Garden gnome horror
And so the prospect of some proper French culture is on today’s horizon and the return to my occasional activities for Currencies Direct. I mention culture as I am a great lover of many things French, the style and class of many of their activities, places and customs. By way of contrast my picture today seems to say something about the quality of style exhibited by some Englishmen.
After a long day spent impersonating “white van man” pretending to be a removal man and saying things like “all right guv” and “over there me old china” it seemed somehow right and proper that we had been invited to neighbours Mr Paul Fridge Magnet Magnate North, who has often featured in this column in the early days as a figure of fun, for a fair well drink. He has a rough rustic charm which is endearing in a limited and mind narrowing way. Who can forget his many pronouncements about “Johnny Foreigner”, Arsenal Football Club or when talking about his golf slice and his contention that all golf coursed should comprise 18 dog leg rights? Or indeed his conviction that all wine is crap and his hatred of all things French, or indeed foreign. They are forever a stain on my memory. However, with passing of the years I had hoped that a smidgen of maturity may have emerged, a slight relaxation in his resemblance to a latter day Alf Garnet and I think it is true to say there has been limited progress as the picture I show today, taken in his garden seems to reveal.
The one on the right is clearly training to be a policemen
It is of course a couple of garden gnomes, the collection of which is an endearing English habit for the lower classes and one that despite my humble upbringing I never quite understood, far less embraced. What I think is interesting here is that they seem to be dressed in Arsenal livery. Perhaps it is some kind of oblique comment on the team are playing at the moment? Suffice to say that on the graph of social improvement Mr North has made rather slow progress. His school report had he ever attended such an institution consistently could read “not good enough, see me afterwards”.
Today then a short-term return to France as I am now an English dweller for the next year or so at least, a fact forced upon me by Mr Sarkozy kindly changing the capital gains tax laws of France in January. Do not be down hearted though as I shall be continuing to report on life in Valbonne when I am there and from anywhere else when I am not.
I left France with that nice lady decorator on March 6th and will return for the Easter period to welcome back my two expensive sprogs who even at this moment I can feel plotting to extract as much money from me as possible. It is a bit like being stalked. Whilst I shall be pleased to see them both I am thinking of sewing up my pockets before they arrive.
The pleasures that await me however are enough to compensate. Lunch at the Auberge St Donat, sitting with a glass of rose in Valbonne Square in the sunshine, golf, tennis, walking in the Valmasque and the return of my style guru from New York. Mr Humphreys who is not currently Free but has instead been free wheeling (Mr fridge Magnet thinks this refers to a three-wheeler) his way around the East coast of America and has been causing a quite a stir in the big apple with his “unique” style so I am anxiously awaiting his sartorial reaction to exposure to Manhattan. I do hope that he is home by Friday for “church” in Cafe Latin to witness the results.
Chris France
Putting your foot in it
The plan, hatched whilst was following up some Currencies Direct leads to help distressed ex pats from paying their banks more than they should for foreign exchange transfers, was to go to the Bell in Aston Clinton. This is the pub which was a famous restaurant and, I think, a hotel, the haunt of pop stars and film stars in the 60’s and 70’s. In my youth I recall a story about Mick Jagger being refused entry because he refused to remove the mink hat he was wearing. It was one of the places at which to be seen until the late 1990’s when the owner died, I think being run over in a tragic accident outside the pub which was on the original route of the A41. It was then taken over by one of those horrid pub chains intent on making each of their establishments indistinguishable from another, a homogeneous disaster, removing all sense of honest history and character and instead applying an appalling sanitised fake horse brass style, anathema to anyone with a true love or understanding of old original English pubs.
Recently however, an attempt has been made to restore it to something of its former glory and we had planned to go and cast an eye over it and check the progress of its recovery.
On the way we were invited to the Savins, Janie, her of the watering of the fake banana activities and Pedro, famous for losing to me at golf so often. Champagne was suggested as a lure, and was accepted with alacrity by that nice lady decorator and before I knew what had happened, Slash and Burn Thornton Allan had returned to my house to pick up some redundant bottles of Chateau Musar and Chateau Muriel Grand Reserva, and the intended trip to The Bell failed to materialise. A barbecue was rustled up from nowhere and the afternoon plans changed shape for there really is no place else on earth to be on a sunny and warm spring on a Sunday afternoon on a delightful English garden with a glass of champagne, a very decent red wine finished off with an XO brandy. If the weather was like this every day then I suspect I would never have moved to France.
Realistically though, we all know this is a blip, a small and soon to be forgotten gap in the unrelenting dreariness of the UK as it is normally. Summer will soon be over and normal service will be resumed in the very near future. I am just thankful that I have been here for the few days during that blip.
Obviously with the quality and quantity of the liquids available there were going to be casualties and my picture today captures repairs “on the hoof” as it were. Slash and Burn managed somehow to place that nice lady decorators chair between his foot and terre firma and was jumping about with a damaged toe as a result. Ice was prescribed by us, the onlookers but with none immediately available (one cannot criticise our hosts for having none to hand in England in March), so the old Monty Python adage “adopt adapt, improve” was applied and the champagne cooling sleeve was applied with, it has to be said minimal practical effect, but it did provide this daily missive with a photograph for today.
A clear case of clubfoot, Canadian Club that is.
I hear that my style guru, Mr Humphrey’s, is not free at the moment as he is in New York mainly for shopping it appears. His Facebook page betrays an alarming message, in that he may not be quite the right style guru for me. Even in New York it seems, carrying a man bag (which is his chosen mark of manhood) is viewed in some quarters as rather daring, but it was the revelation that he caught a shop assistant sniggering as he left the shop clutching his latest sartorial discovery. I will not be downhearted, he is my guru and will follow him to the end of fashion.
Chris France
Us writers must stick together
It was as she was unscrewing the screws holding up one of the corner cupboards on the wall of our house in UK whilst I was holding it to prevent it falling that she said “I could have done with something with a longer handle”. My retort, which was that she had married me so she had to put up with the results was met with that dismissive snort I have come to covert. It is the sort of snort I often hear from people who are using their banks to move foreign currency rather talking to me about the benefits of opening an account with Currencies Direct.
So after a busy morning wading through the accumulated detritus of our lives, Mr Clipbeard showed up to have a nose around. Inevitably after he had cast his eyes over my belongings and selected some of the best pieces in order to adorn his new abode we adjourned to the pub, The Chequers in Weston Turville which is much nicer outside than inside but to which I am warming as at least the staff are pleasant and the beer is good.
Inevitably, at least inevitably in my opinion, discussion turned to the success or otherwise of my book “Summer In The Cote d’Azur”. Mrs Clipbeard who along with Mr Clipbeard was visiting us in Buckinghamshire. Her brother is the famous historian and fellow writer Andrew Roberts (mentioned by our Prime Minister Mr Cameron during his public pronouncements with President Obama recently) who is nearly as famous as I. She had told me some weeks earlier that she would ask him to review my modest offering in his column for The Sunday Times, but it appears, and this may be an understatement, that he was slightly reluctant to do so. Jealously can be so destructive don’t you think? I do feel us writers should stick together and support each other. I was saying just the same to my mate Ernest Hemingway who as you can see from my picture is alive and well and living in Havana.
Ernest Hemingway in Floridita's in Havana
On Friday evening at the excellent Raj Indian restaurant in Wendover, Slash and Burn Thornton Allan, who is our house guest whilst we are in England, was praising the tarka dal served to him saying it was best he had ever taste. When I remonstrated with him that he was cruel and heartless and that I did not think a curry was a very pleasant ending for an otter he declined to agree saying that if anything it should be a little hotter. A clear case of Tarka The Otter.
Slash and Burn also claimed during an early evening pint yesterday in surprisingly warm sunshine to have made some 250 flights last year which sounds excessive to me and I must admit I lost the thread of the conversation. I heard mention of DVT as a result of this “high” life but as anyone with any knowledge of technology will know this will soon be replaced entirely by Blu-Ray.
Anyway, the local populace were enjoying the weather, summer has come early to England but soon it will be over and then winter will beckon. Sadly I will be sharing this fate with them much more than I would like this year due to Mr Sarkozy and the idiosyncrasies of the French tax system which has involved my becoming a UK tax resident again.
Just two more days now and I will be returning to France and although the last few days have produced a rather rich vein of blog fodder, I feel that Valbonne provides the richest and most continuingly reliable seam to mine. I shall soon be donning a miners helmet and begin to dig.
Chris France
Voyage of disc recovery
It was over breakfast when I mentioned in passing my intention to take time off from house clearing and my work with Currencies Direct in order to play golf with Mr Fridge Magnet Magnate aka Paul North. The look came immediately. You know that look you get when you have been startled by headlights? No that was not her, that was me when she had considered my idea and as a result I had received the laser beam stare and torrent of invective which usually means I have either done something wrong, am considering doing anything wrong or look like I am about to do anything wrong, or in this case because I had stupidly made a decision all on my own. To be fair, with the clearance of our UK house as it has been sold after only 7 years on the market (really quite brisk) upper most in her mind and her continuing to work like a Trojan from dawn to dusk (after dusk it’s to the pub obviously), I should have seen it coming. Possibly the biggest mistake came when I jocularly suggested that perhaps I would be better off out of her hair. This did not go down well, so golf was postponed. Mr Fridge Magnet Magnate can keep his £10 and his girls handicap for another day.
When one is awarded a silver, gold or platinum record as I have been fortunate enough to have done in the course of my music business career, one does like to display them, especially if one is an insufferable show off like me. However the kind of display featured in my picture today was not quite what I had in mind. The flooded barn had damaged a number of them and so they were left out in the unseasonable sunshine to dry off before the process of repairing or scrapping them is undertaken.
Those that have said in the past that the music I have represented was a bit wet get their reward.
I am invited to attend an evening of Cuban music in Sophia Antipolis shortly after i return to France but have declined saying that if I heard “Guantanamera” one more time in the near future I was going to kill someone, which was probably a little ill-judged as that is where they are still keeping all those Al Qaeda suspects, in Guantanamera Bay.
So after another grueling day of tip runs and wrapping up boxes, I was looking forward to a curry last night at The Raj in Wendover after a few beers in the very noisy but forgiven as it is now a Fullers pub, The Red Lion in Wendover. Upon hearing the accent of our Indian waiter which was more Tottenham that Taj Mahal, she said “you must know Wayne Brown” our erstwhile news hound behind successful Cote d’Azur on-line lifestyle magazine FR2day and gourmets delights Red Radish, but curiously he did not. The food and service were excellent and showed just why the best English cooking is Indian.
What looks as if it will be another astonishingly good day today in terms of weather for March in England will be beautifully counterpointed by an astonishingly bad day being a removal man and revisiting one of my earliest jobs when I was a dustman during my A level summer holidays. As Winston Churchill might have said: Never in the history of human nest building have so many items been collected for so long by so few.
And so, as you read this I shall be knee-deep in lady decorator detritus. Please pray for me.
Chris France
Pretty in pink
Once again I was set up to be one of the Village People. Yes, I was required to meet the great and the good of Weston Turville and it says much about the village that the best they could come up with was fridge magnet salesman Paul North. Too say that he is a touch unsophisticated is like saying John Terry is a little indiscreet. The farmers boy from Quarrendon is cleverer than he pretends but not as bright as he thinks.
Lets start from the beginning. Another depressing day discovering relics from my rock and roll past damp and disorganised after a flood. I think the neighbours were a little disconcerted by the 30 or so gold discs drying against the wall and in fact I think I am in need of drying out as well. A decision was made to go to the Village Gate pub to meet some Village People at 7 sharp, a collection of old friends, none of whom deigned to appear much before 8.30 by which time the London Pride had stepped in and made its mark. My picture today is a suggestion of what have been an appropriate car in which to visit the village People
A suitable car to go to see The Village People
It was then that one of the biggest of the Village People, Paul North, cast a large shadow over the door. A former butcher, his wit could never be described as subtle, although there is subtle humour in his job which as I said earlier is a fridge magnet salesman. Let me give you an idea of his light humorous touch. He thought it was funny to throw my golf shoes down the garden late last night although why is still a mystery but I was able to retrieve them this morning ready for an impromptu round of golf with him this afternoon at the dull and uninteresting Weston Turville golf course. He will doubtless still be claiming his girls handicap of 28, and if he wins will almost certainly take the wagered bank-note and stick it on his head in that childish fashion that so suits him. Of course if I win then it is a noble gesture and celebration of success and not at all tacky.
The prospect of returning to my beloved France and especially Valbonne is looming into view and frankly I cannot wait. Before that though, there is the small matter of golf this afternoon and then drinks at ours before heading to The Raj Indian restaurant in Wendover. Amongst the people attending will be Peter and the fabulously attractive and blonde Janie Savin. Janie will be well known to readers who have followed this blog from the beginning for it was her that spent the week when staying with us in France last summer of watering my plastic fake banana palm, and getting her reward at the end of the week when I secured a bunch of bananas to hang on the tree. Also, she cannot say the word Riviera. To her it is always Riveriera, as in Riverieria Radio. This is of course far to tempting a target for me and so I like to have fun inveigling the word Riviera into as many sentences as possible. She is always pleases by this, often to the extent of threatening my physical bodily harm. Some women are so unpredictable.
I have just noticed that I am into the last paragraph of this daily missive and I have yet to mention the services of Currencies Direct so do you what? will not mention their wonderful foreign exchange services, but will leave it for another day, almost certainly tomorrow
Chris France
New lease of life for Village People?
The Village Gate is a pub that used to be called The Marquis Of Granby. It is just outside Weston Turville and is where many of the villagers who have deserted The Chequers go to eat and drink. This seems a strange name for a pub, and I am not sure whether I would be content with being a regular here as one may consider ones self one of the Village People. Does it mean I have to wear a Red Indian headpiece or get a porno moustache?
Talking of porno moustaches, after my recent restaurant “accident” in which my luxuriant long beard was hacked off by some jealous public schoolboys one lunchtime at The Auberge St Donat in Plascassier, I have been nurturing a splendid handlebar moustache which is curling nicely a la Salvador Dali. I do hope it is not an impediment this evening when I am amongst the Village People at the Village Gate. I also fervently hope that it gets up the noses (not literally you understand) of the many public schoolboy acquaintance I have accumulated when I return to France next week. There are of course no public schoolboys left in Buckinghamshire. I have a picture of what the original Village People might look like now which I publish today.
I always said that low carb diet would end in tears
So having attended the Village People pub, and enjoyed the delights of battered fish and chips with the unwelcome addition of green pea puree of mushy peas made into a much smaller serving by liquidising the horrible green concoction to within an inch of its life, we adjourned to our English house to drink a quite agreeable 2005 Rioja, the bottle of which was covered in chicken wire, a sign, according to that nice lady decorator that the wine was of superior quality, although superior to what was never fully explained.
I suppose I should be glad the pub is not called The Village Bike, otherwise my sabre sharp sense of humour would have been wheeled out and had a field day. This be-spoke column could have ended up as a true tour de France force with a chain of comments about my handlebar moustache. Ok, I am now tyred of the bike jokes.
I think the discovery in the afternoon whilst clearing the Stygian depths of the old barn of the collection of miniature bottles of everything from brandy, Cointreau, Armagnac and old malt whisky was sufficiently frightening for me and had the required effect of ensuring I was in bed early, nursing my moustache before the inevitable sampling by that nice lady decorator probably commenced to begin writing today’s missive. I have realised that I like writing but its the paperwork I don’t like.
My thoughts are returning to events in France and Valbonne in particular. The new South Of France English Theatre company must now be working on the second production which will be performed next month, details on their website. I must also regather the tennis troops as I have not played for ages. The house is being looked after by the Wingco but I made the mistake of leaving several magnums of Barbera d’Alba on the sideboard so I suspect that there will be some cock and bull story about them falling off and smashing to cover up the inevitable consumption thereof. Then on Friday next, I may look into Cafe Latin to hear all the gossip and grab some of it for this column. In the meantime I will suffer the indignities of England, where I have a cold, my first one for years. I do so love the old country with all its benefits.
Chris France
Not mushroom in the garden
Before I fully resume my duties for Currencies Direct I will need to move some furniture etc back to Valbonne and need a furniture removal company. I have seen an advert in some local magazines for a company called Tooth Removals. I mentioned this to that nice lady decorator and she wanted to know why I needed a dentist to transport furniture. Maybe they are based in Denton? I look a bit down in the mouth because I won’t be back in Valbonne until next week.
I thought I had done all the dentist jokes until I heard from Slash And Burn Thornton Allan that he has a chinese dentist and he had an appointment there yesterday at tooth hurty, and I am not joking,
Last night to what used to be one of the best pubs in Buckinghamshire, The Chequers in Weston Turville which has all its character, removed by the new owners and is not even a shadow of its former self. It did however serve a very decent pint of Timothy Taylor Landlord which is the second best beer in the world behind Fullers London Pride. A discussion ensued about interesting names given to beers and I think my favourite was one I spotted when in Cornwall last year when I found a pint of Ginger Tosser. The beer was awful though, so bad I found the need to call up a couple of my red-headed friends and tell them about it, they were so pleased to hear from me.
Today I shall be spending another day with that nice lady decorator in hoarding mode and be trying to reduce the amount of stuff she wants to keep. Actually she has been very good but I need to keep a close eye on her. Let me give an example; Yesterday she was successful in persuading me she should keep the wooden toadstools I made for a joke 10 years ago pictured today. Do you see what I am getting at?
Its amazing! magic mushrooms have grown again!
She had bought some mushroom spores or mushroom compost as I had complained that mushrooms bought from supermarkets had no taste and I could not find field mushrooms anywhere. So I could not resist whittling a few “magic” mushrooms and planting them in the same spot about a week later (I know, I need to get a proper job, too much time on my hands then).
Of course, nowadays, with my position at Currencies Direct and as a sucessful author I have little time for leisure as regular readers will know and today is no exception. I think I can describe very detail of the local tip from memory, and with every charity shop in the neighbourhood now stuffed full of detritus extracted from our house in the UK I am looking for new outlets, and thankfully someone has volunteered to do a car boot sale for us. I do hope they have a pantechnicon in which to collect all the stuff.
Talking of writing, the people who bought my first book, “Summer In The Cote d’Azur”and the people still to buy it will be thrilled to learn that I have begun work on the second. This one will have pictures, so those that have suffered the indignity of having their photo feature in this column will have something else to celebrate when the book is published in the late autumn in time for people to purchase as exclusive Christmas gifts for friends or family, or indeed someone you don’t like. You have been warned. I have my camera with me wherever I go….
Chris France
Sunshine a distant memory
It seems that I am not alone in being seriously underwhelmed by the atrocities committed, mostly in the galley, by Virgin Atlantic. I hear from Cathie the Culture about a horror story which spawned what the Daily Telegraph considered to be the best customer complaint story of the year, which you can read here. Another regular correspondent tells of her daughter recently which involved her flying back with Sir Dicky Pickles shambolic airline from Grenada where the drinks ran out (again) and in which she was served with food past it’s sell by date and also that around 50 per cent of the much vaunted “award winning” in-flight entertainment TV’s were inoperative. Award winning, literally can be a two edged sword. I think the award should be “the Chris France Worst Airline In The World”, in fact they can now consider themselves the recipient of that award. It will be in my complaint letter. Perhaps subliminally that out of date food was intended for Cathie the Culture as it seemingly may have had a bit of a mould about it and I know how much she likes a bit of culture of this kind.
So back in England to clear out a barn, and recommence my missionary position vis-a-vis giving out advice on how to save money on foreign exchange and try to repair the damage and wear and tear you discover has inevitably occurred when renting out an old house for seven years.
Today my final picture from Cuba taken from the roof terrace of the Ambos Mundos Hotel in Havana which was a very agreeable luncheon spot with great views across to the old fort at Casablanca and across the city to the harbour and the other way along the coast towards central Havana. This was where that nice lady decorator spent 8 CUC (about £5 at today’s exchange rates according to Currencies Direct) to see a hotel room with a typewriter, their dedication to Ernest Hemingway.
Ambos Mundos Hotel roof terrace looking towards Casablanca
So from the delights of Cuba it has been our misfortune to have to spend most of yesterday emptying a barn in which we have stored loads of crap valuable personal possessions belonging to that nice lady decorator, together with some of my gold and platinum discs. Unfortunately, after the cold weather a few weeks ago it seems a pipe must have burst and has been running for the last month soaking most stuff in the building. So it was great fun to wade through water with your loved one, a bit like we were doing in Cuba a few days ago, however this experience was somewhat less edifying. At least afterwards I thought I would be able to stroll up to The Chequers in Weston Turville for a pint but as if to administer the final slap in the face reminder that we were back in the cold of England, the pub was shut, it shuts on Mondays. Having no warm clothes and with the frost beginning to form and no car we had no choice but to return home and drink all the wine we had, light a fire and huddle around it.
More of the same today, so please do not expect any excitement or vitality in this column today, I am tired, cold, dispirited and thirsty , In fact the only thing I am looking forward to today is a pint of London Pride tonight as long as the infernal pub is open. We have been invited to fridge magnet salesman extraordinaire Paul North for some roadkill surprise tonight, so life is really grim….
Chris France
The past is orange
What is the point of putting on your website that one can check in at 12.30 at Havana airport when in fact you cannot until 4pm? The omens for another spectacularly ordinary flight with at the appalling Virgin Atlantic back to London Gatwick were good. The plan then was to jettison bags early and then pop out for a sneaky last lunch but these were dashed by this useless piece of information. Dickie Pickles, the bearded wonder and titular head of Virgin will be getting the sharp end of my pen in the coming days. His airline has now forever damaged the Virgin brand in my mind. It was not just the misinformation, they had run out of wine 2 hours into the 9 hour outward trip thus making a mockery of their claim to serve drinks throughout the trip and the in flight entertainment was limited of poor quality both artistically and technologically with constant fuzzy lines and black outs on the very few things worth watching. They claim to have won the award for the best in flight entertainment. If that is the case then I want a stewards enquiry.
The trip back was little better, so with once again no stewardess in sight I stirred myself to go the the galley to secure a drink. Finding no one at the first one I went to the second one where the curtain was drawn. Asking for a for a glass of wine was clearly an affront to the rude member of staff who tersely asked me to give her a couple of minutes as she was doing some kind of calculation. A full five minutes elapsed and she had still no emerged but luckily some other hapless helper eventually arrived. Disgraceful service from people trained to offer a service. Had she been in my employ then she would now be looking at her P45.
Then that nice lady decorator got in on the act. The idea was to try to sleep on the plane. She even had a sleeping pill to aid her, but someone must have tainted it with some Columbian marching powder or something similar as she was like a Jack in the box, drinking a litre of water and waking me up four times to go to the loo. So, an utterly sleepless, mainly dry, miserable experience. I shall never complain about Easyjet again. Virgin Atlantic is officially the worst airline with whom I have flown, worse on this trip than Ryanair.
My picture today is of my personal favourite vehicle I saw in Havana. The sheer number of great old cars, many used as taxi’s on the road each day is something wonderous to behold. At least 25 per cent of the cars on the road must be old American models from the 1950’s or earlier, many in a desperate condition and doing a great deal to enhance Cuba’s carbon footprint, but as a spectacle and a testament to the American embargo (incidentally being flouted by a number of Americans who can gain entrance via Cancun in Mexico) it is hard to better. Cuba I love, Virgin Atlantic I hate.
So by the time my phalanx of readers are excitedly reading this, we shall be back in the tender embrace of dear old England where I am informed that the weather in the coming days will be unseasonably pleasant, so I should be able to get away with only buying one winter coat of the type I do not need to posses when in France. Thereafter in the coming week Currencies Direct will get my divided attention, that and clearing out our old house in Weston Turville which looks like it going to sell after 7 years on the market, oh joy.
Chris France
Sea soup a bit fishy?
Continuing the Hemingway theme at the Ambos Mundos hotel in Havana on Thursday I spotted a starter on the restaurant menu called The Old Man And The Sea soup as my picture today attests. Given the Hemingway connection I can sort of guess what aspect of the sea might be included in the ingredients, marlin or shark perhaps? But it was the old man bit that captured my imagination. What part of the old man might be mixed in with the fish, some nail clippings?, some earwax? Maybe some nasal hair? Or maybe the Old Man means something far more sinister? Maybe it describes the implement with which the soup has been stirred? As that nice lady decorator remarked, if that were the case at least that could contribute to the fishy taste, although how she would know this is not something I wish to go into here in this column.
Interesting menu choice?
With just a few days to go before I resume my full time (well perhaps that is overstating it) activities for Currencies Direct, yesterday on our last full day in Havana we embarked on a tour of the Havana Club distillery where we learned about the rum making process. The Reverend Jeff will no doubt expect me to make some idiotic remark about it being a rum do, but my style is now at so superior a level I did not even consider the possibility. I did however agree with the chap behind me when it was suggested that we walk through a door made from a giant rum barrel, originally used in the maturing process when he said “I am mature enough already”. I think that now sums up my writing style.
That nice lady decorator, now nearly recovered from her sprained ankle spent most of the tour complaining that here feet hurt, and when, even after the free tot of rum and an extra mohito had been downed she was still complaining, she noticed that she had her new leather sandals on the wrong feet. She will deny it of course but facts are facts.
After lunch taken again at Bodeguita Del Medio comprising braised pork shin with black beans, fried plantains and sweet potatoes I settled down to enjoy a nice fat Cuban. I know that many of my public schoolboy friends who are regular readers of this daily report may place a different interpretation on this statement but they will know in their hearts that as I did not attend public school I was referring to a nice cigar. I cannot speak for them for certain but I fear the worst.
Last night we succumbed to pressure and decided we would visit the Hotel Nazionale as it was reputed to have a very special cocktail lounge and be a wonderful place for a sundowner at sunset. The fact that we left it until after dark probably did not help but the desperately poor service and ignorant waiters was too much for that nice lady decorator so we left quickly. For me it was the bus loads of tourists returning from their day trips and the number of people with tattoos and wearing scuzzy sleeveless t-shirts or football shirts with socks and big trainers that did it. I may go back today just to check.
Then, after a final lunch in Havana the less than exciting prospect of a ten hour flight with the very disappointing Virgin Atlantic lies ahead but I do not want to dwell on that, instead I shall look forward to the pint of London Pride which doubtless lies ahead in the tender embraces of Buckinghamshire.
Chris France
Buena Vista Social Club live
Yesterday, after completing an assignment for Currencies Direct, to Casablanca, the small fortified castle and lighthouse area across the river mouth reached, according to our tour guide and leader, that nice lady decorator, by a taxi to the port, cost 5 CUC (convertible Cuban Currency), a ferry crossing in a dangerously antiquated ferry (cost 2 CUC) used almost exclusively by the locals, an exhausting walk up a winding road and some 300 steps in 30 degree heat, a horse and cart ride (cost 3 CUC) and took about an hour and a quarter. The return trip in a taxi, through the tunnel I discovered after our intrepid and convoluted expedition out there and which had apparently escaped the notice of that nice lady decorator and which cost 5 CUC took just eleven minutes. Still, we did experience a little of real Cuban life. After a splendid lunch involving more wonderful and wonderfully cheap lobster on the roof terrace of Hotel Ambos Mundos, that nice lady decorator Informed me that we were to visit a shrine to Hemingway. It crossed my mind that “Hemingway” might be a good name for a sewing machine factory and was stupid enough to mention this to that nice lady decorator who is a huge Hemingway fan and was treated me to that glazed angry look that silences me immediately. She told me that the Hotel had room, 511, was dedicated as a shrine to writer who stayed there a lot whenever he was in Havana and always took then same room because of the view. What can I tell you? It was a basic room with a typewriter. Worth 4 CUC of anyone’s money.
After this cultural delight, a couple of mohitos at the Bodega Del Medio (upstairs is my favourite place in Havana) we set out for the highlight of the visit to Cuba, an opportunity to see The Buena Vista Social Club perform at a large restaurant bar called Cafe Taverna in the centre of down town Havana. For the uninitiated Buena Vista was a regular gathering of Cuban musicians catapulted to fame by musical collusion with Ry Cooder which turned them into international stars through a number of converts including Carnegie Hall and spawned an Academy Award winning film of the same name. However, it nearly didn’t happen at all. the sign outside, seemingly only advertising existing warned us we needed to book tickets and we were thus refused entrance. I had accepted that we were going to be denied the opportunity to see an iconic band perform at an intimate venue in their home town but they had not reckoned on that nice lady decorator. All the rock ‘n roll heritage which she has built up over the years when she was seemingly able to gain entrance to any gig anywhere by adopting a series of ploys (including one impersonating a journalist whom she knew was on the guest list for a Dr Feelgood concert and who was later denied entry as a result). It was the third time she tried and found a chink in the armour, securing seats in an unused terrace at the back giving us some of the best seats in the house.
The legendary Buena Vista social Club live at Cafe Taverna in Havana
I do not know how she did it or what it cost and I do not want to know It was hard to identify exactly who was who but given the age of some of the band all the living originals must have been there. it was an electric experience, witnessing a piece of music history live as it were, and given the ages of some of them, live is the operative word. Some twenty great performers ran through their repertoire with the rumba, a musical style reinvigorated throughout the world by this group obviously to the fore. The last full day in Havana, but an irksome trip to the UK to deal with housing and legal issues stands between me and a return to my beloved south of France. Valbonne will have to wait.
Chris France
More smoking stories
Dairies are an important running narrative on ones day-to-day activities. That nice lady decorator has taken to keeping one recently, especially when we are away from home, perhaps inspired by “The Motorcycle Diaries” written by Che Guevara about his exploits before he turned into the worlds most popular revolutionary. I ventured the opinion that this column, my daily font of knowledge and wisdom was on a par with these Motorcycle thingies, a persuasive daily insight into the issues surrounding a trip to a foreign country, but I regret to inform you that unlike many of my readers she does not seem to share this opinion. When I suggested as much she put her head in her hands and began moaning slightly and shaking her head and I got the feeling she did not entirely agree. I may be wrong, perhaps she thought this daily “diary” was superior but cannot be certain.
First target yesterday on our nearly completed trip to Cuba was Batista’s Palace, the Palace Of The Revolution, the opulent offices occupied by that the brutal dictator whom Fidelity Castro deposed. It has been made into a shrine for the revolution complete with bullet holes in the marble where an earlier overthrow attempt by the students of Cuba failed, Batista escaping out of a back door, which I suppose could also be a euphemism for homosexuality if one was to be so vulgar, but certainly not in this column.
Thereafter, a brief trot around the Vintage Car Museum, entrance about £1.20 at today’s Currencies Direct exchange rates but taking a camera cost £4, so no picture of that today then, instead I give you this picture of a steam train puffing smoke (a bit of a habit in Havana) along the full 200 metres of track still in use in use in the port area. Regular followers of this missive will know my feelings about the Health And Safety brigade so destroying the fabric of life in UK, so will know that I was delighted to see no fences, railings or warnings of any sort to pedestrians or motorists nearby because even a moron could work out either by sound, vision, vibration or smell that there was a steam train nearby. Smoke masks were not compulsory as some of us like the smell of smoke, either from a classic old steam engine or a good cigar. It remains an inconvenient fact for the HSE loonies that no one has ever been injured by this train.
I especially like that unsecured metal plate just by the track. Health and Safety eat your heart out.
After all that culture lunch was an imperative starting within an aperitif. This is the home of the mohito so it seemed churlish not to join in the celebration of Cuban rum and partake. Not wanting to be considered churlish in any way we embraced the mohito movement until movement was undermined by mohito.
Last night the plan to go to the Hotel Nazionale (as we had heard it had some cool bars and restaurants) was changed en route in the taxi as we discovered it was not in the old town of Havana but in a soulless part of Havana Central which we had previously decided to avoid. We ended up in Cafe Paris. Not Cafe De Paris you will notice, but at atmospheric bar with a very large local clientele which reflected a comparative lack of sophistication, but where the mohitos were as strong as any we have encountered with almost a triple measure by UK standards of Havana white rum in each. I gave up and had some red wine.
Chris France
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Havana great time
Finally they have left. Slash and Burn and the beautifully miscalculating one, Lisa Thornton Allan finally did the decent thing and left on the Virgin flight yesterday evening. However, before that they decided they wanted one last long lunch to discuss the benefits of Currencies Direct, so we adjourned to Los Marinos, a charming seafood restaurant built on a jetty extending into the river. At the restaurant was another Cuban musical ensemble, charming again but playing the same set of songs they all play. If I hear “Perhaps, Perhaps Perhaps” again in my life it will be too soon. Almost without exception after you have enjoyed the Cuban musical experience you are asked if you would like to buy their CD. With every fibre of my being screaming “no” I can still see that nice lady decorator reaching for her purse on so many occasions to buy a CD that I believe we shall have an excess baggage issue on the return trip. Yesterday’s sales ploy however reached new levels of sophistication. The singer said “very good CD, 15 songs, all different”. Obviously a bargain as most of the CDs she had already bought were probably of the same song.
Downtown Havana
Last night we headed out to old Havana to the Oriental, a very fussy but very good restaurant in a lovely square for exquisite lobster and lamb loins in chocolate, but not together, that means we each had one or the other, and augmented these with an overpriced Chilean Shiraz. The idea was to discuss which other aspects of old Havana we should try to experience in the last few days of our visit before returning to the delights of Valbonne via the UK. Discussion inevitably turned to the events of that last few days and I was reminded of a story told by Slash and Burn himself about an old girlfriend. It seems that she was quite pretty, a model, and as a result Slash and Burn was prepared to put up with a few eccentricities. One of these was her love of all animals and creatures. She apparently rescued an injured sparrow and nursed it back to health and became so attached to it she used to have it perch on her shoulder where it’s rather loose bowels were given complete freedom of err…movement. Not unreasonably she called it called “Hoppy” (although “Crappy” may have been more accurate) and not unnaturally she became so attached to this rescued orphan that it became almost a child to her to the extent that she would send thank you or birthday cards apparently signed by Hoppy. What I cannot explain however is that some years after the relationship had come to what I would have thought was an inevitable conclusion is why Slash And Burn had in his possession a touching card saying “To Daddy love from Hoppy”. A father’s day card from a sparrow is a hard act to follow. I even considered giving him the bird, indeed so doubtful is this behaviour I think he should be up before the beak.
Whilst into the land of he pun, I feel it is necessary to reveal that before we leave we plan going to cane the Havana Club distillery where they make rum. I shall make no jokes about it being a rum do as that would be well beneath the standards my readers have come expect from this daily look at the lives of the idle rich currently on tour away from Valbonne.
Taking the pun to a higher level, we were discussing the Catholic faith in terms of ice cream (don’t ask why, it just seemed the right thing to do at the time). I think Popeastachio was my favourite but I did also like Vaticone.
Chris France
Cigars and smoke
It was the Reverend Jeff who first suggested that I would at some stage be guilty of using the pun Havana a good time. I told him I would not consider it and I will not use it as it is beneath me both as a regional coordinator for Currencies Direct and a successful writer.
I know us writers should stick together but I was feeling a little delicate due to rather too much indulgence in the renowned products of Cuba to risk the bumpy taxi ride over to Hemingway’s house. It is a pity because it seems it was left exactly as it was when he died and gives an insight into his life, and I would have liked have discovered a few tips for when I die (if I die) and how I should leave my house for future generations of admirers of my work to discover.
I was sufficiently broken to avoid lunch but recovered somewhat before going to Casterpol, a delightful first floor terrace restaurant built above the sea wall in Havana, indeed where we had gone on our first night. A whole Chateaubriand for about £12 at today’s exchange rates was the reward for the last night for our fellow travellers Slash And Burn Thornton Allan and his scary as she is beautiful wife, the mathematically challenged Lisa. From now until we leave on Saturday once their baleful influence has departed, I expect to adopt a much healthier lifestyle.
A symptom often associated with over excessive eating and drinking is snoring. I have never snored myself despite that nice lady decorators contention that I do but Slash And Burn seems to have form in this area, and was described yesterday as sounding like warthog caught on a barbed wire fence emitting sounds one would more normally associate with a David Attenborough programme. I thought that was a bit harsh until I heard the recording.
My picture today was taken at the old Partagas factory from which production has been switched whist the building is refurbished and not from our tour where we were precluded from taking photographs. They had obviously forgotten to tell this Cuban virgin about the move as she was the only person at work in the old factory. The maximum number of cigars one can bring out of the country is 50, so with me taking over that nice lady decorators entitlement (there was no discussion, I just did not tell her), I hope to have sufficient for my needs until at the end of month.
I am sure there is a joke here about Cuban virgins
One thing that I have begun to notice about Havana is the fumes. These are not only caused by the excellent baked beans one can and does partake of at breakfast, nor can a great deal of blame be apportioned to cigar smoke unless one is in a bar or restaurant but are emitted from the wonderful old cars and battered Lada’s roaming the city. In the last few days there has been a brisk breeze blowing all the carbon monoxide away and now this has dropped there is definitely a rather smoky situation, which I suppose could sum up Cuba.
Today we are scheduled to visit a handicrafts and book market in old Havana, so shall take a couple of copies of my book with me and see if I can add to the swelling sales, and I shall ensure I have a pen for the autographs. Rather worryingly there seems to be a bottle of champagne in our room so I suspect a send off for our fellow travellers is on the cards for this afternoon.
Chris France
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