Pointless celebrities
I did not get a chance to mention it yesterday, but after getting back to the house after the rugby on Saturday, I turned on the TV and was confronted by a programme called Pointless Celebrities. Now call me old fashioned but is that the best UK TV can offer? Surely when I was young TV was not this bad? We had loads of terrible stuff like Benny Hill and Crossroads, but Pointless Celebrities?
I reckon that Nagasaki must be Japanese for nag city. This was my conclusion after I was subjected yesterday morning to a stream of “correctional briefings” which ranged in subject from drinking too much beer, eating too much cheese and drinking too much wine. It also encompassed putting my clothes in the wrong place, placing my shoes incorrectly and of course, that most cardinal of sins, wearing a jacket over my sweaters causing them to bobble. I am not nagging she said, when challenged, I am just telling you (very forcefully) what you are doing wrong. This was after I complained that her torrent of complaints, or suggested incremental guidelines, as she would be more likely to describe the stream of nagging yesterday, amounted to nagging. I pointed out that I did not nag her when she used my razor to shave off the bobbles on my new woolly sweather, despite my face looking like a baby’s bottom covered in nappy rash as a result of trying to shave with it, nor did I take major issue with her when the devil dog, Banjo, chewed a hole in the cupboard to get at the dog food.
The watery wastes of Arundel
With rain promised later in the day, we had taken a trip over to Graffham in the South Downs after I had stupidly said that it was too flat locally for a proper walk and I needed some hills to get the red corpuscles moving. She found me a hill. Heart attack hill. It was very however beautiful in a steep wintery way and walking up it had the effect of generating an enormous thirst. It seemed to be too much of an opportunity not to try out the local pubs in the village in a vain search for potential Currencies Direct clients.
The Foresters Arms is a charming pub, beams and an open fire and Doom Bar on draft made for a happy experience and I had settled in with a pint before a roaring log fire, but that Nice Lady Decorator was determined to try the other pub in the village, the White Horse, which although cozy was a far less enthralling prospect. At first look it is a lovely old building but as soon as you get through the door I knew it was not for me. The entrance was ruined by being confronted almost immediately by a fruit machine and a pool table. Not my idea of what to expect from a traditional English pub.
Returning to Arundel in time to see Italy beat France in the 6 Nations rugby was a delight but that is it, the weekend is over and a bleak week lies ahead. I even have to venture north as far north as Milton Keynes this week, for some meetings designed to further the development of the music industry. Yes, work. A four letter word ending in k. I shall need bull bars fitted to the Merc, to lay in provisions, blankets and a shovel to dig my way out of snowdrifts. I imagine that at midday we may get some twilight to light up the tundra but as long as the roads are open palm an escape the same day back down to the relative civilisation of West Sussex.
Chris France
@Valbonne_News
Sunset in Arundel
At least we have a clean house. As we had heard yesterday, there was a possibility of my playmate Slash and Burn Thornton Allan not arriving yesterday due to man flu, and so it came to pass. We were at the tip when we got the message. One of the refuse collection operatives (as we used to call ourselves when John Otway and I were dustmen) saw Banjo in the back of the car and asked it was our dog. What a stupid question. I was tempted to say that he was not and that we had just stolen him, but that would have been really ridiculous because I did not want him in the first place. I was also tempted to ask in which section we should place unwanted pets, but as that Nice Lady Decorator was keeping an eye on me I decided to remain quiet.
So with the day’s plans abandoned we decided that, as it was the only nice day of the winter, we would have a drive around and see what we could find to amuse ourselves. We had been told that Bosham, just the other side of Chichester, was pretty so went to take a look. A charming estuary surrounded by some pretty houses in reasonable although rather cold conditions provided a nice walk and it would have been churlish not to go into the only pub, the Anchor Bleu, curiously a French name for a quintessentially English pub.
The trouble started at the next stop, The Black Rabbit. If I tell you that my car is still there and we staggered home you may get an inkling that things progressed rather differently to expectations.
A rare sunset in Arundel
The problem was that they had run out of proper beers as they were closing that very evening for a 7 week refurbishment. They warned us as we arrived but before we could cancel our reservation mentioned that they had some of “that wine you like that we got in specially”. There was little choice but to continue with the planned lunch. Some months before, I had remonstrated with the excellent management about the lack if a decent wine in their offering and had been urged by them to write to owners, Hall and Woodhouse, as their hands were tied. In the letter I had drawn myself up to my true literary height; author, writer of articles for The Daily Telegraph etc. and lo and behold there was an excellent Grand Cru St Emilion waiting for us on our next visit. So you see our conundrum; as this wine had been specially ordered in for us, we had to eschew the one pint of beer I had planned and proceed to drink it.
With the refurbishment will come a new wine list, so they had a couple of other bottles left over which they generously gave us, so you can see that it would have been churlish not to have drink at least one of them. That concludes the case for the defence.
Walking back to Arundel, I took a right turn to the Kings Arms to watch the rugby, whilst that Nice Lady Copout went home. At least that was what I was told she said she had planned, but I got a text saying she was watching it at the White Hart, having been intercepted by Terribly Tall Timothy Taylor. It was on the way back for the second half that I took this photo of an Arundel sunset. It seemed to capture the moment when coherence left me for the day. Again, that is the case for the defence.
Chris France
A bit green?
Sideways drizzle, the single most prevalent weather feature in England was once again the bane of my life yesterday. It put paid to my planned “up with the lark” early exercise until later. However, once it had finally stopped raining and under still glowering skies, when I has finally persuaded the trusty cycle to venture outside the bike shed, there was another problem; the bike began to misbehave.
Thinking the brakes had seized up or the gears were suffering after an ill-judged cycle on the beach before leaving for MIDEM, I spent ten minutes fiddling with the back wheel, the chain and gears before I realised the problem was with the front one. As if to remind me that I have now entered my 60th year, as I was struggling with the salt encrusted contraption a lady came up to me to ask if I was OK and if I needed any help. It was a kind thought but it was not the offer of help, but the way she offered that help that stung , it was in that obsequious and concerned way that is often adopted when one is talking to older people, but it is the first time I have been on the receiving end. Usually I dish it out.
From that you will understand that yesterday was also not a good day. I had just reached the bridge on the way to the Black Rabbit to book it for lunch tomorrow, and had stopped to take this picture because I was struck by the green tinge of growth under the water, when the problem started. I know this is a tad highbrow for my readership but stay with me. I was also struck by the strange macabre beauty of the water in front if the mill.
Green bloom in Arundel
I know what you are thinking; he’s been at the juice again but in fact the exact opposite is the case. Another almost teetotal day, being mistaken for an old person in trouble, sideways rain and then the message that Slash and Burn Thornton Allan is not well and there is a chance my day of fun tomorrow will not take place, together conspired to make yesterday memorable for all the wrong reasons.
There were good parts to the day; the sun came out for about ten minutes late in the afternoon, I am going to help a Currencies Direct customer to save over a thousand pounds in a house purchase by saving on the exchange rates and best of all Banjo, the disaster dog owned by that Nice Lady Decorator, has been muzzled for most of the day. He had clawed and bitten his way through a wooden cupboard door to steal food from the doggy larder, no doubt whilst the properly behaved dog, Max, the aristocratic and obedient well-mannered family pet loved by all, no doubt sat in his basket tutting. Banjo is the cabine equivalent, and as popular as, an Al Qaeda supporter in a hoody with a dose, and that is being generous.
So today might not be the fun interlude in a teetotal lock down that I had hoped. As I write I do not know if our visitors are still coming. Man flu is of course very serious, surpassing childbirth in terms of pain, distress and debilitation on most occasions but I know my friend realises my predicament and if he can come then he will. On the other hand there may be an ulterior motive. Cigars. He has promised to bring some so if he fails to arrive then I will smell a rat, instead of the aroma of Havana.
Chris France
@Valbonne_News
One seaside much like another?
I am a broken man and I blame, for the most part, Peachy Butterfield. It was always going to be a cold turkey kind of day and indeed I think it was a turkey in last nights stir fry. Post MIDEM depression is an annual event and seeing as I have suffered it for 32 years in succession I should not have been surprised. Bad times follow good, that Is life.
From the beaches of the Cote d’Azur to the beaches of Sussex represented a similar difference in the quality of life. On Wednesday we enjoyed a lazy drink on the beach in shirtsleeves before going to the airport and donning all the clothes in our suitcases. By way of utter contrast, yesterday we went to the beaches of Rustington and Clymping. Although there was a rare glimpse of English sun, the wind was close to gale force, I was wearing 6 layers of clothing, woolly hat and Wellington boots and I did not get a nice glass of champagne whilst sitting in my shirtsleeves in the sun. Had I tried that then hypothermia would have been a certainty and the bubbles would have been strewn Across the county.
Not that it was not exciting. The wind had whipped up large waves and with a spring tide there was even more damage to the sea defences. In the south of France the only damage inflicted by a walk at the sea-side would have been to one’s Gucci loafers on a stroll in the soft golden sand.
Sea defences get a battering
Back to work with a vengeance and with that Nice Lady Decorator determined to spend a couple of days without a drink which, by enforced association, is a position I am expected I have had to adopt. There was not even any solace to be had in a glass of crushed fruit, as Peachy likes to refer to red wine. Horlicks she said, as I had my face glued to a computer checking out the latest Currencies Direct exchange rates, and for a few milli-seconds as I had not heard here clearly , my face lit up, but she meant what she had said: Horlicks, nothing whatever to do with any licking of any sort by anyone and no association with loose women.
Today will be slightly better, well it had better be better having had a night off, and in any event it is the last day before Saturday, when Slash and Burn Thornton Allan arrives. To start with he will be in the thrall of those steely eyes owned by his wife and trained on him in much the way of a machine gun tower. However, we both know that after a couple of glasses of prosecco she becomes a pussy cat, full of sweetness and light (OK, we are pushing at the boundaries of belief here) and he can then relax, take string drunk (strong drink) smoke cigars with me.
So last night, after I could take no more Midsomers Murders, and in the absence of anything to dull that particular pain, I immersed myself in yet more work. I need to research where we will go for Easter, that Nice Lady Decorator having generously told the Sprogs that she would take then somewhere warm to celebrate the death of Jesus. I thought it was supposed to be hell where it was hot? Gas ovens are warm but regular readers will know that I am on dangerous ground here, given Sprog 1’s unfortunate “dwarf in the oven Project X” debacle. Anyway, in regard to the intended holiday, I am hoping that if I can come up with a good deal then she will take me too.
Chris France
@Valbonne_News
Final French farewell
A last lovely Bloody Mary on the beach in the sun shine at St Laurent du Var, close to Nice airport was a fitting farewell to France, at least for a few weeks. Feeling quite shabby after recent events it was a relief that the flight home was nicely timed in mid afternoon, late enough for a lie in and with enough time for a sharpener on the way to the airport. Our hosts and guardians of our house in Valbonne, the Butterfields, expressed the feeling that although it has been a lot of fun, they were delighted to see us go. The fact that they got us to the airport 3 hours early should in no way be construed as any sort of smear, or comment, they said.
From the sunshine of Cannes, it was almost inevitable that we would fly into the damp, dank and dreary London with a hangover, but it was worse than that, it was windy as well.
Reality is much less interesting than the super charged madness that is MIDEM and it will be a welcome change not to be required to have a drink. The fact that from today onwards it is no longer a requirement to take wine will of course make little difference because having started before we left, what was to be gained by being abstemious?
And so the laborious task of going through the notes made during the various meetings at MIDEM will commence this morning. Apart from momentous music based breakthroughs, there is the matter of the number of companies that could benefit from involving Currencies Direct in their foreign exchange movements. 5% is a lot to save on earnings from abroad. Many will be receiving courtesy calls in the next few days.
Just before the bloody Mary’s arrived on the beach at St Laurent Du Var
The highlights of the week have to be; a Burns Night, dinner with Al Yiddley, a birthday lunch and lunch on the beach at Rado Plage and a final dinner with that old smoothie Anthony “Doc Of The” Bay. It is just a shame they came one after the other as all were epic events which deserved more time to consider and enjoy.
Even the idea, mooted earlier, of popping next door for a pint of Harvey’s was replaced by the decision to take a shower and get into jim jams in front of the fire with a mug of Horlicks. This is what happens to you when you get to 59. Soon I will be getting some slippers and a cardigan.
We have two days to recover before the cream of Muswell Hill, Slash and Burn Thorton-Allan and the steely eyed beauty, his wife, Lisa, descend upon is for the weekend. I am hoping to see some of those cigars he has been promising since we were in Havana nearly a year ago. Hopefully we shall have put behind us the trauma of Sprog 1 reenacting a scene from Project X when a dwarf is put in an oven. My son is not a dwarf and their oven did not survive, and money will change hands to settle the cost of this prank which probably seemed very funny at 5am on New Years Eve morning. I am resigned to being the butt of humour with loads of oven gags being cooked up (there, even I have started).
Today however, my head will be down, working, or possibly in the sand if I still feel the way I do at the moment. Perhaps a stiff walk in the wind on the beach will get me going. maybe I will need a pint at lunchtime? Oops there goes the backbone again.
Chris France
@Valbonne_News
Lunch at Rado Plage
Lunch on the beach in Cannes in January is one of those sublime experiences that shaped my eventual love affair with the south of France. Flying from drizzly and depressing England to palm tree luncheon heaven on the beach at Cannes pictured today was one of the single most motivating episodes in my life. The other was to be employed in the music industry, but when that failed I realised that the only way forward was to employ myself.
MIDEM is one of the foremost gatherings for the music industry and so it was unsurprising to meet an old pal who has had an equally interesting career in the music industry as I. We met Pete Charlcraft, the president of Notting Hill Music, at Rado Plage to discuss matters of great import to the industry or rather to moan about the destruction of the business as we knew it. There was also the small matter of discussing the benefits of Currencies Direct.
Rado Plage, Cannes
Given our respective ages it was inevitable that the lunch would revolve around reminiscences, and so it did. Pete told us of his first few days working in music as the tea boy gofer at Bronze Records in the 70’s. During his first week in the office he encountered the drummer of Uriah Heep, a rock group of some repute signed to the label. He asked Pete if he could go and get a piece of carpet for him as they were rehearsing next door at The Roundhouse. Drummers often have trouble on stage with their drum kits moving about on shiny surfaces and often set up their kits on pieces of carpet to stop any movement. Pete duly set off to the nearest carpet shop about 2 miles away and bought a roll of carpet and dragged it back to the office. When he arrived back the drummer exclaimed that he only wanted a small piece, not enough to re carpet his lounge.
Unforecast and unwelcome cloud then moved in to obscure the sun and, it being January, we were forced under cover for coffee. Thus there was no point in hanging around for the sunset so we had the cheese packed into modern day doggie bags (tupperware containers) ready as an offering for the evening’s entertainment and headed back to Valbonne for a siesta. Given the exhausting nature of the past few days and the commencement of my 6th decade in this earth, the nap very nearly became an early bed time retirement, but at the last-minute I was persuaded to vacate my bed and arise like a Phoenix to go with Peachy Butterfield, the lovely Suzanne and that Nice Lady Decorator to dinner with Anthony “Dock Of The” Bay and his exquisite wife Amanda.
Anthony is an impossible old smoothie, a former diplomat and “intelligence officer who left because he was not sufficiently intelligent” with origins in old pre Shah Persia. He is somewhere between a very polite James Bond and a Latin scholar, who could look perfectly at home in a cravat. Indeed once I thought I caught him wearing one but he told me, rather sniffily, that it was in fact a silk scarf. Beautifully spoken and immaculate in whatever he wears (even in an Indian silk house coat that I was spotted him wearing at the Vignale tennis club) he exudes old school class. This theme continued with his casual introduction of a 1990 Grand Cru St Emilion at dinner, eschewed by Peachy on the grounds that it might interfere with his enjoyment of his favourite ‘card Bordeaux”, so-called because it is stored in cardboard boxed rather than bottles. It has a double use in removing stubborn pieces of chewing gum and bird droppings from outside surfaces and is handy for the girls when the run out of nail varnish remover.
Chris France
@Valbonne_News
All Yiddley, Armani and Arrogate
It was 11.20 before I crawled from my bed to ready myself for a birthday lunch. Had it be anybody else’s birthday but my own then I would have made my excuses and gone back to sleep. The only consolation was that my guardian, Peachy Butterfield, was in what seemed to be an even worse state than I.
It had been a very big night in Cannes the night before when we had all had dinner with northern comedy lawyer Al Yiddley (not his real name). I have a picture of the moment when Al decided to swap jackets with the Nice Lady Decorator.
Al Yiddley gets to grips with Armani
When I asked him if he liked Armani he said he had never been there and preferred “Arrogate for his olidays” which I translated to Harrogate for his holidays, which is a posh town in Yorkshire if that is not a contradiction in terms. Very expensive drinks in The Carlton and the copious amounts of wine at the lovely restaurant Pastis was followed later by stupidly partaking in post-dinner cognac and then a nightcap upon returning home. Thus to describe the effort required for Peachy and I to be washed and scrubbed and to report to the Auberge Provençal by 12.00 is beyond me.
Dragging ourselves there, a bloody mary did just enough to raise spirits for the birthday bash. New furniture and a sympathetic make over of this wonderful old building added to the occasion which was attended by rather fewer than has been expected. The Naked Politician had sent his apologies that he could not venture out of Monaco because of a bit of a sniffle. This apology was accepted for two reasons; firstly we have been invited to the birthday celebrations in Monaco for his dear wife and hand-brake, Dawn in April, and secondly because he is the owner if a rather lovely boat, the D5, and we would like to be invited aboard again at some stage. Those invitations have been somewhat thin on the ground ever since that Nice Lady Decorator rather too enthusiastically and literally grasped the opportunities presented by the Naked Politician on one of his renowned disrobing events aboard the boat.
Currencies Direct affiliate The Cornish Tsunami, as seems to be the case with tsunami warnings the world over, did not appear and neither did John Balodis, the designer of the jacket from the forthcoming best seller The Valbonne Monologues, despite the offer of a free lunch. However The Wingco, Blind Lemon Milsted and Anthony “dock of the ” Bay were in evidence as was Pete Bennett from Blue Water. After lunch, some of us accepted an invitation to continue proceedings chez Roly and Poly Bufton at one of their many palatial properties, and so we were off again.
The last day of MIDEM today in Cannes will culminate in lunch on the beach with old pal Pete Charlcroft who has somehow clawed his way up from washer-up and tea boy at Bronze Records in the early 70’s to President of Notting Hill Music in the States, a respected and respectable music publishing house. When I asked if he was President because everyone else had left I formed the opinion that I may now have to pay for lunch.
Thereafter we have an invitation to dinner but quite frankly after lunch on the beach and the events of the past few days has taken its inevitable toll, I have serious doubts about whether I shall make it. I need some beauty sleep before heading back to the dreary and dank UK tomorrow. On the other hand maybe I should gird my loins for one last south of France soirée before the period of quiet contemplation that lies ahead in February.
Chris France
@Valbonne_News
Table dancing again
I was pretty pleased that yesterday was a later start than Saturday for my MIDEM appointments. I think a first meeting at 1pm is quite early enough, especially after another big night in the Valbonnaise the night before. I had forgotten that things got a bit out of hand when that Nice Lady Decorator joined the lovely Chantel, who owns the joint, dancing on the tables. You would have thought that after her recent triple salka over a table whilst dancing on another table at lunch with the Wyatt Earp of Arundel, the lovely Kathryn just a week or so ago, she would have exercised more caution, but in her defence, she has been at the tender mercy of party provider Peachy Butterfield for much of the day. I have a picture below that captured the danger to which she was exposed.
Dancing on the tables at The Valbonnaise
Talking of danger, I risked the bus again, which had not turned out well on the return trip from Cannes on Saturday, when the bus was cancelled but nobody thought to let the waiting customers know, and resulted in me pressing money into the voracious hands of the Cannes taxi drivers.
Meetings finished, it seemed right to retire for a sharpener at about 6pm after a long day of ensuring the music industry is healthy enough to endure another year, I was joined a little later by that Nice Lady Decorator, man mountain Peachy Butterfield, in particularly thirsty form, and his lovely and as willowy as he is wide, wife Suzanne at the Carlton to meet northern comedy lawyer Al Yiddley for an impossibly expensive glass of champagne. If you were to be shocked that a pre dinner drinks bill could come to 220 euros then I suggest you sit down now.
Al was on top form as usual, uttering a string of abrasive comments and making a number of tasteless observations including one about a chap called Ben Dover that I simply cannot repeat here. From there we walked around the back of the Marriott Hotel to a restaurant with a growing reputation called Pastis where Suzanne and I shared a simply exquisite Chateaubriand.
Before that I had met up with a number of old cronies, the oldest and most crony like being dance guru John Saunderson and at least one new potential client for the services of Currencies Direct. Henry Semmence, expect a call as soon as you get back.
Today is a day off for me given that someone is commiserating a nearly significant birthday and my presence is required. To be honest, after the last few days, and as I write this at a sleepless moment at 6am, I would rather crawl into a hole and die rather than face another drink, but by midday I am certain I will have recovered and be back in the saddle.
The gathering will take place at Auberge Provençal in the square in the centre of Valbonne. A Myriad of characters who have received coverage in this column, most of it unfavourable, are expected to attend. The Wingco, Dancing Greg Harris, Blind Lemon Milsted, the Cornish Tsunami, the Naked Politician, Anthony “Dock Of The” Bay, plus a range of the usual suspects will number in the throng to pay homage to, well, me. In fact anybody who is in the area is welcome as I am not paying.
Then one last fling, lunch on the beach tomorrow in Cannes with long time music biz pal Pete Charlcroft, who has somehow worked his way up to be President of the US arm of Notting Hill Music from very lowly beginnings and then I will be allowed to go back to England for a rest.
Chris France
@Valbonne_News
In the swim of music again
I took the bus from Valbonne to Cannes, about 8 miles because it costs just a euro. The sun was shining, the snow was sparkling on the hills and I am back in the south of France. Complete happiness in other words . MIDEM, staged at Le Palais des Festivals was calling to me and I heeded that call. Before I left an almost silent house, if one ignores the chorus of snoring coming from those more fortunate than myself who were not required to work yesterday, I took this photo. It may give you some insight into why I love it here.
The welcome sight of my swimming pool
Lunch is traditionally taken on the first day of MIDEM at Rado Plage, on the beach in Cannes between the Carlton and the Martinez but as I have been eschewing (could that mean not chewing?) lunch whilst in England in an enforced regime designed to ensure my kilt does not shrink any further, I was reluctant to go there. Duty called however, and as I am charged with sourcing a venue for the showing of Otway The Movie, should it unaccountably not be selected for the Cannes Film Festival, I took the menu by the horns and pitched up. As soon as I arrived I was given a complementary glass of champagne and a menu. My fate was thus sealed, and anyway it was a very healthy lunch of the most excellent scallops in an orange sauce, the orange being counted as one of my five a day. That is my excuse and I am sticking to it.
Returning to the bosom of Valbonne in late afternoon, I was completely unsurprised that Peachy Butterfield was well into his stride, having partaken of a couple of piche’s of ropey rose at lunchtime and then continued on his merry way until my arrival. We were scheduled to go to the Valbonnaise last night and there was a very real danger that he was going to be as he describes it; POA, Pissed On Arrival. I was right.
The mans properties as an alcoholic Sponge leave me in awe. It might be possible for me to match him drink for drink should I ever decide that I want to die early. Anyway after a very short siesta I was being urged in to partake of a pint of Guinness at the Queens Legs before adjourning for dinner.
It was at the pub that we encountered Irishman John “800 years of repression” O Sullivan and his magnificently well endowed wife, Jude (sorry Lin), renowned in this column for her capacity to drink Baileys, that sickly digestive loved only by those with underdeveloped taste buds. She revealed that she has just taken delivery of a new dog, which she has decided to name Bailey. It can only be a matter of time before she has another with the same name so that she can describe them as a pair of Baileys.
They joined us, the Butterfields and Roly and Poly Bufton for the meal at the Valbonnaise which was the normal triumph. The scruffy poorly lit but hugely atmospheric restaurant run by husband and wife Chantel and Jean-Luc who are funny and charming is amongst my favourites in Valbonne, but in a sign of the worsening economy in the south of France exacerbated by the crazy economic policies of first M. Sarkozy and now M. Hollande, seemingly intent of squeezing more money from the ex pat community that underpins the local economy, the restaurant was not full on a Saturday night. Perhaps the ex pats are keeping their money dry given the ridiculous drop in the value of the £ against the euro in recent weeks.
Chris France
@Valbonne_News
Just desserts
What a home-coming. Beers on the beach at sunset, Pink furry handcuffs, nipple tassels and horseradish sauce instead of yoghurt . All of these things contributed towards a memorable return to my spiritual home in the south of France.
But let me start at the beginning. Arriving into Nice airport into 15 degrees and blue sky, it was the most natural thing in the world to divert to nearby St Laurent du Var to have a couple of beers and watch the sun go down beside a deep blue sea. I have been away too long. The misery of an English winter was suddenly forgotten and a long way away after just 2 beers sitting in the sunshine watching the Mediterranean unfold gently in front of us. The long-suffering Suzanne Butterfield and the long-term insufferably optimistic Peachy were at the airport to meet us and required almost no persuasion at all to divert in search of a south of France special moment.
Even just flying into Nice Airport is uplifting
There was a special moment again as we arrived at our house and I found my kilt and managed to get it on. I had been a little concerned that a period of good living and a rather too intimate acquaintance with quality English beer may have caused me to muscle up sufficiently to preclude my being shoe horned into it, but all was well. I could hardly breathe but all was well.
The kilt was a hit. Burns Night with Roly and Poly Bufton was an even bigger hit with champagne, great found, wonderful company, the essence of the south of France, but most of all good gossip.
The gossip flowed as much as the wine. It seems that when clearing out one of the Sprogs bedrooms ( I cannot name him as he is my only son) that Nice Lady decorator found in one if the drawers, a pair of pink fluffy handcuffs. It seems that our Sprog must have secured his pair from a job lot as another son of some of our close friends made exactly the same discovery when their son went off to university. I cannot reveal the name of The miscreant but his parents, “Slash and burn” Thornton Allan and his steely eyed beauty of a wife Lisa will know the name of their first-born.
At this stage Peachy stood up and admitted that he too had a pair of furry handcuffs but was precluded from using then because he could not open the packaging. More distressing is that he then claimed to be the proud owner if a pair of nipple tassels but again has been unable fully to enjoy the benefits they may bestow because he couldn’t get them open. I have so missed the rich stream of information and embarrassment upon which this column feeds.
Better was to come as we were treated to an in-depth analysis of the action required to ensure that the nipple tassels fulfilled their raison d’être. It seems that one must gyrate ones hips in an anti clockwise direction whilst trying to ensure ones tassels revolved in a clockwise detection, or it could have been the other way around, I don ‘t think it matters. Several attempts to demonstrate the action required were made by some of the guests, well, one in particular, but I forgive her as she is my wife.
Then there was the horseradish sauce which was not yoghurt and which that Nice Lady Decorator had applied liberally to her desert. She has in the past insisted on ruining strawberries by smothering them in black pepper so I thought it was another of these strange quirks. I think, if you were I, and writing this column, and trying and failing to find some way of mentioning the benefits of Currencies Direct, you may contend that she got her just desserts.
Chris France
@Valbonne_News
Sunday roast shock
We lasted until 4pm. By this stage it had been almost 48 hours since we had been lured onto a pub, (with the notable exception of my meeting with Hakuna Pesa) but as it was approaching holiday time for that Nice Lady Decorator, and serious work time for me in Cannes, to where we are travelling today, we decided that it was time to take off the restraints. We headed at first to The Bridge in Amberley for a restorative pint of the second best beer in the world, Timothy Taylor’s Landlord. Whilst there, huddled inside by the very welcome log fire sensing the snow grow ever more crispy outside, I noticed that they are offering a Sunday roast and took this picture.
Is the meaning clear?
There seems to me to be something rather obvious that they are missing here. A Sunday roast seems to have a vital element to it, indeed it has only two elements; Sunday and roast. This, to a pedant with too much time on his hands, and a pint of beer in one of those hands and a camera phone in the other, represented just the kind of thing that this column loves to discuss. What indeed is the point if stating that a Sunday roast is for Sundays only? Is a Wednesday roast different? Would a Friday roast involve fish? Upon returning home, we were intercepted by the lovely Omega, the betrothed to James “Desperate Dan” the Landlord of the White Hart as we walked through the garden intent on dinner, and it was only a short matter of time before we found ourselves back there in celebration of Harvey’s of Lewis, having “eaten up the fridge”. This is a process in which I am forced to involve myself before we leave to go on a trip. Everything perishable in it must be consumed. After We had enjoyed the last of the snows in the South Downs in the morning – it will be milder in the next few days – I returned to my kennel for a contribution to the dog’s life I have, explaining the benefits of having an account with Currencies Direct, and then to pack. The first thing was to ensure I have sufficient cigars for the trip. The smoking of Monte Christo no. 2’s looms large at MIDEM. That Nice Lady Decorator has made rather a rude inference that I may not be able to squeeze into my kilt for the Burns Night celebrations this evening with Roly and Poly Bufton. This is a scurrilous slur although perhaps with all the walking and cycling I have been doing recently perhaps, she might have been referring to extra muscle development, however, the guffaw she let out when I suggested this indicated that she held a slightly different view. I think she erroneously believes that the problem may lie with over consumption of English beer in the, frankly, awful winter weather. I shall prove her wrong this evening, unless it has shrunk in the wash. Cannes at this time of year can be wonderful. All of the beach restaurants are open and although it is not quite shorts weather, unless you are Peachy Butterfield, it is often possible to sit on the sand in shirtsleeves and have a proper lunch. This of course is all in support of the crusade of spreading music around the world, and one to which I have dedicated myself for the last 30 odd years. Any suggestion that it is now just an excuse for dinosaurs of the music industry to eat, drink and testiculate (verb meaning to wave ones arms around and talk bollocks) is not a description that this dinosaur recognises. Chris France @Valbonne_News
The futures so bright, I gotta wear shades
Three days to get a repeat prescription? I could be dead by then. In fact before I am allowed to collect my life saving drugs, I will be abroad in France, readying myself for international music business junket MIDEM, but if the UK health service got its way I shall be without those vital drugs needed to keep my heart ticking and my blood pressure down. What an irony, my blood pressure will probably rise because I cannot get my blood pressure tablets! This is a health service? more like a health disservice. Help is at hand though, because my French doctor, Dr Ireland is happy to leave a repeat prescription in his office ready for me on Friday afternoon. So it is a fact that I can fly to France and get prescription drugs quicker than I can from my doctor in Arundel.
I expect to need those tablets. I have been asked by Peachy Butterfield, who will be collecting us from Nice airport on Friday afternoon, (well he won’t be driving that will be down to his saintly wife Suzanne as usual) if I am thirsty already, and I have to admit I am. With a grizzly day of rain and sleet greeting me after my return from the still snowy (hurrah!) South Downs this morning, I could do with some French food, wine and sunshine.
Yes, I know I am going to a Burns Night the first evening after we arrive and that I shall be forced to eat haggis, but the sun will shine, and everything will be rosy in my little world. In fact I think I shall be needing these in the picture below,for the first time since leaving Tenerife last week, and I don’t mean the towel…(although with a kilt and …..no don’t go there).
Cool shades
Dinner with northern Jewish lawyer Al Yiddley who hails from Alwoodley near Leeds is set for Saturday evening. He should be able to lower the tone of the Carlton, where tradition dictates we have a couple of the most expensive glasses of champagne on the planet before hitting the old town of Le Suquet for what he would no doubt describe as a slap up meal. I guess in the north that would normally mean a fight at the fish and chip shop.
There was talk today of The Nice Lady Decorator’s very impressive triple salko at a luncheon at the weekend. I must say when she first went down, I was really worried, but then I remembered there was some ready cooked meals in the fridge. I have not mentioned this to her, but as she hardly ever reads it nowadays, I think I will get away with it.
For last night and tonight, well last night anyway, I eschewed strong drink unless you call a virgin mary strong, and I do not. It is a necessary precaution before the onslaught, which is life in the south of France and in the tender embrace of Peachy Butterfield, gets under way. That means I had to stay in and watch TV where an impossibly good-looking John Bon Jovi was appearing on the execrable One Show on BBC 1, a favourite amongst the female contingent of my household. If that boy has not had some work done then I am a banana. He looked about 22 and must be my age or near it. Lay your hands on me, indeed. Today or rather this evening I feel I must break myself in gently, possibly with a few pints in the White Hart. Watch this space.
Chris France
@Valbonne_News
Banjo gets the finger
It started well. A walk across the beautiful snow fields of Sussex was cold, fresh but uplifting (except for the presence of Banjo, the cocked up cocker) but by lunchtime it was raining, a very depressing scenario on almost any occasion, but doubly so as it means the walks on the downs in the crisp snow have finished for the time being. I have an aversion to mud, so the bike will be probably be back out today. This picture will probably be the last from the winter wonderland.
Even the snowman puts a finger up to Banjo
A meeting later in the evening with a member of local band Hakuna Pesa, literally “no money” in Swahili, took place with the idea of my trying to make them some money. It seems that the band donate most of their income to a charity supporting kids in Kenya. I see my potential role of helping them to increase their income and thus the income to the charity, and perhaps as a side effect a little income to cover my swingeing expenses. How they send the money to Kenya was also discussed and regular readers will know that the services of Currencies Direct and how they can help would have been a recurring theme.
That Nice Lady Decorator declined to join me in the White Hart as “all I was going to talk about was music business crap” and to be fair she had a point, although we did briefly talk about foreign exchange crap as well.
There will be a great deal more talking music business crap in the coming week as MIDEM, the annual music industry convention, takes place in Cannes. It is perhaps apt that the best known band appearing this year is reputed to be Madness, perhaps a fitting narrative to illustrate loads of veteran music industry moguls sitting down eating and drinking and complaining that the business is not what it was. I shall be there to commiserate with my fellow old gits. It is perhaps ironic that the first formal meeting in my diary is with a company specialising in vinyl releases. Very modern.
The fast approaching prospect of a visit back to my spiritual homeland, the south of France, for a few days on Friday is very welcome. I have not been in Valbonne for months and am hoping to see most of the usual suspects and to have a drink in the web, our outside bar, which I can see from regular photographs on Peachy Butterfield’s Facebook page has been in constant use. I am prepared to forego proper beer for a few days and take on whatever viticultural bargain that Peachy has discovered. Last time it was a particularly abrasive Cote du Rhone which he gleefully told me he had picked up for 1.39 euros a bottle. Yes, that means be bought considerably more than one. However on a short-term basis I will grin and bear it.
So what better way to celebrate a home-coming to the gastronomic centre of the earth than to sit down on the first evening and eat haggis. Burns Night is nearly upon us, and secreted about our luggage will be several of them (haggae? Is that the plural of haggis? Surely it is not haggisses?) ready for a celebration chez Roly and Poly Bufton on Friday night.
I have been asked in the past why I have a kilt and the reason is because I can. For some reason never fully explained to me, the France family name has the right to wear the Stewart tartan and, given the peculiar uninhibited underwear conventions that (may) exist when wearing this traditional garb, there can be certain advantages. In my younger days those advantages tended to manifest themselves in a curious need by ladies present to know if it were true. Nowadays the benefits tend to be limited to having one less garment to deal with when having a pee.
Chris France
@Valbonne_News
Prosthetic leg pulling
“I just need to walk up to the architects in Tarrant Street, do you want to come with me?” said that Nice Lady Decorator yesterday lunchtime. This had followed her earlier statement of intent, uttered in the most severe and determined tones at breakfast, that she was committed not to be tempted to have a drink before we head off to France on Friday.
“But that means that we have to walk past the Kings Arms” said I, in a fit of unaccustomed fear of what might occur should temptation prevail. I hate to say I told you so, but that is the case for the defence.
As we walked past on the way back I could feel the temptation twitching and so it came to pass that we diverted into the pub, just for the one you understand.
Just the one became, after a injudicious withdrawal to The Swan Hotel, also passed on a slightly diverted route home, to no more than 5. At least that is when I gave up counting. For the record I was in no way in favour of such backsliding but as regular readers will no doubt attest, my determination is somewhat lacking when it comes to temperance, and when one is faced with someone who is as committed to having her own way as that Nice Lady Decorator, one’s backbone has a tendency to turn to putty. To say she is a difficult to divert would be a bit like describing Himmler as a bit of a naughty boy.
It was at the Kings Head, in the presence of the landlord Charley “Pistorius” Malcomson that the question of pictures from the lunch with the Wyatt Earp of Arundel the day before, came to the fore. Wyatt herself was nowhere to be seen and I had not had the chance to review the pictures I had taken on my phone at that lunch the day before, and it was only Charley’s chance mention of photographs that made me look at my iPhone, and this is one of the best I came across.
Nice Lady Decorator pulling a leg
You will see the reason why Charley is known as Pistorius. That Nice Lady Decorator has always had what some might call “an enquiring mind”. Others might describe this trait as being nosey, but I count myself, for obvious reasons of self-preservation, amongst the first group. Whatever the grouping, I knew that at some stage, that enquiring mind would overcome her undeveloped sense of reserve when tackling what others night consider taboo subjects. Charley’s motor bike accident in the mid 1980’s necessitated the amputation of part of his leg, a loss that many would have found devastating, but Charley has embraced the use of a prosthetic leg, and forged a career for himself as a very good pub landlord. This was the scenario that I had most feared. An enquiring mind coming up against a fascinating fact, and the enquiring mind was not to be denied.
I suppose that once she discovered that the leg of the day was his leopard print version then the slippery slope was inevitable . What is more difficult to justify is the picture above. It seems that he has several false legs of different colours but had no idea; 1/ how much that Nice Lady Decorator likes animal print and; 2/ he would be forced into the position of revealing its colour and inner workings at a lunch, where the advantages offered by Currencies Direct and its foreign transactions service was hardly mentioned and 3/ to have it raised above his head during lunch.
Chris France
@Valbonne_News
The source of yellow snow
More light snow yesterday morning persuaded us to go not to the coast, but to Houghton woods to see how bad were the roads, but disappointingly they were clear although the snow was settling elsewhere in the countryside. Not having to leave the house for a commuter trip to my office on daily basis as it is in my garden, I love the chaos that snow causes and love nothing more than bombing around the deserted snow-covered Lido car park at the back in the 4×4 doing hand brake turns, although it is fair to say that this does not impress that Nice Lady Decorator.
It is fairly simple to exercise the dogs as they are content to race after snow balls which are if course impossible to find. It seems that they must employ their sense of smell for these elusive balls, and by way of illustration of this search technique I took this picture of events as the search for yellow snow got underway. It reminds me of the old joke “how does a dog smell with no nose?”. I think the Reverend Jeff has the answer.
The search for the source of the yellow snow goes on
It was important to build up a thirst and an appetite for lunch with the Wyatt Earp of Arundel, who was apparently having a day off from running men out of Arundel. She denies ever having described herself as thus but it is not something I would have invented. Colt 45’s at midday to settle it? I might have suggested had I been that brave.
As our route to her house took us past the Kings Arms, it seemed churlish not to drop in for a pint, especially as the landlord Charley ” Pistorius” Malcomson and his wife the willowy and beautiful “Bowling” Ally were fellow lunchers. A couple of pints of London Pride before being lassooed for lunch seemed the perfect start. Talking of lassooing, perhaps that us the only thing that might have prevented what happened later on. Lunch had extended way into the evening and sufficient wine had been consumed, at least by that Nice Lady Decorator, for her to be dancing on the dinner table. I think the dinner things had been cleared away but am not certain.
What happened next was, I suppose , inevitable. Almost in slow motion, during a particularly vigorous dance movement which could have been the hallmark of Michael Jackson, the reverse somersault went slightly awry and she disappeared over the back of the table into the floor. “I’m all right” she said as she surfaced from beneath the table, and indeed she was and I am sure that the lump the size if an egg on the back of her head will have gone down this morning.
It seemed to me to be a sign that the evening was drawing to its natural conclusion, but that view was not shared by that Nice Lady Decorator, although she seemed to decide of her own accord not to reattempt the triple salko. Eventually I managed to extract her from proceedings and we stumbled home in the by now crunchy snow.
Monday is work day and that means Currencies Direct. It also means preparations for MIDEM in Cannes this coming weekend. A joyous return to France on Friday to meet and no doubt dine with the elder statesmen if the fast swindling old school music business. I shall also be taking the opportunity to hook by with old pals and take lunch at Auberge St Donat, hopefully sometime next week. Until Friday then, not a drop will touch my lips, honest.
Chris France
@Valbonne_News
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