Sour Cream and Moulin de Mougins

If you try to fail and succeed, what have you done? This is the question being asked of my old pal John Otway.  He wrote a book outlining his career in the music business, It was called “Rock n Rolls’s Greatest Failure” but it sold very well, and he got a great deal of press coverage so, is he a success or a failure?

I have begun preparation for MIDEM, the largest independent gathering of music business professionals in the world, and which I have attended every year for the last 30 years.  One of the meetings is with my lawyer, Nigel Davies at Davenport Lyons, so I will have to sew up my pockets. He recently did 4.5 hours work for me on a legal matter and suggested that his bill would be around £1700 + VAT, around 2000 Euros at today’s exchange rate.  Once I had rescued by jaw from the floor and had in wired up, I began a discussion, or a negotiation about mitigating this cost somewhat, and we finally settled on £1000 plus VAT, plus he wants me to buy dinner at the famous Moulin De Mougins, the Michelin star restaurant.  So if I agree that, it will still have cost me a little over £260 per hour and I get the dubious privilege of buying him dinner at a restaurant that I swore I would never go to again after appalling treatment last time.  Nice work if you can get it!

The view from somewhere near the Moulin De Mougins, well Mougins anyway

My last trip to the for Moulin de Mougins reminds me for very obvious reasons that I bought some sour cream this morning. It was for some no doubt delightful culinary treat promised by that nice lady decorator, but I noticed it has a sell-by date, why is that? What is the point?  It must be like cheese which matures over time, or what about wine.  Don’t drink that Chateau Petrus 1947, it may have  gone off, have some 2010  vin de table, that’s nice and fresh.

My meeting due at 4.30 yesterday was delayed until 6pm, which of course is apero time,  so I was forced to eschew my determination to drink coffee today (despite the obvious motoring dangers I highlighted yesterday) as I had decided to try to live dangerously.  The delay meant it was impossible to stay with this plan and instead I had a few glasses of wine in the Cafe Des Arcades in Valbonne and then I had to introduce Gudron, the Icelandic goddess, with whom I was meeting and my latest recruit to the ranks of Currencies Direct affiliates to La Kavanou, which despite the desperate weather was crammed.  Thus in fact, I was working. That competes the case for the defence.

I arrived home at 7.45 and was informed that we were going for the last knockings of happy hour (which finishes at 8.00pm) for a Guinness at the Queens Legs in Valbonne, thus my attempts to have at least one day alcohol free failed spectacularly.

Recently, I cam across a website www.yachtownersdirect.com based apparently in Nice, I sent them an email extolling the virtues of Currencies Direct affiliation, and they responded positively.  I suggested a meeting to finalise arrangements which they agreed to, but then came the sting in the tail, they have recently moved to Mauritious, thus I now have the task of persuading that nice lady decorator that I have to go there on business.

Chris France

Buying a house in France, moving money? www.currenciesdirect.net/chrisfrance

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Valbonne Tourist Office http://www.tourisme-valbonne.com

Top quality interior designer? http://www.marineguigue.com/

John Otway’s New  Book? www.johnotway.com

Modular portable exhibition system? http://www.creative-village.co.uk/web_ads/bigger_picture.html

Living France, Le Blog   http://livinginfrance.mon-coach-langues.com

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