbonne resident Paul Thornton Allan of The Big Picture throwing the very expensive Currencies Direct stand into the shade. If only they had spent £150 like me instead of £80,000 they could have had a pull-up like mine.
The South Of France Theatre Company are still desperate for somewhere to rehearse in the Valbonne to Antibes area, has anyone got some space they could use?
No news of tennis for today so I suspect one of the public schoolboys has a roasting to go to or something. It appears that they are all in touch on what they consider to be a higher plane (not the kind of paper planes they were making from the pages of my book on the same day my beard had its restaurant “accident”). No, it seems they are able to communicate the fact that tennis is not occurring tomorrow by telepathy or the like and as a council house interloper their vibes do not reach me. Maybe I am not on their wavelength?
Chris France
Baby I’m back
Whilst working in London at the weekend, selling copies of my book I received several encouraging and helpful comments and tips about what to do with any unsold items. Tony “I invented the internet” Coombs was the most inventive, sending me exact details and a map of a recycling centre near Gatwick, the implication being that perhaps sales were not going at the pace I had thought and that I may have a problem with excess baggage on the return journey. It seems closer to the truth that I have excess baggage in the supportive friends department. All I can say is that I know where you live and with your history of incoherence after a sniff of wine, retribution will come eventually actually probably rather quickly but I don’t mind how long it takes.
Talking of retribution, it was rewarding when in London (for them) for me to see my dear children, Sprog 1 and Sprog 2 at Earl’s Court. I now quite enjoy seeing them when they live abroad, mainly because they cannot follow me home and empty my house of supplies quite so readily. Whilst they were here in Valbonne over Christmas I was reminded that they are no longer babies and that I could no longer do what the parent in this picture I took at Nice airport yesterday may have done. Can you see the baby in the carry cot on the baggage return belt? I’m nearly sure I could.
Saves buying another ticket as well, and you can't hear them crying
Luckily, the winter sunshine is still firmly in place in Valbonne but I have hardly seen it, just during the lunch break from around 10.30 until 3.30, and with a mountain of work to do on Currencies Direct I was hard at it until nearly 5pm. If you work at the intensity that I do, a full day is unnecessary.
I am now a social hermit until Friday whereupon the Red Radish event which still has a few places available will engulf me but in the meantime there will be a serious attempt to repair some of the damage wrecked to my normal svelte shape by the combination of Christmas, before Christmas, my trip to Kenya, the lovely autumn, the wonderful summer, need I go on?. Action is necessary. Take yesterday for example. That nice lady decorators car 4 x 4 was loaned out last week and unfortunately sustained a puncture. She said to me “what are you going to do about that spare tyre?” I said not to worry I would pick it up today. She said “not that spare tyre, the one hanging around your waist”. Action is very definitely required so more exercise and less food and drink is on the cards, at least until Wednesday when I have my normal tennis match followed by lunch at Auberge St Donat.
Lise Davies makes contact to suggest that their wonderful house up in the hills would make a splendid venue for a wedding venue. Le Peyloubet was once owned by one of the great champagne dynasties, and now that I have mentioned it, if there was a case or two of the bubbly stiff lying around after Lise and Nick “I am younger than you think” Davies took up residence then I think I could find a space in my cellar for them.
A last minute reminder that there are still one or two slots open for sponsors of the English Theatre productions starting at the Pre Des Arts in Valbonne on 14th February. “Barefoot In The Park” starring seasoned professional Jennifer Wilson will also be performed on 15th at the same venue but the first night is party night with discounts for bulk ticket buyers.
Chris France
