FrenchFingers

House Hunting

2012-01-30T21:49:00.000+01:00

House hunting can throw up some interesting situations. As you've probably surmised if you're not entirely new to this blog, we're looking into moving Château Fingers somewhere else. This afternoon we went to see a house which looked pretty promising: excellent location, nice price, the lot. It didn't disappoint, but the reason it was on the market was unusual, to say the least.

The couple selling appear to be breaking up as the husband and father no longer wishes to deny who he is and greeted us in full make-up, skirt and wig. None of this bothers either Mrs. F or me one jot, but you can imagine how difficult it must be for them, living, as they do, in a small town with two teenage children attending the local school. All you can do is salute their courage and wish them well. We love the house, too. Watch this space.

Table for one, please.

2012-01-29T22:02:00.001+01:00

Do you ever sit back and take stock of the things you really, truly love doing? The situations you love finding yourself in? The moments of pure celestial harmony where you achieve nirvana without actually seeking it out? I had one yesterday lunchtime, a little slice of heaven born out of adversity but showing itself to be the place where any right-thinking person should be. Stunningly ordinary, it was bliss: sitting on my own for an hour in a good japanese restaurant, eating an enormous bamboo tray of sushi and reading Carlos Ruiz Zafón's The Angel Game. OK, it's not getting down and dirty with selected female members of Chile's ruling élite, but for a faithful, forty-something father of two it takes a lot of beating, not least for the fact that neither Mrs. F nor the Fingernails like raw asian fish preparations, so it's always going to be something I enjoy alone. Nothing else blocks out everyday detritus as well as a good read, so yesterday's lunch was a defining moment in solo pleasure. To be honest, if I can't eat with my family, I'd rather eat alone, preferably with something to read. Meals are too important to be dealt out like a cheap hand of cards and I'm extremely fussy about who shares my table, particularly if I'm paying my way. Having said that, I've turned down an awful lot of invitations to dine for the simple reason I'd rather pay and enjoy the food on my terms than get a freeby and have to make inane conversation with someone I don't find interesting. I don't know anyone else who is quite as maniacal about shared dining, but, for me, eating alone is sheer bliss.

I got into this habit way back in the early 1990's when I was conducting The Phantom of the Opera in Hamburg. I had a large flat in the Blankenese neighbourhood which backed on to a fine Italian restaurant called Casa Mastroianni. Every now and then they served up fegato con salvia, liver with sage with succulent dressings and side dishes. Fegato had been my favourite meat since the early 1970's when I discovered it in a tiny Italian restaurant in Brighton; seeing the word again in Northern Germany decades later, written in chalk on a specials' board shot me back to my youth and the dingy little café by the sea we discovered purely by chance one day. The lovely old lady who ran the tiny place had about four mismatched tables, a fabulous , toothless grin and one item on the menu that she announced proudly as THE dish of the day: "Oggi abbiamo fegato!" It was fantastic; served in a thick rich gravy and accompanied by chopped Italian bread, it was the first foreign food I ever tasted, and this in a little café-cum-restaurant which predated any Pizzaland or other monstrosity in the area by years. From that time on, fegato would always hold a place in my heart. Even now, when just about everything else Italian gets on my tits, I still refer to liver as fegato, regardless of where we are or what language we're speaking.

Anyway, back to Hamburg. Whenever that magic word appeared on the blackboard outside the main entrance I'd pluck a good book from my collection and trot off around the corner to Casa Mastroianni just as they were opening. Fegato con salvia was no trivial matter so I'd always set aside at least two hours for the pleasure. I'd start off with a Martini or two, a couple of smokes and a few pages of my book. Then I'd order a wine to go with the fegato. We'd talk about the side dishes, then Franco would leave a little while before my meal appeared, fresh and succulent, the sage mingling beautifully with the fresh lamb's liver. The potatoes were sautéd, the green beans parboiled and lightly fried to perfection. The pepperpot sat on the side of the book that needed keeping open and the story and the contents of my plate communed discreetly and divinely while I consumed both simultaneously. I hardly ever had a pudding but took time over my grappa, cigarette and coffee. By the time I was ready to go home I always felt this was the only way to eat, a feeling that has not changed one iota in nearly twenty years. Since discovering sushi about a year ago I can't get it out of my head. For someone who couldn't stand fish, that's quite an admission. Sushi is made by cherubim in paradise; I could quite easily eat it every day. The point is, something this good requires the fegato treatment, anything less would be disrespectful of the chef's art and the meal's taste. The only food you should eat in a group is cheap pizza or MacDonald's; everything else deserves your full attention.

Writing this, I now realise things I didn't understand before. Firstly, that people or things I consider important need my full presence, and that spreading my attention too thinly would be disrespectful to them. Big dinner parties and the like are a no-no; I prefer a small, intimate group where the chances of having worthwhile conversations are higher. If the food is good, it's either with my family or on my own; I'm not prepared to compromise something that important. We now live in a world where everyone has to listen to everyone else's inane conversations, so it's nice to get intimate and discreet again, even if it is only with a plate of raw fish or the internal organs of a young sheep.

Must it be about France?

2012-01-28T23:53:00.003+01:00

I've been thinking long and hard about this French Blog thingy. Writing about one's life in France is a multi-million pound/dollar/euro/drachma industry, but what is it actually based on? Most of the unassailable references are merely chronologically limited slices of someone's life (Peter Mayle's time in Provence etc), so how to maintain readers' interest over a period of time? I'm sure I'm not the only person to have long tired of the 'OMIGOD! Paris is just so gorgeous, but I don't understand what they're saying; thank God my hunky French boyfriend is here!' school of blogging, but for those of us who live in the sticks, don't live in a converted barn and actually work for a living, everyday life is, er, everyday life, just as it probably is in Madison, Wisconsin, Regensburg or Leamington Spa. So why write about it, just because it's located somewhere where good wine is cheap, foie gras is plentiful and where there is an Ecole Supérieure de la Patronisation, reserved exclusively for minimum-wagers?

I, for one, don't know. From where I'm standing, keeping the blog spicy means either a) discovering yet another incredibly unique facet of this country on an everyday basis and describing it in mountingly orgasmic terms until one's undergarments can stand it no longer, or b) griping about yet another aspect of everyday life, such as strikes, taxes, roadworks etc as if it were the first time any of these inconveniences had seen the light of day. For this latter, I'm just no longer angry enough. It's too tiring and leads nowhere. Yes, my spirit is broken. The Party has won.

Well, guess what? Neither scenario is sustainable. Unless you live in Enid Blyton's The Faraway Tree (currently reading it to the Fingernails), everyday life just doesn't stay that exciting, and certainly not year in, year out. What's more, the more our beloved EUSSR gets more uniform and bland, the less there is to surprise us, particularly when you can get everything we buy here in your local supermarket, wherever the hell you are. The only difference is the local quality - I know our vegetables are better than yours; don't ask; they just are - but that's not enough upon which to base an online diary. That's one of the reasons I've diversified into extremely sexy South American government employees, but I digress.

Maybe I should check in a bit more often with Keith Eckstein's excellent blog A Taste of Garlic and see what others are saying. After all, he did give me a glowing review (which he probably now regrets). All of this notwithstanding, until I move Château Fingers a few miles north, south, east or west of our current location, I'm unlikely to be able to provide any Frogblog-watcher with enough interesting information to persuade him or her to click through to a second page. I live in a city centre, my children go to the local school, I cycle to work, and then I cycle home. We buy French food, speak French with any French people we come across, read French newspapers and pay French taxes. On an everyday level, there isn't much more to say, particularly as I tend to speak more German, Italian, Spanish and English at work than French, anyway (Eckstein = Cornerstone). If all my plans for the academic year 2012 - 2013 come through, I'll be spending most of it in Chile, Argentina and Germany anyway. I'll still blog, though, particularly if Christina Kirchner is anything to go by…

So why this fascination for France? OK, I admit it is a stunningly beautiful country with incredible edibles and a host of other things to commend it, but so is Iceland, if you're prepared to cut the nosh a bit of slack. I somehow think it's because France is for Brits rather what Canada is for the Americans: a more wholesome version of their own country, sadly lost to the demands of progress. Back in the late 1990's I was living and working in the USA, touring the country with a couple of Broadway shows. One of these hopped over to Canada for a couple of weeks, to Calgary and Edmonton, to be precise. Once we'd all landed in Seattle, two weeks later, we took stock of what we'd just experienced. The Canadians were still gooey-eyed at having been home for a fortnight, one trumpeter from Atlanta, Georgia was just SO HAPPY TO BE HOME BECAUSE NOW HE COULD GET A CHERRY COKE, and the rest all said that Canada reminded them of the USA of their youth, even of the USA their parents had talked about: the civility, the openness, the unquestioning trust that no-one seemed to want to betray…In short, exactly the same things expat Brits cite when talking about today's France, rural and urban. I can only assume that most expat Brits don't live in the appalling council estates which encircle most major French cities, but then, of course, they don't. There'll always be an England, and this country's version is located in France's upmarket satellite towns, villages and hamlets. Only mugs like Fingers live in the thick of the dispute, even if our neighbourhood is the best in town (despite certain neighbours).

So, gentle, mostly occasional, readers: if I don't always wax lyrical about that amazing truffle market I went to last week, it's because I didn't go. It's because it's located 150 miles from here and I had to go to work that day. Same for the goose-tossing ceremony, singing pig circus or foie-gras exorcism or whatever bit of nonsensical, agricultural hocus-pocus we're supposed to witness every day of the bloody week. Wasn't there, sorry. Did tread in an incredible pile of dogshit, though. Want to hear about that? At any rate, here are two pictures of Toulouse that will paint the thousand words that, due to prior commitments, I wasn't able to write:

French?

2012-01-26T23:34:00.001+01:00

I'm a bit embarrassed that there are still visitors from A Taste of Garlic; I'm sure my current phase of highlighting hot latina public servants is not what they were expecting. Sorry about that, and I'll get back to talking about France pretty soon. In the meantime, just bear with me…

Chilean MILF Politicians. Here's the proof.

2012-01-25T20:13:00.001+01:00

In case any of you were wondering about my initial posts on this subject, here's an article from today's La Segunda of Santiago de Chile:

Molina vs. Goic: «Bellas» del Congreso y el machismo en el Parlamento

Son parte del «gueto» femenino del Congreso y, desde la UDI y la DC, comparten la necesidad de cambiar el binominal y establecer una ley de cuotas para mujeres.

por: Giselle Crouchett

lunes, 23 de enero de 2012

Son minoría en el Parlamento: mujeres. Por primera vez una de ellas encabezará la jefatura de la bancada DC, y desde partidos opuestos, Carolina Goic y Andrea Molina (UDI), han conectado especialmente en temas medioambientales, donde la ex animadora de TV ha marcado diferencias con el Ejecutivo. Las dos viajaron el fin de semana a Torres del Paine a investigar en terreno los incendios que allí hubo hace un par de semanas, y cada día estas dos mujeres —que aportan belleza femenina al Congreso— han debido legitimarse en este mundo masculino.

Ya que el tema femenino les importa, no pueden evitar referirse a la ruptura entre Belén Hidalgo y Miguel “Negro” Piñera, que contiene relatos de violencia en la denuncia de la modelo. “Lo que haya pasado es lamentable por ellos y por las circunstancias. Lamentablemente, el “Negro” Piñera es hermano del Presidente, pero el Presidente no es responsable de lo que haga su hermano”, afirma Molina.

—Carolina Goic (CG): Las cifras hablan por sí solas. No sólo tiene que ver con machismo en el Congreso; el sistema político no favorece la incorporación de mujeres, estamos más bajos que Bolivia, Perú. Este es el segundo período en que soy la única mujer de mi bancada; cuando Alejandra Sepúlveda se fue al PRI, partió el 50% de la bancada femenina DC.

—Andrea Molina (AM): Hay una mirada machista a nivel nacional, pero ha ido cambiando. Trato de ser positiva, estamos esperando un espacio. La UDI se está jugando por incorporar mujeres. Tenemos que hacer un trabajo más profundo a nivel político y empresarial, vemos muy pocas mujeres.

—¿Han sentido prejuicios o les ha costado legitimarse por ser mujeres “bonitas”?—AM: Toda la vida he tenido que estar legitimándome, demostrando que tengo capacidades, que no me pueden encasillar, y que somos serias. No porque hayas sido más agraciada vas a ser menos inteligente.

—CG: El ser bonita a veces facilita que se te abran puertas, pero también tiene sus “contra”. La imagen de la mujer está más asociada con la figura bonita, más que con su aporte.

—AM: Veo que defiendes posturas con toda el alma y que detrás de eso no sólo hay pasión por lo que haces, sino demostrarle a tu bancada que tienes pantalones… que tienes faldas.

—CG: Y yo te veo varias veces en posturas distintas a la de tu bancada o del Gobierno. Cuando la ministra Schmidt planteó la idea de una ley de cuotas, las mujeres UDI se opusieron. ¿Te sientes cómoda en la bancada? ¿Apoyarías una ley de cuotas?

—AM: Si es bueno para el país, sin duda. Mientras no se genere esa conciencia, lamentablemente hay que generar estas cuotas en forma transitoria, hasta que se haga costumbre.

A veces difiero bastante (de la bancada), pero no quiere decir que me salga de la línea; expreso lo que siento, lo conversamos en la bancada y llegamos a un consenso.

—CG: En el presupuesto nos acompañaste como oposición en una pelea, con una postura distinta a la del Gobierno en energía. ¿Te ha significado un problema?

—AM: No. Me he ganado el respeto de mis pares. Quiero que le vaya bien al Gobierno, por lo mismo si algo no está acorde con lo que uno espera, tengo que decirlo. La gente votó por uno y espera que uno trabaje en consecuencia, está cansada de acuerdos no transparentes. Me siento contenta de dar la pelea hasta las últimas consecuencias en los temas medioambientales, sobre todo desde la derecha, porque ahí ha faltado mucha conciencia.

Futuro político
—AM: Te veo cara de Presidenta de la República...

—CG: Hay pasos previos (ríe).

—AM: ¿Senadora por Magallanes? De todas maneras, ya te veo ahí...

—CG: ¿Me proclamas? ¿Y tú estás pensando en buscar otro distrito? Eso se rumorea.

—AM: Me han hablado de otros distritos, pero me encanta el mío (Quillota, V Región). Uno no puede tomar las cosas y dejarlas en el aire. Me gustaría seguir ahí y contribuir.

Acuerdo DC-RN
—CG: ¿Estás dispuesta a votar a favor de la reforma al binominal? Hoy la pelota está en la cancha UDI.

—AM: Es injusto que se diga que la UDI no quiere cambiar el binominal.

—CG: Lo dicen abiertamente.

—AM: El mismo Pablo Longueira presentó el año pasado un proyecto. Me encantaría que nuestro presidente Coloma mostrara con fecha las conversaciones que ha habido.

El binominal cumplió una etapa y tiene que haber cambios, una mirada más inclusiva. Si es el momento político hoy, fantástico, no hay que quitarle el traste a la jeringa, pero la gente no habla del binominal, sino de que se sienten inseguros, de educación, o salud. Tenemos que ver cuál es la agenda, qué impulsamos primero. Esa ha sido la diferencia, más allá que en la UDI haya personas que no quieran. Y, ¿reemplazarlo por qué? No es una firma en blanco.

—CG: Bien por ti, Andrea, tenemos un voto más. Pero el Presidente ha estado entrampado por la UDI.

—Carlos Larraín apuntó a una alianza con la DC.

—AM: Para mí es un tema de respeto. Somos el partido más grande de este país, guste o no, y cuando no se nos respeta, molesta. RN quebró el fair play.

—CG: No comparto las ficciones de Carlos Larraín. La DC cumple un rol de establecer centros para generar una mayoría de votos si queremos hacer modificaciones de fondo.

—AM: Este gobierno hoy es del Presidente Piñera, mañana quizás de quién y a nadie le gusta este escenario, que se rompan las coaliciones y las confianzas.

—CG: Hablar de ruptura de coaliciones, no sé. En la Concertación nadie no puede no estar contento; hoy contamos con mayoría de votos. Lo que falta es el pronunciamiento del Presidente.

—AM: El tiene la palabra. Tiene que sentarse a conversar y aunar criterios. El escenario que se generó no tiene sentido, porque habríamos llegado a lo mismo si las cosas se hubiesen hecho bien, porque hay quienes estamos dispuestos a jugarnos porque este país sea más inclusivo.

Para todos que buscan 'Chilean MILF'

2012-01-21T23:16:00.002+01:00

Os quiero mucho. Gracias por haber venido a mi pagina. Aqui algunas imagenes:

Just the one?

Llamame.

I Love Chile

2012-01-21T22:50:00.001+01:00

This is completely apropos of nothing. I just checked 'Chilean Milf Politicians' on Google and found that Frenchfingers occupies the first four spots, which is as it should be. No other country has such fit female public representatives, and this deserves to be known globally. Here's a gratuitously risqué picture for no-one's apparent pleasure but my own:

Soon to be Mayor of Providencia, I understand.

Global Hypocrisy

2012-01-21T22:37:00.001+01:00

I don't know whether it's the same where you are (of course it bloody well is), but there appears to be a global conspiracy of unfairness when it comes to the treatment of certain people. Here's what I mean:

We have an excellent young Argentinian colleague who is keen to learn, talented and open to new ideas. He is surrounded by a bunch of third-rate hacks who would never have had a career had they not been Italian. These latter are, for some inexplicable reason, untouchable. God only knows why. You are Italian, you sing Italian opera, so you are, by definition, an expert. Mon cul, as you would say in French. Everyone in the production department realises this yet cannot, for reasons best known to themselves, 'address' the problem, so they pick on the Argentinian guy, venting all their frustration on him.

I'm not a greenhorn. I've been in this business for 25 years, yet this kind of situation continues to make my blood boil, not least for the effect it hs on the unjustly attacked, who don't yet necessarily understand why they are consistently in the line of fire. My only desire is that everyone knows where they stand, preferably with a minimum of honesty on the part of those judging them. Unnecessary tensions in this business are so often created by incompetents, yet the effects can be devastating on those not yet fully conversant with the childish games of their so-called 'superiors'.

My first step would be to gather up every overrated Italian opera singer (redundant, yes; pleonasm, yes; I know…) and dump the incompetent fuckers in the middle of the Indian Ocean, all the while letting those who have shown respect for their education and training indicate the way forward; hopefully engendering an improvement in the general performance of Italian 19th- and 20th-Century repertoire. Here's a golden quote from our Leonora, today: "Could you make a note of all the conductor's remarks so I don't have to remember them?". To this young lady I would just say 'F*** Off, but I no longer go anywhere near her. She also knows better than to approach me. Happily, we have an American second-cast Leonora who positively gobbles up her coachings and proceeds to grow with every passing day. I have to say that, over the years, I've grown to adore only the Americans and northern Europeans when it comes to opera; the Eyeties really are a waste of space: amateur, opinionated and substandard.

There's a saying in Britain that the only clear view one gets of an Italian is of his backside, and I wish that were true. That would mean, at least, that they were departing.

Paradox

2012-01-17T22:33:00.000+01:00

Sometimes we're called on to do seemingly contradictory things. I'm currently working with socially-challenged, ESN* Italian opera singers on one of Verdi's most popular operas, Il Trovatore. You may know the odd tune from it but the work is basically tedious and formulaic with, at least for our contemporary sensibilities, a ridiculous plot. Nonetheless, it's considerably better than what goes on in the heads of its main protagonists, at least in our version, sort-of nice as some of them may be. Notwithstanding, it'll probably be a huge success as these works are often much (MUCH) larger than the sum of their parts. The difficulty is seperating the working process from the end result, and for me, applying that to mid-nineteenth century Italian opera is easier said than done.

The other piece of meat on my plate is proof-reading an English translation of a French book on obesity. It's interesting that such a svelte nation could come up with such a work of literature, but it makes for intriguing reading. The translator has done a stonking job; apart from the odd Oxford Comma (and they really are a matter of taste) I can't find much to gripe about in the realm of Shakespeare's lingo. Looking around me, I would have thought that obesity was the least of this country's worries, but the Frogs are always up for chewing the fat and debating and that's one of the things that makes living here such a joy: sometimes you just want to chat for chatting's sake, preferably on an eighteenth-century terrace in the company of a variety of happy juices, and no either course of action can be deemed acceptable. That's where I am right now and Toulouse, bless its cotton socks, provides all the above. It serves as a wonderful counterweight to listening to those overpaid, overweight crooners struggling through their mother tongue with no regard for tuning, rhythm or characterisation. Anyone who has had the 'privilege' of working with this particular caste will know what I'm talking about. To be fair, though, I'd like to cite a few names I've worked with who not only buck the trend, but would positively stand it on its head if challenged one-on-one in a court of law: Daniela Mazzucato, Marco Armiliato, Daniele Callegari, Marta Moretto, Chiara Angella, Alberto Rinaldi, Marco Vinco and a few others, but it's too late to remember their names. And so endeth a pretty nonsensical stream of consciousness. The picture below is of Deborah Voigt before she lost 564lbs and her marbles:

Les Derniers Jours du Monde.

2012-01-15T21:00:00.000+01:00

The Last Days of the World is a French film, made a few years ago by the Larrieu Brothers. Part of it was filmed in Toulouse, so when I saw the DVD in the library the other day, I felt I had to see it. I remembered how certain props - like burnt-out police cars and black marias - had littered my route to work for a couple of weeks, but then again there's nothing particularly unusual about that in urban France. I read the synopsis and noted the little green oblong on the back bearing the legend Tous publics - the French equivalent of a 'U' certificate - the natural habitat of Disney and Pixar - realised I wouldn't be getting my desired quota of naughtiness but nonetheless checked it out and put it in my bag for a quiet evening in (like every day in Château Fingers, but hey…), tucked up in bed with the missus. Having watched it last night, I suggest you don't let little Timmy stay up to watch it with you…

If the American Board of Film Censors can toy with the idea of giving The Choristers (Les Choristes) an '18' rating because one of the boys in it is filmed smoking, you'd have to be at least 146 years old to watch Les Derniers Jours du Monde. Practically the first image is a full-frontal nude shot of Mathieu Amalric (after he's attached his prosthetic arm) and back-up shots, so to speak, are not slow in coming. His first encounter - and cunnilingus - with Omahyra Mota appear a mere five minutes later. This actress actually spends most of the film butt-naked, displaying her perfect (and I mean perfect) body to anyone who cares to watch and salivate. Amalric subsequently goes up and down on Catherine Frot and Karin Viard (this one actually spectacularly explicit) while the world continues to disintegrate around him. The idea of wall-to-wall shagging, supping fine wines and visiting the opera (actually my local one, as is happens) a mere 48 hours before armageddon makes a great deal of sense, to me at least. In fact, we shouldn't wait for that particular deadline to enjoy these pastimes. It's a wonderful piece of cinema, improved by the fact that it feels so here and now, especially for those of us who live in the area where it's set. I gather the English title is Happy End, but you'll struggle to find the right one on YouTube. Grab it on DVD if you can, it's a great couple of hours' worth of bunkum, but make sure your kids are in bed, first. Here's a taster, so to speak:

Happy New Year!

2012-01-14T13:25:00.001+01:00

Wishing you a very happy New Year and thanking you for checking in even though I've been doing nothing but the blogger's equivalent of trading my high-ranking cleric these last two months. We all had nearly three weeks in England over Christmas and the New Year, a holiday period unheard of in my 25-odd years of professional activity. The eczema stayed at bay (just), but has since started to bang on the inside of the door of the cupbaord conventional medicine shoved it into, unceremoniously, last autumn. We even had a day in London just before Christmas, the first time I'd been back to my home town for over fourteen years and the Fingernails got photographed by a bloke from Reuters as they stepped off the new Routemaster show-bus in Trafalgar Square. I've not seen it crop up on the internet, yet, so I can only presume the photographer decided not to use it (having run two hundred yards to catch us up and ask if we'd mind if he did). Also popped into Crawley, the town where I spent most of my childhood. After all these years of flying into Gatwick Airport we bit the bullet and had a little tour of my youth. I was astonished as to how little had changed and how incredibly liveable the town still is: everyone has two gardens, the pavements are broad and there's green everywhere. The opposite of urban France, in other words. England is half the size of Gaul with the same number of inhabitants but gives the impression of being far more spacious (as does Germany, with its inferior surface area and 20m+ population). Yup, urban planning is not what the French do best. And, according to the news this morning, nor is their ability to keep their AAA-rating, whatever that will really mean to any of us. After all, whoever talked about these things even a year ago? Now it's THE statistic to maintain. We're being taken for fools, again…

Got to run off to work. Verdi is OK, but really pales in comparison to Wagner, Strauss, Debussy Ravel and Puccini. Compare O sink hernieder with the Anvil Chorus from Il Trovatore and weep. I do. Pretty much daily, in fact.

April of this year. And Pilar Donoso.

2011-11-19T21:30:00.003+01:00

Sorry, I'm still not ready to post again but if you want a laugh, have a browse through the videos I posted in April of this year. There are some stonkingly funny ones.

Why don't I feel the urge to write at the moment? Because I'm neither angry or emotional enough. The former brings on my eczema, the latter is induced by excess, so it's verily a no-can-do at the moment, even though there is a subject I'd like to share with these virtual pages. No wonder professional authors are basket cases and prone to premature death, like Pilar Donoso. Born in Madrid in 1967, she died this week in Santiago de Chile, leaving behind three children, one of whom found her. The most touching part of her testimony was the feeling that she almost expected and understood why her mother had ended her life so early, as if she'd been waiting to become an orphan for a good number of years.

While I'm riffing on writing, here's a bit of news: my brother has been shortlisted for the Montreal International Poetry Prize. We all love organising words on a page in our family, though my dear bro is the best, and certainly a lot better than many who do it professionally. If he wins, I'll let you know, though you probably won't give a shit, and that's OK, too.

So whip your pens out and do it yourselves, just like this delightful lady below.

Strange...

2011-11-08T13:27:00.000+01:00

...the less I write, the more visitors I seem to get. That's a good business strategy in anyone's book. I'll get back to my old stream of verbal diarrhoea fairly soon; haven't felt particularly 'creative' these past few weeks.

Calming Down

2011-10-07T18:11:00.001+02:00

Our new neighbours are calming down. It has something to do with the fact I shouted at them last night: "Close your window; some people are trying to sleep, here". There are actually two men, a woman and two dogs in 30 square metres. Only the dogs are not alcoholics. They're quiet, too, so are basically more civilised than their 'masters'. All the other owners are putting a letter together to send to the owner, much good as it'll do in this country which protects low-lifers at the expense of ordinary people.

Just let me go and live in a house in the middle of nowhere. People stink.

More Pondlife.

2011-10-04T17:04:00.001+02:00

Bizarre, sociopathic neighbours are not the exclusive preserve of the studio above our bedrooms. We now have a somewhat antisocial creature plus his wife/girlfriend/moll as well as a large Alsatian who have taken up residence in the upper flat opposite our front door. This flat has, until now, always housed diligent, quiet female law students and was the few score square metres in the building which were, as far as tenant quality goes, 100% reliable. Now the owners appear to have done a volte face and given us a couple of park bench dwellers who spend their days drinking, smoking and swearing. All this, of course, with wide-open windows which give on to a beautifully resonant courtyard. Toulouse is still in the midst of an Indian summer so we have the privilege of being subjected to their incoherent, alcoholic ramblings whenever they're in residence. It's a bit like living next door to Hans Neuenfels. Tomorrow is our house management company's AGM, so we'll have a few things to talk about.

Smelly Neighbour

2011-09-26T21:24:00.000+02:00

OK, she's bonkers, she's fine, really, but when you come home and find that your place stinks of cat when you don't even own one, then you know something's awry. She has seven up there (so to speak), along with a couple of dogs, some rabbits and some birds. Mrs. F did spread some balsam on the wound by reminding us that she was, actually, incredibly quiet, which is true. For my part, I chewed over the concept that in this country, where rights take continual precedence over responsabilities and duties, it appeared to be impossible to reasonably 'expect' two complementary qualities from one person i.e. that they respect your personal space and don't stink like a warthog. Our compensation for the fact her insanitary, reeking, third-floor personal-therapy zoo is deemed acceptable is because she doesn't wake us with rap 'music' at 3am or impromptu, midnight flamenco classes. Were she to, we may be permitted to reflect on the fact that she didn't smell like a third-world sanitary installation. Nice trade-off, eh?

Is it like this everywhere? Or just the street where I live?

Delightful skin conditions.

2011-09-21T17:05:00.001+02:00

We moved to Toulouse in October, 2004. In December of that year my fingers started developing cracks which then refused to heal until the weather improved, making for long winters, pianistically speaking. This irritating little condition then disappeared for a few months before, apparently for no reason, rearing its head again and staying a little longer and spreading a little further. This pattern continued for a couple of years before getting serious, so I finally decided to have it looked at by a dermatologist. By this time I'd heard every possible medical explanation, ranging from conventional medicine's catch-all concept of treating the symptoms and not the cause to homeopathic calls to purify yourself from the inside out, preferably to the accompaniment of a CD of New Age music, available from the receptionist at €12.99. My eczema attacks became longer and more violent until I was finally prescribed neutral soap, a moisturising cream and a pot of cortisone to keep my paws on the straight and narrow, at least until that particular bout was over. I remember playing Carmen with the fourth finger of my left hand curled up against my palm, completely useless, and simplifying Meistersinger almost to the level of Peter Rabbit Plays Richard Wagner. I was told it was linked to my recurrent hay fever and that, basically, nothing could be done. I had to live with it and go through these periods when they chose to descend. Fine.

My current bout of eczema started in February of this year. I remember having it when I started yoga in March and cortisone and a Mapuche aloe vera compound cream helped me through my stay in Santiago de Chile. It had eased off considerably by the time I started in Bayreuth in June and strategically-timed bouts of cortisone kept the door bolted until I got back to Toulouse after my private concert in Leipzig on September 7th. After that, my hands exploded, literally. Within two days they looked liked something out of a horror film: my fingers went dark red, brown and green and cracked open, oozing a vile, toxic discharge which needed to be mopped up every fifteen minutes or so. At the same time, the skin around my eyes became inflamed, swelling up and giving me a false, neanderthal brow whilst covering over half my pupils. I looked like a cross between Fu Manchu and the Elephant Man and only ventured out with sunglasses, even when it was raining.

I made an appointment to see an acupuncturist who also specialises in homeopathic remedies. It was a good visit and he prescribed a modest dose of natural medication. The next day, a colleague grabbed me by the scruff of the neck and dragged me to his favourite magnetic healer, who immediately diagnosed my problem as me not wanting to play the piano any more and wishing to return to conducting. Apparently that's why I could no longer see nor play scores. After some prodding and poking he also suggested a few domestic issues which could be addressed and, before leaving me pensive and profoudly depressed, prescribed a shopping list of homeopathic medicine which left my local chemist gleefully planning a week in the Bahamas.

Rightly or wrongly, I just added this new round of medication to that prescribed by the acupuncturist. Seeing my hands immediately getting worse I contacted the acupuncturist and asked for an emergency appointment. To his credit, he saw me that same afternoon. Mrs. F and I cycled off to his surgery, where I sat in the waiting room with my sunglasses on and my arms folded, just so as not to frighten anyone else in the waiting room. After a few minutes I felt peculiarly sick, so stood up and made my way to the loo. The next thing I remember was being seized by the doctor and manoeuvred to one of his acupuncture couches. I'd blacked out at the door to the loo, my blood pressure was in the basement and now he was there binding my arm and pumping air into the reservoir. It didn't take long until I was feeling OK, so I also told him my dick had started itching awfully that lunchtime and would he mind having a look. The swelling was apparently due to the cocktail of incompatible pixie-dust I'd been swallowing in good faith and that it would go down very quickly. Later that afternoon, in front of this same computer, I checked my spam folder and found something I'd never received before: a mail exhorting me to increase the size of my member. Maybe the doctor sent it.

Anyhow, the acupuncturist said I was to stop the homeopathic medicine immediately and referred me to a conventional dermatologist - who would take me between patients - to get some good old white man's medicine. Cortisosteroids and antibiotics were the order of the day, then we could see about the natural treatment later. We turned up at the dermatologist's surgery and were seen almost immediately. The doctor's first words upon seeing me were "Fucking Hell" ('Oh, putain!'), a bizarre sort of compliment, if you like. He prescribed me a course of treatment which could fell a rhino at 600 yards: Silver Nitrate, Scrubs, Corticosteroids, Antibiotics and Cortisone Cream, just so that I can be pianistically up and running again by tomorrow. Once we've successfully masked the real problem an umpteenth time I'll be able to go back to the acupuncturist and find out exactly why my hands refuse to work every few months. For the Tibetan-trained healer it was clear: I'm not happy in my job. Whether or not that's true I don't know, but it certainly doesn't feel it on a superficial level: I work in a great theatre at a high level, have regular, challenging avocational pursuits, am with my children every day and live in a very sweet flat (although too small) in a beautiful city. Billions would kill for that, and I realise it. OK, I do miss conducting, but not on an everyday level. After being a lazy shit all through my teens and twenties I still marvel that top grade classical institutions want to keep me on their payroll. The last thing I conducted, other than my choir, was an opera in 2009 which, despite the complications involved and the knife-edge final few days when everything looked like imploding, was probably the most satisfying musical venture I've experienced in recent years, maybe ever. The subsequent studio recording was complex and time-consuming, as was the editing, but the only stressful aspect was making sure I wasn't late for the theatre after a few hours in front of the mixing desk. Let's be realistic, though: these projects don't grow on trees and my family needs to eat. Unless Stadttheater Khatmandu comes 'a-knocking with the offer of a conducting post, we're here for the foreseeable, and if the magnetist's diagnosis is correct, then my next challenge will be making peace with my decision to stay planted in front of the ivories.

So here I am, stabbing away at the keys with hands blackened by silver nitrate and rendered quasi-immobile by cortisone and my own frenzied friction attacks (which I'll have to stop, but hell, it's difficult sometimes). My digits should be up and running sufficiently to bash through the organ part in Tosca tomorrow afternoon, then there's the prospect of a much lighter October where I just have a lot of university English tuition here, and a wisdom tooth extraction around the middle of the month. By that time I should be having needles stuck into me, too. So this year, as I slide naked down the razorblade bannister of life towards my fiftieth birthday, will be all about trying to patch up what can be saved of my existence before the countdown towards my free bus pass starts in earnest. Maybe this is the beginning of a mid-life crisis, but I feel just as upbeat and optimistic as I normally do, occasional rants aside.

Flying's no fun, anymore.

2011-09-09T22:29:00.002+02:00

To anyone who regularly stepped on an airplane in the 1990's, the next statement won't come as any surprise: Flying is no fun, anymore. There.

Between Santiago de Chile, Germany, England and the Czech Republic, I've had a pretty airborne summer. Of the thirteen flights I've taken since May 22nd, eight were delayed, some of those causing me to miss connecting flights. Thinking back to the halcyon days of the early to mid-1990's when I flew almost exclusively Business and First Class, I can't remember so many planes taking off late, or maybe I just didn't care, sipping on a G&T in a real glass in the Senator Lounge with a Dunhill between my lips. Now I don't smoke anymore and the increased democratisation of air travel has led to scores of frequent flyers with grimy trilby hats and carry-on live chickens in cages, all of which has led me to believe that flying is now a mug's game. I've already written about the comatose Swiss in and around Zurich Airport but let me recount what happened earlier this week when I was scheduled to fly to Leipzig to give a private concert for a luxury car manufacturer.

My concert was due to start at 8.30pm in the Presidential Suite of a new, five-star hotel in the centre of Leipzig. I booked a flight out of Toulouse which would, after a change in Frankfurt, plunk me down on the outskirts of J.S. Bach's home town at 2pm, leaving me six full hours to rest, have a trip to the spa, practise and generally prepare for what was not an insignificant appearance. I checked in online the day before and got to Toulouse Airport early, just to be on the safe side. The first thing I saw was that our flight was delayed a full hour, endangering my connection in Frankfurt. The girl on the desk informed me that there was no problem, as the connection was also delayed. OK, I though, getting to Leipzig at 3pm instead of 2pm is no big deal. All flights out of Frankfurt were apparently delayed that day. Were they f***.

We landed in Frankfurt at 1pm, the time my connection was meant to be leaving, and, in the absence of any kind of information board whatsoever, I legged it to Terminal A, only to find the flight Frankfurt-Leipzig had just left, presumably the only flight leaving on time from Frankfurt that day. The next was at 5.15pm. If all went well, I'd be at the hotel two hours before curtain up. Faced with four hours to kill in the land that time and taste forgot, I set off to find a sushi bar. The Japanese noodle bar, Mouschmousch, is actually pretty good, more enjoyable if you've decided there's nothing you can do about your fate and just accept your karma that day. Needless to say, the 5.15pm to Leipzig was also delayed and I ended up landing in Saxony at 7pm, arriving at the hotel a mere hour before the recital was due to begin, still needing to have a quick rehearsal with the singer, sit down for a few minutes' rest and get changed. I was so tired and concentrated when the concert began that I played liked a God, even if I say it myself. When you know there'll be no safety net if you lose concentration you force yourself to go that extra mile during the real thing. The audience benefits, believe me. My one regret was not having the time to check out everything the hotel had to offer, so I had to make do with salivating over the broschure on the flights back, which, needless to say when you have no pressure on time and no appointment to catch at your destination, all left and arrived on schedule.

Flying is now as ordinary and bland as waiting for a National Express Coach to take you to Peterborough. Songs like Come Fly With Me belong to a bygone era, when a seat in the sky was, for many people, the height of distant romance, not evocative of a Ryanair short-haul where you have to pay to watch Gerard Depardieu piss on the carpet. No; flying is now on a par with regional rail travel; too many people do it; there's no room or space left, delays are the norm and services cut to lower prices to enable even more peasants to buckle up and enjoy the still-free, crappy Languedoc wine. I paid a handsome price for my last trip and still had my drinks out of a plastic skip; not so many years ago, Lufthansa still gave you glasses.

All over the world, there are Centres of Approximate English (CAEs). These locations are called airports. I can appreciate the desire to make English the global lingua franca, but, for God's sake, do it right. It's not a difficult tongue, but once you've heard or read the suggestion to 'Speak to our staff who will advice you' or 'Change your ticket against a rail pass in case of cancellation', you feel like shouting 'For f***¨sake, we have very little grammar! The only difficulty lies in the pronunciation, so please stop trying to make us all sound like José Bové'. My favourite experience was at Frankfurt Airport on the way back, where I had a three-hour layover before my connection to Toulouse. Peckish around noon, I decided to have some potato wedges. My server was called Niko and, according to his badge, 'spoke' Greek, German and English. I started out in German and, unable to understand him, tried English. Both to no avail. Bear in mind that these are two languages I really do know my way around. I decided his badge meant that he was able, with either German, Greek or English facial expressions, to give an approximate impersonation of an obscure Amazonian dialect. In the end, I just pointed at the potatos and proffered him a €5 note. They'd clearly sat on that stainless steel slide for the best part of Angela Merkel's last term in office and tasted dull and nondescript. At least there was an Audi A7 Quattro to coo at and salivate over in the concourse afterwards.

My biggest gripe with all this flying nonsense is the half-hearted attempts by the airline companies to still give you the impression you're special, that you're part of a privileged airborne club. You're not, so they should really stop trying to kid us. Special these days is flying your own plane. As in all walks of life these days: when 'service' is ubiquitous and mediocre, the real luxury is DIY.

It was all Greek to me...until I read this...

2011-08-30T22:58:00.000+02:00

I'm sure I'm not alone in wondering how Greece got to be such an economic basket case, other than the fact they're probably even more dishonest and corrupt than the Italians and the French, for example. I'd read that their Civil Service was pretty atrophied and that nothing moved much, but hadn't seen any evidence of it until the following job advert caught my eye. As a little preamble: when you advertise an advanced sitvac, you assume any applicants are going to have a pretty good idea as to what's involved, so you write : "Blahblah invites suitably-qualified candidates for the following position: Director/Head of/etc". The Greek National Opera is currently looking for a new Chorus Master. If there was any doubt in your mind about how flexible and mindful of innovation this particular government body was, then have a read of this:

CALL FOR EXPRESSIONS OF INTEREST FOR THE POST OF G.N.O CHOIRMASTER
The Greek National Opera announces a call for expressions of interest for the position of Choirmaster. We are looking
for a figure from the artistic community with a broad-ranging musical and general background, excellent knowledge of
the opera repertoire and various styles of choral music, and the ability of manage ensembles.
Candidates with the following qualifications will be viewed in a particularly positive light:
1. Diploma in conducting skills for choirs or orchestras:
a) issued by schools offering qualifications in conducting (at university music degree level) or Greek higher
schools offering music qualifications.
b) issued by schools offering qualifications in conducting (at university music degree level) or higher schools
offering music qualifications in a Member State of the European Union, whose qualifications are recognised
by the National Academic Recognition Information Centre (DOATAP, formerly the Greek Inter-University
Centre for the Recognition of Foreign Degrees (DIKATSA).
c) issued by a university outside the European Union (university music degree), recognised by DOATAP
(formerly DIKATSA).
d) issued by the Thessaloniki State Conservatoire or other conservatoires recognised by the Ministry of
Culture & Tourism, which operate schools teaching orchestra or choir conducting skills.
2. A degree or diploma in piano or recognised symphonic orchestra instrument, with parallel studies to at least
the level of grade one at a higher piano academy. For holders of qualifications in symphonic orchestra string
or wind instruments, studies at a middle piano academy are sufficient.
3. A qualification in counterpoint from the Thessaloniki State Conservatoire or other conservatoire recognised
by the state. By way of exception, no qualification in counterpoint is required for holders of qualifications
from choir conducting schools.
4. Knowledge of voice training (soloist studies will be viewed in a positive light).
5. Excellent knowledge of the Greek language and good knowledge of at least 2 foreign languages (mainly
Italian and secondarily French, German or English), demonstrated by submitting the relevant certificates.
6. Recognised professional past experience in directing and teaching choirs or musical ensembles.
The Choirmaster’s monthly pay shall be set in accordance with Law 3988/2010.
Each of the top three candidates during the first selection phase will undergo a minimum 3-month trial period during
the artistic period 2011-2012. The final candidate will be selected by the end of the artistic period 2011-2012. The
contract for the G.N.O Choirmaster who is selected will be 2 years.
Greeks or foreigners interested in applying for the position should submit an application by 14:00 hours on 1
September 2011 to the offices of the Greek National Opera. In particular applications should be lodged with the
G.N.O’s Protocol Office in the administration building (39 Panepistimiou St., 3rd floor, Athens GR-10564) from 08:00 to
14:00 hours from Monday to Friday (tel. 210 3711200).
In addition to their application form, which can be obtained from the G.N.O’s Protocol Office or online from the
website www.nationalopera.gr, interested parties should also the following:
1. A detailed CV with photograph.
2. Qualifications (original documents or copies attested by the competent authority).
3. Proof of employment with operas, musical ensembles, etc.
4. Proof of the candidate’s artistic activities such as programmes from performances, sound and image
documentation, reviews, etc.
Click here for Application form

Well, what are waiting for?

Rant de la rentrée

2011-08-30T22:22:00.001+02:00

I just wrote a mail to a friend, saying that, but a few short days ago, I looked in the mirror in Bayreuth and saw a smiling, healthy, cheerful man. I looked in the mirror this morning in Toulouse and noted the rings and bags under my eyes with disgust. In four days, I'd aged ten years, and I feel this way every time I come back to the south after a summer in a country and a town which works. It's been exacerbated this year by the necessity to register my German-bought Audi in France. Exchanging ownership papers and registering in Bayreuth took twenty minutes from start to finish. Here in France, I started at 10am today and won't finish - if I'm lucky - before September 14th. Here's why:

For some obscure reason, the French require a Certificate of Conformity to 'prove' that the car you wish to register is known to the authorities. In a sane world, you would imagine that an Audi A3, now on its third owner and possessing a full service history (I bought it in Germany, after all), would not cause Jacques & Co. to have a seizure. Wrong. I was informed it was 'essential' and that 'nothing could be done' until they were in possession of this particular little sesame. 'So', I asked; 'how do I get one? The Germans didn't see the need, seeing as the car was first put on the road in 2000'. 'You get it from the manufacturer'. Great help. This was after being informed I needed another piece of paper from the tax office (don't ask) to prove something or other. It was free, but it just seems to be there to keep people busy. And frustrated. Anyhow, to cut a long story short, I (finally) found the number of Audi France and they prodded me in the right direction. With any luck, I should receive the thing through the post in about a week.

What drives me insane is that no two people in authority in this country will tell you the same thing. For neophyte car importers, that's a pretty big issue. Why the hell they insist on this CoC (exactly) is beyond me, seeing as their own cars are such shit they fall apart after five years of sink estate handbrake turns and bump-bump parking manoeuvres. In addition, they're so pathologically corrupt they need a piece of paper from a German company before they'll recognise obscure brands and models such as the Audi A3. Once I've finally registered the bloody thing and providing I haven't gone postal by then, it'll have cost me around €300. The price I paid in Germany? €59. One employee of Audi Toulouse even told me I'd have to have a new MOT done here in France, even though the car went through the TÜV in Germany on August 15th. I suggested that might be sufficient, would it not? He replied that 'We were in France', as if they could do a better job than the people who built the bloody car in the first place. Makes you want to puke.

There has to be a victim in all of this, and there was one, I'm afraid. Something else I needed to do today was print off an invoice to send to a company near Stuttgart. The printer, which has seldom given me much hassle, decided its black ink wasn't going to work. I tried printing the bill; no dice. I cleaned the heads. No dice. I tried again. And again. And again. Eventually, it decided the other colours all needed replacing and wouldn't budge an inch until I'd spent f*** knows how much replacing half-full cartridges, just to see the test paper refuse to show any evidence of black whatsoever. After half an hour of kärchering the heads to no avail and having used up my stock of spare ink cartridges I finally lost it and pummeled the printer into oblivion, smashing my fist down repeatedly on its cover, shattering the photocopier and scanner glass, unfortunately under the watchful eye of Fingernail II, who wandered off to Mrs. F and said "Daddy's killed the printer". I tried to explain my way out of it as best I could, the fact it was the result of red mist that had slowly been descending ever since my first contact with the civil service after my arrival from Germany; the fact that the size of our flat is driving me crazy; the smell of the streets; the incivility; the lack of room anywhere and just the fact that I didn't deal with a frustrating situation as well as I could have. In the end, I said, it was all due to a lack of self-control and no excuse I could make will ever divert attention from that truth. There are worse things in life. I can't wait to sell this place and get the hell out. Seriously, it's getting critical. I've just spent three months in places that work, then I come back to one of the world's richest countries and encounter nothing but bullshit and indifference. Stupid, spoiled f*******; do they know how good they've got it? I'd better stop. It's curious: I'm the happiest I've been for months, now that I'm back with my little family, yet my nerves are currently jangling for no more reason than I have to go about my everyday life with people who are obstructive and unhelpful. Life never gets easier, it just gets more familiar.

End of summer blues

2011-08-22T23:08:00.001+02:00

I wish I had something thrilling and titillating to tell you, but I don't. I could file for intellectual bankruptcy (Wouldn't that be a first, eh?) and just post a picture of a porn star (Actually not such a bad idea - note to self) but will probably just plunk for typing randomly-assembled words to fill up a few minutes before I despair at my own stupidity and vacuity and go to bed, accompanied by - I'm serious, I kid you not - an experimental didgeridoo concert on Bavarian Radio. The fact of the matter is that my line of work interests only those already in the business whom I have, as a matter of precaution, pre-drugged, gagged and tethered to chairs or radiators and seeing as that's all I've indulged in since buying that Audi A3 (well, almost all) I basically have nothing to tell you. I'm still not back in France, I'm still not getting irritated with noisy neighbours, I'm still not drinking the wine regions of Gaillac and Fronton dry, but I am playing lots of Wagner and Verdi, sitting on my terrace in a gorgeously-hot northern Bavaria and having more than the occasional Weissbier, but frankly, do any of you give one? No, and nor should you; most of you visited this blog in the hope of finding some pearls of wisdom related to life in southern France and virtually all posts since May 22nd must have disappointed you (except that one of Pamela Anderson, come on...).

'Come on,' I hear you cry; 'You say your line of work won't interest us, but try us! We're adult, we have our BCGs'. OK, here goes: It probably won't be Frank Castorf; it'll be a collaboration between Hans Neuenfels, Stefan Herheim and Katharina Wagner. Satisfied? OK, where's that picture of a porn star...

See you in France.

Audi A3 Sportback - our passport to freedom.

2011-08-16T13:53:00.000+02:00

In my original profile I mentioned the fact that Mrs. Fingers and I didn't own a car. Well, now we do. 'Ooh Gah!' I hear you cry; 'He's finally done what virtually every other adult on the planet did ages ago, and got himself a car'. I know I'm a bit slow on the uptake with all these things but I have been a car owner before: I had a couple of BMW 520i's in Hamburg, back in the late eighties to mid-nineties but gave them away when I moved back to London as I didn't need them anymore. It's a shame you can't get rental car 'miles' which ultimately get you a discount on car insurance when you go back to owning a vehicule, as that would probably have made quite a difference to what I'm going to have to shell out for this one, now. It's also the reason I picked something pretty small and not too powerful: as far as the insurance companies are concerned I am - despite having had my driving licence over thirty years - a new driver; the No Claims Bonus I acquired in Germany expired in 2002 and France was never going to go that extra mile to start me on that percentage. Nor should they, either.

The real reason for getting the car is that we're now equipped to go house-hunting in areas which don't necessarily have a highly-developed public transport system i.e. anywhere in and around Toulouse. It also means we can just pop off somewhere for a day or an afternoon instead of having to stick it out in the centre of town. If you want to get out into deep countryside here, you need a car; it's as simple as that.

Here's a little piccy of the model I bought:

Now there's just the small matter of driving 1600km back to Toulouse in just over a week's time...

Chilean MILF politicians - an artist's retrospective

2011-08-07T00:57:00.001+02:00

I'm pleased that certain surfers have - probably much to their enormous disappointment - been directed to my Chilean MILF page, but regret that the full comparative horror - seeing pictures of Harriet Harman, Jacqui Smith and Estelle Morris - has not been experienced. In fact, I get the impression that the Chilean MILF politicians v. Blair's 'Babes' page is probably the least visited page of the entire blog. This does, however, indicate that there is a benevolent God; one who, even in the pornographically liberal environment of the World Wide Web, still spares innocent (well, OK...) internauts the sight of three of the most appalling human execrescences ever let loose on our fair soil. I was just back in England for a week and, hell, it is a gorgeous country; noting that Blair's autobiography is part of a 3 for 2 deal at W.H. Smith's does jab a matchstick at the corner of my mouth, but it's not enough. Not until NuLab and its subversions have been eradicated from the collective conscience can life really improve. I realise this may not make me popular with a large percentage of the population, but, you know: I don't give an airborne reproductive act; that's the beauty of getting older: you care less about what people think and say. It's also why people label us cantankerous old buggers. Can't believe I'm banging on the door of the local Darby and Joan Club when I'm still regularly called 'Young Man', 'Jeune Homme' and 'Junger Mann' (at least in Europe) by people, often younger than I, who then don't expect to be corrected. Bizarre. Age is in the mind, seriously. When you get older, you become more of what you always have been.

This is getting off the point, of course; The point being that Chile - great country, fab miners - has hot female politicians and Great Britain - great country, fab er, scenery - has not. Notwithstanding, I still maintain it is easier to get into a conversation with a Brit than with practically any other national, anywhere. Try it out - at home, if needs be - and let me know. We may be a spent force, an ex-empirical power, an easy touch for Third World benefit scroungers, but hell, can we chat! Seriously, you can start a conversation with a Brit for nothing and about nothing and your life will be richer for it, providing you have a sense of humour and a capacity to give as good as you get. Try it this summer - wherever you are - and watch our population increase even more than it did under New Labour. But naturally, this time. Countries with a good sense of humour tend to have a higher birth rate than stick-in-the-mud nations. Dubious? Check the statistics.

That's enough late-night bollocks. Sleep well. Preferably with one of us.

Delay, Delay, Delay.

2011-08-06T11:48:00.000+02:00

Just back from the inside of a week in England; a wonderful meeting-up with Mrs. F and the Fingernails after six weeks' absence. England was a joy: great weather and no traffic jams, but I realise I just got lucky there, nothing more. It was interesting to see signs in Russian up in Wisbech, a sleepy Georgian market town and epicentre of the local agricultural picking and packing trade and now host to many Eastern European labourers who have done nothing but win friends since their arrival a few years ago. Many return home once the season's over, others stay on and pick up other work. They're also buying businesses and houses, so they're definitely there to stay.

The only downside of the trip was the experience with Swiss Airlines, or whatever they're called this week. Every flight I took was delayed, one connection (same company) was missed and even the Nuremberg flight I was re-booked on after a three-hour hang around took off late. If you're flying via Zurich, as I was, you have to go through passport control and security before picking up your connecting flight, yet there appears to be no airport coordination between a late-arriving Swiss flight and its subsequent connections. There's certainly no fast track for short connections; everyone stands in line as the few border guards there are peer at every passport as if it's the first time they've seen a travel document. They're not going anywhere, so they're not in a hurry. You either make your connecting flight or you do not, there appears to be no kind of policy and everyone you speak to has a dim, glazed-over expression on their face as if mildly surprised you wish to reach your destination as planned. The route Nuremberg-Zurich-Manchester was stressful but the return trip turned out to be less so as we got so late they just informed us we'd all miss our connections and that we should go to the Transfers Desk to pick up our new boarding passes for later flights. They came accompanied with a voucher for CHF 10 which will get you a beer and a pretzel, at least it will if you get up and remind the dozy waitress of your order after waiting for fifteen minutes. I can safely say I have never encountered such a dozy, thick, initiative-free and gormless group of people as I met flying Swiss this last week. God only knows how the country got so rich if this is the mentality. The only part of the trip which worked was when the plane was in the air, but even Air France gets that bit right. Getting to the plane and getting it in the air was the big challenge, and here they failed dismally. A trip which should have taken twelve hours door-to-door ended up taking 18. Never again if I have the choice.

Happy Birthday, Mum!

2011-07-28T22:33:00.001+02:00

Today is my mother's birthday. I sent her a mail as I couldn't reach her by phone. She finally retired this last May i.e. two months ago, having served as librarian, teacher and local politician since the age of 18. Somewhere along the line, 1981, I think it was, she moved to another part of the country, was out of work for a little while and missed paying six months of N.I. contributions which severely dented her pension prospects, so she carried on working beyond retirement age to fill the gap. As a single parent from 1969 onwards she single-handedly brought up two boys in an era when divorce was more than frowned upon, all the time working full-time as a schoolteacher and never received a penny of benefits. She would stay up every weekday until midnight planning lessons and marking for the following day and never complained about her lot. In one year, she lost her mother (my grandmother), at the age of 59 to lung cancer, herself gave up smoking and got divorced, yet ploughed on, working full-time and bringing up two feisty and renegade sons without so much as an Oy Vay on the horizon. This 'single parent' saw her sons off to university and on to respectively Detective Inspector at Scotland Yard and a not-so-unsuccessful working musician. Both my brother and I speak five languages each, too. Nothing directly to do with Mum, but indicative of the culture of education we'd received.

After several years as County and Borough Councillor following retirement, my Mum was nominated as Mayor of King's Lynn and West Norfolk, where one of her subjects was HM The Queen (Sandringham, you see), with whom she built up an amusing relationship, having received her in King's Lynn a number of times and having been invited to Buckingham Palace and Sandringham House for genteel, royal bun fights. After her stint as Mayor, where she absolved 500 official functions in one calendar year without anyone at home to cook or clean up for her, she returned to being Borough Councillor until she decided she could take the committees and self-interested in-fighting no more and announced she would not stand as LibDem candidate this year for her ward and would retire. She was staying with us in Toulouse the day of the elections, yet still insisted I gave her the links to the election results before I left for work so she could see who had got elected and who not. I said "Mum, it's not your problem any more" but it clearly was; she was concerned about who had got in. For any Telegraph readers (like myself) out there: her expenses bill for 17 years of service: £3.64. One day as Mayor, she was absolutely ravenous between four engagements (6am - 5pm) where no lunch had been scheduled and said to herself "Hell, just this once". Bon appetit, maman.

My mother turned 79, today. Freshly retired after a lifetime of service to her family, her pupils and her constituents. And no, she doesn't live in a huge house, she rents a two-bedroomed bungalow in the country as she paid off all my father's debts and could never afford to buy. You'll instantly recognise my mother if you bump into her: she'll be the one smiling and asking you if she can give you a hand. Happy Birthday, Mum, I love you.

Countdown to Sunday.

2011-07-28T21:44:00.003+02:00

Since getting back from Austria on Monday life has just felt like pleasantly marking time. We had our premiere on Tuesday, on Wednesday I went to a colleague's production then off to the wonderful Stadtbad for a dip, picking up a pizza and a bottle of happy juice for the evening. Coached a bit of The Ring this morning, then it was back to the pool for a couple of hours then off to the supermarket to get some sustenance to tide me over till morn. I don't normally do this ready-meal nonsense, but seeing as I'm off to England on Sunday I'm loathe to buy too much fresh fruit and veg in case it goes off while I'm gone and I'm greeted by cockroaches and rats the size of NBA superstars upon my return. The two remaining onions I had in the larder were full of mites by the time I got back from my Austrian trip and I'm sorry, but creepy-crawlies in the kitchen make my flesh creep. And crawl.

Sunday heralds being with the family for a few days and I can't wait. Can't wait to hold those children in my arms. It's been far too long; I've hardly seen them since May 22nd, when I left for Chile. God only knows how my colleagues do this all the time; I think I'd wither and die within the year. What's more, I just yesterday turned down another offer to go back to Chile in late August. Apart from anything else, my regular day job starts up again at the end of that month, but I can see how a freelancer would leap at the chance and postpone his big family reunion for another three to four weeks. This profession is dominated by people who either have no family or, by necessity, neglect the one they have to a certain degree; it's a precarious life and if someone offers you work you say 'yes', then think later. Zubin Mehta was once asked in an interview how he'd combined his extraordinary career with the fact of being father to three children. The meat of his reply was that music had taken priority and that 'it was too late, now'. Depressing. I honestly thank my lucky stars that I can work at a high level in this business and be with my family 95% of the year. Anyone who understands how classical music works will realise how lucky and unusual that is. Anyhow, mustn't get too maudlin about this; Sunday's not far off and the Wagners are organising a bun fight for us tomorrow. It's not like in years gone by, when we'd all trot off to Wolfgang Wagner's house but times change. Apart from anything else, the people who invited us to the house are no longer with us and a new broom has swept through the Green Hill, so new entertainment techniques are to be expected. Can't get too sloshed, though; we've got a performance the next day.

Isn't that gorgeous? Corresponds to Mrs. F and the Fingernails, too. Only another couple of days.

Andrea Chénier, Bregenzer Festspiele

2011-07-21T23:43:00.006+02:00

I drove down to Lech am Arlberg in Austria, yesterday, in preparation for my recital on Sunday with KFV and SK, stopping off in Garmisch-Partenkirchen to visit the Richard Strauss Institute; something I've been promising myself for years. The place is fascinating and includes a good exhibition of his life and works, his house in Garmisch and quite a few of his artefacts, including - horror of horrors - a clip-on bow tie. I honestly thought he was better than that. Upstairs, there's a superb library chock-a-block with just about everything ever written on or by him. I left the building with a three-volume collection of his correspondance with colleagues and, of course, a mug.

I got to Lech at 6.30pm and was immediately asked if I wanted to go on the trip to the premiere of Andrea Chenier at the Bregenzer Festspiele. Knackered as I was I agreed and hell, what a good decision that turned out to be.
For those unfamiliar with the Bregenz Festival, one of the productions is on Lake Constance. You sit in a 7000-seater grandstand and the action takes place on a stage built on the water. It's spectacular; we saw Tosca there a few years back, the production which is featured in the James Bond film A Quantum of Solace. Practically every production done on the lake is Opera Meets Cirque du Soleil and is a feast for the eyes and ears. Yesterday's Andrea Chenier was, along with Stefan Herheim's production of Parsifal at the Bayreuth Festival, quite simply the best thing I've seen on an operatic stage, ever. The singing is, for the most part, very good, in particular Hector Sandoval's revolutionary poet, but it's the way that opera singers, dancers, acrobats and performance swimmers combine so seamlessly under Keith Warner's direction to tell the story of the doomed poet without one special effect ever appearing gratuitous. The set is a marvel to behold. Designed by David Fielding, it is an enormous, stylised reproduction of part of Jacques-Louis David's 1793 painting La Mort de Marat. Jean Paul Marat was a radical Jacobine, stabbed to death in his bath by the 'moderate' Girondine Charlotte Corday and it is André Chénier's impassioned ode to her that seals his death warrant. In addition, there's an over-dimensional open book and a hand surging out of the water, carrying a tray, providing two more stages and an enormous knife which appears out of the water, as if from nowhere. The face is incredible: the eyes open and close, are by turns vacant or alive, the mouth opens, acrobats appear out of the top of her skull, singers are seen to walk amongst the folds of his nightcap. The skin changes colour according to the plot and, finally, enormous needles appear out of the entire face and upper body, impaling the citizens and looking, to all intents and purposes, like the Martyrdom of Saint Sebastian. As Chénier and Maddalena are executed the body turns the colour of a corpse, the lips turn blue, the eye sockets black. Their death is represented by Idria Legray, the lady Maddalena replaced on the scaffold, slowly being engulfed in the French Flag, a tricolour stream of water, in the enormous facsimile mirror, presided over by the Grim Reaper, an omnipresent character the entire evening. I'll try to find a picture of the set. Don't go away.

Yes! There it is. The hand holding the platter starts off in front of the bust i.e. where you can see the knife. The pièce de résistance was the court scene, where the head tipped back as if its throat had been slit (this being the implication) to reveal stacks of enormous books and the procurators suspended in mid-air. Lots of swirling dried ice for this scene, naturally. Quite the most amazing thing I've seen for many a long year. If you have the opportunity to see it this year, it runs in Bregenz, Austria, until August 21st. They're doing it next year, too. Book now.

Nothing French About This Blog, Anymore.

2011-07-18T19:49:00.000+02:00

Apart from a few days, mid-June, I've not been in France since May 22nd and won't return until late August. I'm used to spending the entire summer abroad but hooking three weeks in South America on the front completely changed the rules of the game and I'm horrified, yet again, at just how adaptable human beings are. It's a basic survival instinct, I know, I know, but I don't like life feeling 'normal' without the family around. OK, enough of that.

I was just re-reading some early posts on this blog, and I was amazed at how life has changed these last few years. To think I got into such a lather about some of those issues, though some were justified (the noisy neighbours, the drug dealer, the cretins pouring toxic liquid into the gutter). As for the rest, I suppose I'm just a bit older and less neurotic than I was. Priorities change and I'm not as angry as I was. I don't know whether that's a good thing, as we arty types are supposed to all be pathetically immature and throw TVs out of hotel room windows or some such crap, before channeling our creativity into a mould-busting performance of Beethoven's Fifth, Bohemian Rhapsody or Hamlet. I say: keep the child-like passion for the music and save your money on refurbishment. Someone once said that artists should never have children as they should never be distracted from their path and creativity. F*** knows what that was all about, but it was someone pretty famous; an author, I think, and not just any old one. If you don't live, love and create, how can you be an artist? All your 'artistic' creations are mere conjecture, born in a vacuum of talent but bereft of experience.

Yup, nothing French about this blog anymore, at all. Circulez, n'y a rien à voir...

Eva Perón - 7th May, 1919 - 26th July, 1952

2011-07-16T21:27:00.002+02:00

I've just finished reading maybe my fourth book about Evita, a fairly poorly-written tome by Abel Posse which, nonetheless, contains an awful lot of information. Set in the last months of Eva's life, we juxtapose the early 1950's with her personal history starting in Los Toldos, eventually catching up with her remaining days in Buenos Aires. The end is, actually, extremely good, but you need to be an Argentina fan like myself to make it through to page 350 or thereabouts, when he gets bitten by the great biographer bug and seriously turns up the heat. We have Argentinian friends in Toulouse, both younger than myself, who have pictures of Evita in their flat, even though she'd been dead twenty years before the elder of the two was born. Apparently, a few years ago, the Argentinian government minted a coin with her effigy. In just over a week her beloved country will commemorate the 59th year of her passing, yet her impact remains, apparently, undented. Once back in Toulouse, I must ask our friends just what it is that is so enduring about Eva Ibarguren/Duarte, later Perón. Better still, I need to spend some serious time in Argentina.

Instead of the usual pictures of Eva, I'm going to post one of Doctor Pedro Ara - posed, of course - who was entrusted with enbalming her body, a task which took over a year and earned him around $100,000:

General Pedro Aramburu participated in the 1955 coup which deposed Perón, who was then sent into exile in Panama. He is said to have been behind sending Evita's embalmed body out of the country, along with a host of fake coffins to throw people off the scent. She eventually turned up in a Milan cemetery in 1972 under the name of Señora Maggio. Her body was returned to Juan Perón who, at that time, was living in exile with his third wife in Franco's Spain. She can now be found in the Duarte/Ibarguren family vault in Buenos Aires' most elegant cemetery, La Recoleta. Aramburu was kidnapped, tortured and murdered by political enemies in 1970.

It's a fascinating story, one with more twists and turns than a crime novel, seemingly distant geographically yet within chronological reach of most people alive today.

Putting the record straight.

2011-07-15T22:39:00.002+02:00

There are some people who claim that Bayreuth was consistently much better in years gone by, that the singers these days don't hold a candle to the stars of yesteryear 'n' all that. It's true that there were fine singers in the past, but to implicitly proclaim every performance then was superior to what is available now is pure folly. There are excellent Bayreuth recordings featuring luminaries such as Wolfgang Windgassen, Leonie Rysanek, Martha Mödl, Frieda Leider etc but let's just have a quick look at the tenors who sang here last year:

Jonas Kaufmann
Klaus Florian Vogt
Lance Ryan
Simon O'Neill
Johan Botha
Robert Dean Smith
Christopher Ventris
Norbert Ernst

Considering that even the biggest houses worldwide practically never schedule more than two Wagner works each season and that we perform anything between five and eight in five weeks, uniting talent like that is going it some. Here are some of the other names who've sung here since I've been working here:

Nina Stemme
Ricarda Merbeth
Adrienne Pieczonka
Judith Nemeth
Linda Watson
Eva-Maria Westbroek
Michaela Kaune
Peter Seiffert
Petra-Maria Schnitzer
Irene Theorin
Evelyn Herlitzius
Annette Dasch
Camilla Nylund
Frank van Aken
John Tomlinson
Olaf Bär
John Wegner
Kwangchoul Youn
Samuel Youn
Georg Zeppenfeld
Arthur Korn
Reinhard Hagen
Hans-Peter König
Andreas Schmidt
Stephen Gould
Petra Lang
Roman Trekel
Michael Nagy
Michael Volle
Adrian Eröd
James Rutherford
Robert Holl
Alan Titus

If I'd started a couple of years earlier I'd have been able to add Placido Domingo and Waltraud Meier to that list.

I could go on and on. Hardly the moribund event some naysayers harp on about. Considering the festival now has to compete with the world of the chequebook-driven, photogenic, media-hyped 'star', the fact that artists of such stature still want to spend their summer performing Wagner in his own theatre says a lot for their integrity. Bayreuth is a great leveller: Wagner's music is always, without exception, more impressive than even the most talented and photogenic interpreter and no-one is bigger than the creator, here. It's fantastic. Musical life the way it should be.

Schools on the Grünen Hügel

2011-07-14T11:51:00.001+02:00

The part of Bayreuth where the Festspielhaus is located is called the Green Hill, or Grüner Hügel and it's pretty much the northern edge of the town. Beyond Richard Wagner's theatre are a restaurant, a forest and a few schools, and it's the latter I want to mention, here.

A spread-out estate built up around the theatre in the 1950's, all the streets being named after Wagner's operas or characters therein. So we've got Tannhäuserstrasse, Dalandweg, Lohengrinstrasse, Amfortasweg etc. You get the picture. Just behind my street up here is not only a pre-school but a primary school and a vocational secondary school, or Realschule, as it's known, here. Beyond that little campus is a good Italian restaurant, the Bürgerreuth, and then the forest. Every morning I hear the children enjoying playtime and pretty much always cross them going home as I'm on my way either to or from the theatre. The wonderful thing is that even the youngest of these children walks home on his or her own. There is no danger, here. We're surrounded by fields, apart from the school buses there's next to no traffic and these little people wander home on their own at the age of five, six and seven etc, pausing to look at flowers or something else they've seen on the ground in complete safety. How wonderful to be able to start your life like that. I remember walking home from St. Martin's Infants in Salisbury on my own, but that was also the 1960's and life has, sadly, changed a lot since those days. With that in mind it's lovely to see young children still able to do that in parts of Europe. How sad that something so natural should now be seen as a luxury. What a sad indictment of the world we now live in.

This is what you see from the schools. It's not like that where the Fingernails go, I can tell you.

Pamela Anderson

2011-07-13T23:48:00.000+02:00

A propos of nothing at all, here's a picture of one of my favourite philosophers, Pamela Anderson:

Thank you, and good night.

Visitors from Crawley, West Sussex!!!

2011-07-13T19:21:00.001+02:00

I can't tell you how happy I am to have had visitors from Crawley, West Sussex. This is the town I spent twelve years in, from six to 18, living in Tilgate and Gossops Green, going to school at St. Andrew's, Furnace Green, Holy Trinity in Buckswood Drive, then Hazelwick in Three Bridges. Even though it was - and still is, I would imagine - of no particular architectural note, it was a brilliantly planned town, just the right size and with, then as now, I believe, the lowest unemployment rate of anywhere in the UK. This was due to Gatwick Airport (little more than an aerodrome when we first arrived), Manor Royal Industrial Estate and its proximity to London. Crawley had everything going for it, but I think I've written about it in a previous post, maybe the one about Mini ManUtd, I can't remember.

So, dear Crawleyites, thanks for coming. Is L.H. Cloake's records still there? Probably not, but worth asking all the same.

The George Hotel (picture) and the White Hart Inn (opposite) are just about the only pretty buildings in Crawley, but everyone's got a garden. At least they had when I lived there.

No Smoking in the Czech Republic, by the way...

2011-07-13T15:25:00.004+02:00

Apart from incredible debt, the one thing which unites EU member states is its no-smoking policy. I'd even go as far as to say that the success of a country's candidacy depends more on its willingness to demonise smokers than proving it can balance its books. Take the Czech Republic, for example. Anything which even only looks like a public building is covered with improvised No Smoking signs, many of them one-off attempts to copy the classic smoking cigarette in a red circle with a line through it. Karlovy Vary's north station is peppered with attempts to get this simple model right, with varying degrees of success, it must be added: some examples have no red circle at all, so even though the text exhorts you not to light up the picture implies that it's more than OK to do so. In fact, it looks like you're in a designated smoking area and some killjoy has written No Smoking on the wall just to annoy you. This wouldn't be so bad, but the fact is that the station is basically completely open to the elements, so we have people basically being told they can't light up in the open which is, in anyone's book, smoker or not, a gross infringement of civil liberties. The same goes for bus stops. They're all open, but a flimsy attempt at a roof seems to alter its status to that of public building, so no tar, thank you very much. I've now been a non-smoker for four months and I don't miss it one iota, in fact I now find the smell repulsive. Still, I can't help but find this authoritarian, totalitarian Brussels-fuelled intolerance to anything which doesn't fit into the unelected commission's worldwide socialist Common Purpose agenda more than vaguely worrying, I find it downright frightening. Right wingers will walk away from things they don't like; left wingers seek to have them banned. That is effectively the difference, yet it is always the left-wingers accusing the right of intolerance, whereas it is they who are the true fascists of the piece. So ultimately, the Czechs and everyone else in Europe have been happy to impose a blanket infringement of civil liberties in exchange for a bit of money. By the way: the only public building in Europe to possess a smokers' lounge is the European Parliament in Strasbourg, so what does that say about their hypocrisy? See where a simple riff can lead you?

Returning to Karlovy Vary station, the main platform roof is the classic wooden-slatted, inverted V with that raised crown so the steam can escape. The stansions are wrought iron. It's simple yet so beautiful and puts me in mind of the Central Station in Santiago de Chile, designed by someone called Gustave Eiffel who, apart from that and a little bridge in the Dordogne, built nothing of note.

You think this is a joke, don't you?

Czech-up time, again.

2011-07-12T22:57:00.003+02:00

The cost benefits of Eastern European dental treatment are no secret to anyone these days and I'm happy to avail myself of its amazing value for money. Last year I had four crowns put in, and this morning I headed off again, this time just to have a gold crown replaced. Every time I go to Karlovy Vary, or Karlsbad as the Germans call it, or maybe just plain old Charlie's Bath (as no-one calls it, I'm sure), it's blisteringly hot. You snake through the backwoods of Upper Franconia, the border country railway stations fading with their post-Schengen significance until you reach the Czech town of Cheb, which need not concern us here, save for the fact the place probably engendered the word 'unlovely', even if its station café is quite fun in a comradely, post-communist kind of way.

On the way, you'll have changed trains in Marktredwitz. If the timetable allows, you'll have time to wander into its charming centre and have a look around. The main street is typical of the region: all buildings between 100 - 200 years old, very well - maybe too well - maintained and a landmark with a story. Every little town or village has its claim to fame around here, and Marktredwitz is no exception. Goethe himself once spent a few days in what is now the New Town Hall (Neues Rathaus), August 13th - 18th, 1822, to be precise. You can visit his room during weekday office hours. It is civil servantsville, after all...

My dentist was as brilliant and cheap as he always is and his surgery is the most space-age I've ever seen, but I think I've mentioned this before. Anyhow, there's a supermarket right by the bus stop for the trip back to the station, so I popped in to get a couple of things, one of them, loo paper, being fairly urgent as I knew I was out of the stuff in Bayreuth and wouldn't get back in time to catch the shops. I found the section easily enough but then cackled so loudly that a couple of nearby shoppers turned to look at me. The house brand of loo paper is called 'Grand Finale'. Honestly. You couldn't make it up. I also couldn't possibly not buy a pack with a name like that. I only wish I had the little digital camera with me here so I could have taken a photo and posted it.

I find I can understand quite a few words in Czech, thanks to the leftovers of my mediocre Russian in the 1990's. One phrase which creases me, though, is the Czech for 'No Parking': Ne Parkovat. Honestly, I though English was lazy on occasions. It's almost like a send-up of itself, as if the 'Russian' were No Parkski Here-ski. Buggeroff. Essential words like beer and numbers are very similar. In Russian, you'd order a 'Pivo', but pronounce it 'Piva', as the unstressed 'o' sounds like 'ah'. In Czech, it's 'Pivo', with an 'o'. The price is the same in both, at least at the lovely little kiosk in front of Charlie's Bath's northern station: Dyevit Vosyem, or Twenty-Eight to you and me for a bottle of Gabarinus Premium 12%. Bargain in any language.

Anyhow, it's back to Karlovy Vary/Karlsbad/Charlie's Bath on Saturday to get the real thing fitted in my gob. The next dental undertaking is to have a pesky wisdom tooth removed in October, get a brace on my lower set and eventually have teeth I can present to the outside world. Once the mechanics are out of the way it'll be back to the Czechs for a more photogenic 'grand finale'...

Extra services not reimbursed by the French Sécurité Sociale. I shall write to my MP. Oh, that IS my MP.

Swimming Pools and Beer

2011-07-09T11:00:00.001+02:00

Something I didn't mention about the poolside café in Bayreuth is that you don't just get your snacks served up on paper plates and the drinks are as far from Max-Pax as you could imagine: there's proper crockery, glasses for the juices and cups with saucers for the hot drinks, all this three yards from the water's edge. The crowning glory here has to be the fact that you can order any one of five different beers, two of them on tap, and have them served in the appropriate glass, not just a plastic skip like you'd find in Elf 'n' Safety England, not that you'd be able to have a beer inside a public swimming pool there, anyway. In short, you can sit in a delightful little café area and eat and drink as if you were in a normal café. Many people wouild say that it's dangerous, having glass so close to a pool, but the fact remains that disciplined, civic-minded people are able to get away with this precisely because they respect the parameters and don't let it become dangerous. I posted a while back about how the smoking ban was applied differently in Europe. Indisciplined, corrupt countries like France and Italy had to put up with a total ban on day one; places like Germany and Austria had some leeway as it was known they wouldn't abuse the loopholes. Bavaria closed the loophole last summer via referendum, a decision taken by the populace and not the politicians.

So, if you want to enjoy a bit of freedom you have to show you're capable of respecting it. There's no secret, really...

Stormy Weather

2011-07-07T21:30:00.000+02:00

I noted in an earlier post that Bayreuth has all manner of weather, every day, and today is no exception. It was gloriously hot - up around 30°C - all day, and now, at 9.30pm, there is a mother of a storm outside which looks like it could fell trees. I remember one a few years ago which did actually do that, killing a young woman in the process. My house here sits in the middle of a tree-infested garden and I pray every year one won't come crashing down on us. Oh! Now there's lightning, too. There are also two moths playing up in the sitting room lights. How the hell did they get in?

And a thunder crack! This is going to be a long night in Northern Bavaria, I can feel it now...

Stadtbad Bayreuth

2011-07-07T17:55:00.000+02:00

I know I've got a tendency to go off the deep end about things, particularly those I like, but you've honestly never experienced municipal bathing perfection until you've had a dip in Bayreuth's Stadtbad, or Town Pool. Built in the 1920's, it is a gem of a building which is beautifully appointed, clean and never full. It's not cheap: without reductions, a ticket will set you back €3.80 but for that you get two pools and a jacuzzi as well as steam baths, a weights room, relaxation areas, terraces and a café right by the water. What's more, unlike in France, you can pitch up in a pair of boxers and just jump in. French pools require you to wear a stupid swimming cap and speedos in order to restrict the filth as much as possible, yet the fundamentally cleaner of the two countries does not see such measures as necessary, presumably assuming the bathing public will show enough responsability concerning their personal hygiene so as to render such by-laws irrelevent. I always think of Napoleon legislating the country beyond what should be necessary so as to protect the people from their own tendencies.

These two Bavarian beauties weren't there this afternoon, but that's pretty much how full it is whenever I go.

Surveys, research and other rubbish.

2011-07-06T21:35:00.001+02:00

I've just read an article on the Independent website that recent research has found that people with wider faces are more likely to cheat and lie, yet make better businessman (duh). Make of this shit what you will, but I'm certainly the exception that proves the rule: I'm a useless businessman and couldn't lie to cover up my iniquities if my life depended on it, so I don't cheat. Too stressful and what's the point, anyway? Predictably, the picture they used as a header was Richard Nixon; even forty-odd years after his administration, he's still trotted out as the last person in the developed world to mislead anyone about anything.

I'm not saying it's not worth conducting research into behavioural traits, but should the findings of one group of 'scientists' extrapolated from a mere 192 business students really merit front page treatment in a so-called 'serious' daily? Just a couple of years ago, an admittedly privately-funded item of scientific research in the UK came to the conclusion that a man's enthusiasm for female breasts was - no, seriously - fundamentally sexual in nature. What???? Men find tits attractive? How much did this piece of research cost? I know they were trying to find out if there was maybe an infant-mother angle to explore, but really. Honestly. In the end, who cares? We love tits, it's what we do. Everything else in our life is padding until we can see some more. Is it important where the impulse comes from? OK, that's way too much information about me, but which straight man is any different? Only broad-faced business students would dare disagree with that.

The most upsetting aspect to all this is the fact that our news sources are under such incredible pressure to keep us poor, sad punters supplied with new news items twenty-four hours a day that they are required to publish this kind of drivel and hope they keep their reputation in the process. Little matter the content or erudition, the important thing is to line up a new series of words under the cloak of serious journalism. In the absence of informative, thought-provoking articles we are obliged to continue rating the titles we know, elevating their buffed-up news-wire offerings to the status of true information.

www.flatearthnews.net

Read it.

I told you so. And I'm not even a journalist.

2011-07-04T23:08:00.000+02:00

Back on May 20th I published a post called 'Dominique Strauss-Kahn IV and Serial Misinformation', the contents of which turned out to be remarkably prescient in the light of the last 48 hours or so. I made those comments based on a hunch, that something was just not quite right with the story, aided by having just read a rather fascinating and well-researched book, Flat Earth News. I'm not even a dot a on the journalistic or political landscape, but was still able to unearth a point which soon proved to be contentious, so what are our quality journalists doing out there? Would you mind being a little more honest? And can we play too, please?

Slim-Fast Diet Blog

2011-07-04T20:09:00.002+02:00

I would dearly love to know how the 'Slim Fast Diet Blog' became one of my traffic sources. Has there ever been anything I've written which may suggest you'd be better off not eating a couple of Big Macs at 9am or snacking on a dead sheep at three in the afternoon? Anyhow, if you want to lose weight without spending a cent/centime/penny/kopek on any fads or gimmicks, you've come to the right place. Here's how to do it:

1)    Don't eat crap. Fast food is a no-no. Fresh fruit and veg, meat a couple of times a week, fish another couple of times. Other than that, just eat stuff that grows out of the ground.

2)    Don't eat between meals. You should have breakfast, lunch, a bit of tea and dinner. Don't overdo this last one; you probably won't burn the calories unless you're a nightclubber, and even then, you're likely to consume a lot of calories either through alcohol or late-night 'snacks'.

3)    Move your body. Walk when you can, take your bike the rest of the time. This isn't rocket science; we've just invented a thousand ways to be inert and the wheel has turned full circle: the luxury of convenience and inactivity has made repulsive, obese farts out of millions of people all over the world. Reverse the process: throw away the X-Box, the Play Station and anything else which requires the exclusive use of thumbs. Get up off your arses and eat and move the way nature intended you to. Seriously, there is no secret and even less any reason for anyone to spend thousands on the latest, most efficient, scientifically-proven diet. Look at people in central Africa: ripped bodies and amazing teeth. I rest my case.

Never seen the inside of a Burger King in his life.

Franz Liszt 1811 - 1886

2011-07-04T13:09:00.002+02:00

Most of you won't know who Franz Liszt was, much less give a s*** that this year is the 200th anniversary of his birth. Still, Bayreuth Town Council cares, and not just because he was a famous composer who revolutionised, amongst many other things, not only piano literature but also how we listen to it in public. That is a post all of its own and one to which I'll get around e'er long. No, Bayreuth and Liszt go back a long way: one of his daughters, Cosima, was married to the town's meal ticket, Richard Wagner and he also died here, just over the road from Wahnfried, Wagner's house, in a little flat which is now a museum.

This year, Bayreuth is putting out the Liszt flags: there are events and recitals at Steingräber & Söhne, Bayreuth's own piano factory and one of very few independent makes left anywhere, lectures in town and - this is my favourite - a bus (number 310, if you're interested), sporting an enormous photograph of the great man with his name and an internet address - www.liszt.bayreuth.com (I think) - where you can find out more about the tributes in his honour. For my part, I find it refreshing that a public body has chosen to spend some of its money in this way, but Germany really does still consider classical music important and not just a refuge of the bourgeoisie, like in France. If anyone ever sees a bus in an English-speaking country plastered with either images of Elgar, Aaron Copland or Percy Grainger instead of adverts for Sex and the City, The X-Factor or Neighbours, then do let me know, but I, for one, will not be holding my breath.

Slow Sunday II

2011-07-03T11:56:00.000+02:00

It's been a few days since I've posted, the reason being a go-slow by my home internet access as well as, er, pretty much nothing happening. Both of those elements in equal parts, by the way. This town is certainly THE place to relax in Western Europe, even more so now we have no rehearsals on Sundays. The sky is heavy and overcast, it's about 12°c, so more or less like Toulouse in January, only this is northern Bavaria in July.

So, relax shmelax, I've got Verdi and Puccini to learn for next season, hence my sitting here in Wagner's original rehearsal studio (now a VIP lounge once the festival gets under way), poised at a desk and Steingräber piano, taking advantage of the house wi-fi connection and the fact I am, apart from the lady at the stage door, the only person in the building. Once I've finished tapping out this ill-conceived post containing nothing but a random stream of liquid bollocks I'll turn my attention to one of those Italian masters and hope that Mrs. F will see I'm online and contact me via Skype. Too much time on my hands at the moment, and no mistake.

Take it easy, it's Sunday.

Ricky Gervais on how not to contract a certain disease. Unbelievable.

2011-06-30T23:09:00.000+02:00

Bear with me, please...

2011-06-30T13:53:00.000+02:00

I know I bang on about this, but I'm here, typing this post, listening to a 24/7 stand-up comedy channel on iTunes having just signed off Skype with the family back in France. I realise most of you have been doing this for years but I've just discovered it and it's absolutely life-changing. Being apart from the loved ones is not a fraction as painful as it once was and it's nice to have a little more variety in my listening choices than just Bayerischer Rundfunk, excellent though it is. Just to put this in perspective, this comes from someone who still marvels at the miracle of the landline telephone and the fact that the vast majority of homes in the developed world have running water. I hope I never lose this ability to gape, open-mouthed at things that teenage entitlement junkies regard as old hat. Unlike many, I will never cease to find joy and amazement in what so many others consider basic everyday requirements. And this from someone who has had computers since 1997 and had a mobile phone in 1995, so it's not like I was unaware of the concept, just a bit slow keeping up to date with it, that's all.

Paradox

2011-06-29T14:56:00.001+02:00

I'm sitting here in my kitchen in Bayreuth, listening to Radio 4 on iTunes Radio and waiting for my freshly-made cup of PG Tips has brewed sufficiently to be acceptable to a card-carrying Englishman like myself. There's a pot of Marmite in the larder and a few jars of Patak products in the fridge: mango chutney, korma curry paste and mixed pickle. To all intents and purposes I'm one of those nightmare British expats on the Costa Brava who is basically just looking for Luton with a bit more sun and cheaper beer, but the reality is that this parochialism is very recent and only indulged in because it's possible: computers can now locate you wherever you want and provide you with anything in any language and the Britfood came from an Asian supermarket in the centre of town, here. When I first moved to Germany in 1987, none of this was possible (at least not in Koblenz) and the irony of the matter is that the increased 'internationalisation' of just about everything we see around us merely serves to push people further back into their narrow-minded cells. Seems to be a contradiction, doesn't it? But it's not. Here's why:

Using Koblenz, 1987, as an example: if you arrived from abroad, you would have needed at least a smattering of German in order to get the basic legal residential requirements done: registering yourself and, if applicable, your family, finding out where the relevant government offices were located etc. Then you would have needed to register yourself for tax purposes with the local finance offices, inform the police where you're living etc. Not one of these services was available in English, so my second day in Germany was spent wandering around town with a phrase book and a pile of official papers (contracts etc) from the local theatre, my employer. After a few hours I'd got everything done, so I went home and continued studying the language. This being 1987, there was no satellite TV where I was living and all radio stations were - naturally - German. The message was clear: learn the language or go under. Now it seems that none of that is necessary and the eternal celebration of one's origins merely pushes new arrivals further back into their caves. You have satellite TV as standard, so you need never learn that pesky new language, cuisine has become so international that you can enjoy all of your own delicacies from home without ever having to buy what the locals eat. Chances are there's also a thriving, convenient expat community which will jovially sound the death knell for any remaining urge you may have entertained to actually mingle with the natives. Many people even survive in France without learning the language, and that's quite some achievement.

Being honest, I like having a little piece of England where I live, but I say that from the standpoint of someone who speaks five languages and has lived and paid tax in seven or eight different countries, only two of which were English-speaking. The books on my bedside table are in German and Spanish, the magazine in the loo, French. Here in Germany, I prefer coffee in the morning and my beverage of choice is Weissbier. Think global, drink local.

Good place to spend a summer.

2011-06-29T08:47:00.000+02:00

This is where I've been coming every summer since 2004. Great place to work, great music, great institution. Long may it reign:

Let's hear it for Richard Wagner.

The Economist. Excellent magazine, dreadfully inefficient service.

2011-06-28T22:41:00.001+02:00

Until a few days ago I was a subscriber to that superb weekly, The Economist. Now I'm not. Here's the story...

I signed up in February and thoroughly enjoyed reading practically every word. I say 'practically' as there is so much information that you'd need to forgo sleep for five nights in order to cover it all before the next edition rolls up on Saturday morning. Being a passionate amateur scribe I decided to order their Style Guide from their online store. This book offered tips and guidelines on how to achieve something approaching the house style. It was available on its own or as one of a trio of books, the other two being the Numbers Guide, a sort of basic economics textbook, and the Pocket World in Figures, which contained profiles of all the world's major countries, including GNP, birth rate, average annual household income etc. You get the idea. I decided to order the book trio and, just as advertised, the little parcel pitched up three weeks later and contained the pocket guide and two copies of the Numbers Guide. Yup, the Style Guide was nowhere to be seen.

I got on to The Economist immediately, who requested I return the rogue copy of the Numbers Guide, upon receipt of which they would then send me a copy of the Style Guide. To cut an amazingly long story very short, they never managed to send me what I'd ordered and paid for, instead constantly sending me mails expressing their sympathy and proffering their apologies for this inconvenience. Come June, a full five months after initially asking them to send me the bloody book, my patience ran out. I asked them to either send a copy immediately to the address where I am currently working or to terminate my subscription, reimbursing almost €100 of unused capacity.Well, blow me down with a feather, they had that money transferred to me within 48 hours, regretting that I had chosen to sign off from their publication. I replied that I regretted it too, but drew the line at being taken for a fool for months on end, adding I would gleefully re-subscribe when their Customer Service Department improved beyond being a courteous reply service and actually took care of its paying clients. I also expressed surprise that they would clearly rather jettison a paying customer than actually send him the product he'd ordered and paid for. I'll phone them soon just to find out what exactly the deal was as it has left more than a nasty taste in my mouth. In the five contentious months I corresponded with three people in the CSD, none of whom seemed to have any connection with the other two. It was like banging your head against a brick wall, made worse by the fact they always sent very concerned and responsible-sounding stereotypical responses.

It shouldn't really come as a surprise. Flat Earth News primed me on the cost-cutting that has been going on these last thirty years in the press and it seems that those pesky, customer service types who are bad for profits are the first people to be cut, their jobs reduced to a few stereotypical e-mail responses and the hope that the aggrieved customer will eventually just go off and crawl under a stone, his spirit broken to the point where he can't even bring himself to bad-mouth the company. Not me, sorry; I'm not going to rest until I get a satisfactory response to my questions. Wish me luck; I may need it.

Interesting concept.

2011-06-28T16:48:00.001+02:00

The library in this lovely little town has moved and expanded. It's now a spacious, user-friendly and courteous institution which is a joy to visit. They also have a café on the second floor with a wonderful roof terrace, yet the café itself has a difference...

The café itself is staffed by a number of people who all have one thing in common: they are slightly handicapped. One has Downs Syndrome, one appears just slow and another seems to suffer from a form of Asperger's Syndrome, yet all muck in and make the place work. My espresso macchiato was excellent, served with a little chocolate and accompanied by a glass of water. The sun beat down on my parasol and I was in heaven: 34° centigrade and a beautiful coffee on a stunning roof terrace. When the Germans do something, they do it well. Ideally, I'd like to spend every day in the library, but work, rather unfairly in my opinion, forbids! Now it's time for a cup of tea on my own terrace, a few pages of my current book then back to work for 6pm, but not before hanging my washing out to dry...

Wow!

2011-06-27T23:55:00.000+02:00

It may not be the fastest connection on the most up-to-date computer in the world, but for me, it's discovering a new way of living. I'll explain: Germany has a chain of coffee merchants called Tchibo. Apart from caffeine-based beverages they also sell good quality boots, panties, kitchen appliances, computers etc. In short, a cross-section of many things we believe we need on a day-to-day basis. Having learned from Deutsche Telekom that their USB-stick internet connection costs €5 a day, I decided to follow a colleague's advice and see if Tchibo had anything like that. Answer? Oh yes, they did: the stick was €29,90, and for that you get a month's free surfing, then every subsequent month with unlimited access is €19,95. It seemed too good to be true, but I tried it, anyway. After phoning up to activate the SIM-card I was expecting to have to wait another 48 hours before anything worked, but, lo and behold, it was ready for service when I got in, tonight. So, this post comes to you courtesy of an extremely good chain of coffee peddlers based on the eastern bank of the mighty Rhine river. I'm sure this kind of revelation is old hat to many of you, but, for me, it's life-changing. Can't wait to Skype with the family tomorrow morning without having to cart my stuff into work and risk being overheard. We get more private the older we get. Don't blame us, it's the way life is.

Slow Sunday

2011-06-26T11:01:00.001+02:00

Here, in our Northern Bavarian cultural residence, we are no longer allowed to rehearse on Sundays. That in itself is not a bad thing, but overlooks the fact that if you work six days out of seven it might actually be useful to have a free day when you can get boring, everyday stuff done, like shopping, washing and the like. OK, you can wash on Sundays, but pretty much everything else is a no-no: museums and swimming pools are closed, shops barricaded up (well, they're not, as there's no vandalism here in Bayreuth, but you get the point). It was even more extreme when I moved to Koblenz in 1987: the weekend curfew began at 12 noon on Saturday (except for the so-called 'Long Saturday', once a month, when the shops stayed open until - wait for it - 2pm!) and encouraged hibernation until 9am, Monday morning. The idea is to encourage family life, and that is incontestably a good thing. The strange thing is that Germans have the smallest families in Europe, if they indeed have families at all; their birth rate is, along with Austria and Spain, the lowest in the European Union. Just had a nice Skype session with Mrs. Fingers. The Fingernails are both at friends' places this weekend, so my dear spouse is feeling particularly lonely at the moment.

This post is coming to you courtesy of a TMT Hotspot in the theatre. I'm completely alone in these hallowed Wagnerian halls; in fact, I don't even know whether or not I'm allowed to be in this particular part of the theatre campus, having reverse-opened a fire door to get here. I just hope no-one from security has seen it open and locked it again, then I really will have a solitary Sunday.

Jumble Sale

2011-06-22T17:17:00.001+02:00

When we lived in Germany you couldn't move for jumble sales, or flea markets (Flohmärkte) as they were called: they were to be found in every town village, neighbourhood, whatever at least twice a month. The French have 'attic clearances' (vide greniers) but you really have to be alert to see where they are, for commonplace they are not. Anyhow, there was one organised in the square just downstairs from our flat so Mrs. Fingers put her name down for a pitch and went up to our little studio to retrieve all the things we no longer need, use or value and which weren't broken. You hand over €10 to the organising committee, set out your stand, settle back in our folding chair and pour yourself a cuppa from your thermos, providing no potential customer insists on wasting your time by actually wanting to buy something. This is France, after all. The weather was fantastic and most of the other parents in our school circle either had stalls or came by, generously buying the odd thing they'll never need.

We ended up selling about 80% of our wares, no mean feat considering the competition. It's a very good area, so it was a bit like going to the Oxfam shop in Highgate Village to pick up an Armani suit for £20, sort of a thing. I let a few things go very cheaply just to get rid of them. There's no point dragging them back to the flat for the sake of a euro or two. I'll post a few pictures just as soon as the upload function chooses to work, again.

Miracle of miracles, it works.

There's another in September. Come on by.

Northern Bavaria

2011-06-22T17:00:00.000+02:00

The funny thing about where I spend every summer is that you can have all kinds of weather every day. Today, for example, it was sweltering until about 2pm, when it turned chilly. Each day can bring you sunshine, hail, sleet, rain, sunstroke, famine and drought in equal quantities, a formula which is then repeated practically every day the entire summer. Now, looking out of the window, I can see that it will rain cats and dogs within five minutes. Curioser and curioser. Work starts tomorrow morning, so tonight will be all about getting ready. And having some beer.

Blagnac Airport, Toulouse

2011-06-21T11:35:00.000+02:00

So we're off again. I'm starting to feel like a real musician, again: spending more time in airports than at home but it's not the same without Mrs. F and the Fingernails. We'll see each other in England in late July.

Getting through security was typical: only four machines staffed out of a possible eight this morning, resulting in a fifteen-minute wait just to be frisked by a bored minimum-wager. God knows what they do when there's a lot of traffic. The loos are a bit cleaner than they were when I left for Santiago a few weeks ago but you never quite get a away from the feeling that any service provided is done grudgingly at best.

Tonight is the famous, Jack Lang-initiated Fête de la Musique, an impro jamboree to celebrate the first day of summer. Bands set themselves up on street corners, solo artists stand in shop doorways etc etc. Anyone can go into the street and make music. It's a nice idea and there are some good acts, but most is just pure shite. Getting out of the country this morning is like grabbing the landing bars of the last helicopter out of Saigon.

Better sign off before my free wi-fi runs out. More soon from Germanland.

And yet...

2011-06-17T21:12:00.000+02:00

...no-one's told me anything about the amazing magnetic properties of 'Last Post'. Maybe it's become a cult page where people claim to have discovered coded messages from John Lennon or some such. Stranger things have happened.

Changing places

2011-06-17T21:04:00.001+02:00

In order to maybe sleep better, we've put our bed in the sitting room and the piano and DVD player in what used to be our bedroom. The Fingernails think it's great, apart from the fact they have nowhere to sit when they watch a film. We'll have to remedy that. It's funny seeing our bed basically next to the open kitchen. Beyond it is our Chesterfield sofa, so it almost looks a bit kinky, like having a place for people to sit and watch us in bed. Could be something of a money-spinner, though, a bit like an Annie Sprinkle art installation. We don't actually give a flying one, to be honest; it's as if we lived in a studio flat with a couple of extra rooms and if it helps us escape the noise of Madame Loony Tunes' cocain-ridden felines at 3am upstairs it'll all have been worth it. The next step is moving out and getting somewhere bigger. How many years has it been since I first broached this subject? It's not really a problem, though, seeing as the flat has almost doubled in value in the meantime despite the 2008 crash. It really is all about location, location, location...

OK, tell me...

2011-06-16T22:07:00.000+02:00

...please, someone, why you read 'Last Post'. I just can't fathom it. Answers on a postcard, please...

Adaptability

2011-06-16T10:21:00.000+02:00

I'm always amazed at how adaptable human beings are. When Mrs. Fingers told me that our pleasantly lunatic neighbour had finally moved in and that her cats basically kept her awake from 3am onwards every night, I had a nasty feeling in my stomach, one where the misgivings about returning to a city centre flat surrounded by pollution and inconsiderate fellow humans outweighed the anticipation of seeing my family again. Now, three days later, I've found that the cats aren't a hundredth as annoying as I'd imagined and life is, once again, 100% toulousaine. It'll change again next week, when I fly off to Germany for the summer, but, at the moment, it's like I'd never left. Our ability to live in the present (if needs be) is astonishing.

Never underestimate our capacity to cope.

Why?

2011-06-14T21:33:00.001+02:00

Something which I don't understand is how (or why) so many visitors to this site choose to read the post entitled 'Last Post'. It's a pretty anonymous few lines I scribbled down around midnight a couple of months ago but seems to attract an inordinately high number of viewers. Does anybody have an idea why this may be? Is it a default page from one of the referring websites, or something?

Anyhow, back in Toulouse. Back's playing up terribly, due to having slept badly for about an hour in my lovely economy class seat somewhere between Santiago and Madrid. After a three-hour layover in Barajas the connecting flight to Toulouse was delayed, adding another hour to an already very long journey. It's hot, here; hot and smelly as people are too self-centred to put rubbish in bins and too stupid to shower and then use deodorant. I know it's a cliché, but it's true: a lot of people in this country are just plain dirty. There, I've said it.

Back to my Horlicks and a comfy bed, providing our lunatic new neighbour's collection of seven playful cats doesn't choose to rehearse their version of Riverdance on the uninsulated parquet floor upstairs (see posts from Autumn, 2008).

Hasta luego, Santiago...

2011-06-12T03:53:00.000+02:00

Time to say goodbye to Chile, at least for the time being. One of my colleagues picked me up and took me to lunch at his magnificent house just north of Las Condes to have a barbeque with his family and a few friends. It was wonderful to see another part of the city and actually experience a bit of 'home life' after three weeks of service flats and artistic itinerants such as myself. I won't be so indiscrete as to post the pictures I took of his house and garden, but here's one of the urban freeway, the Kennedy, out to his district:

Once again, it seems the point cannot be made. You probably can't see the Andes in the background, the mountains that make practically every city vista a jaw-dropping experience. Wherever you turn (providing it's all points east) , you've got this imposing, snow-capped mountain range looming over you. It's hard to describe its impact but I find it awe-inspiring and can't wait to bring the family out here to see it. Quite frankly, I often wonder if you can find a way of making things work in Latin America, why bother with Europe at all? It's something to bear in mind...

Anyhow, here's a final picture for you. It's of my computer just before I started writing this post, with my Bip! card. A Bip! card is for public transport and can be loaded with as much or as little money as you like. You have to be careful, as the cost of using the buses and underground varies according to the time of day. They say underground and buses are combined so you don't pay twice if you connect between the two services within half an hour or so, but something went awry when I went to Los Dominicos the other day and I ended up paying a lot more than I would in just about every European city save London, Zurich and Moscow, I think. Will have to get genned up properly if we come back next year:

Note the charming iSight webcam sitting atop my 2005 iBook G4. Yup, I'm still in the Dark Ages. No mobile, no car, no integrated webcam. But I'm sitting in Santiago de Chile and you're not, so there.

Nighty night.

Killing Time II

2011-06-11T17:49:00.002+02:00

Well, my case is packed, my boarding pass printed off and now I'm just waiting for a colleague to get in touch with a view to lunch. It's been a wonderful three weeks, made easier by the use of Skype to keep in touch with the family. It's a boon and, like I said before, I never want to travel under any other circumstances again. CNN Chile has been running the same four or five non-stories since 9am this morning. It's great for my Spanish; if there's anything you didn't understand first time you get another twenty bites of the cherry before the sheer vacuousness of the reporting starts to melt your brain.

It's been interesting on a personal level, too. I was wondering how easy it was going to be to continue not to smoke, and it turned out to be an awful lot easier than I thought. Since I've been here the country has passed legislation bringing the anti-tobacco law into line with the over-the-top European version, though I don't know when it'll come into effect. I'm still very pro-choice in this matter (it'd be grossly hypocritical to be anything else with my history) and feel that if people wish to smoke then they should have facilities as comfortable as those now enjoyed by non-smokers. However, we know how insensitive legislative juggernauts operate once they've got a following wind. Whatever happens, governments will want to recuperate ex-smokers' lost tax income somehow, so expect renewed campaigns to get everyone to buy chewing gum, patches and the like instead of suggesting they just read Allen Carr's book which is, basically, all you need in order to stop smoking for good. I know what I'm talking about, here.

It's now nearly mid-day and it's yet another gloriously sunny autumn day. I'll miss pretty much everything about Santiago save for the pollution...

Dignified Strays.

2011-06-11T06:16:00.000+02:00

One thing I noticed about Santiago very early on but have consistently forgotten to record, is how dignified their stray dogs are. None of this foaming at the mouth nonsense for these denizens of the street; they sit or lie around very tidily and will often accompany you for a stretch of your walk home, invariably in pairs. You'll be flanked by a couple of canine bodyguards who want nothing more for their efforts than the chance to hang out with a complete stranger for a couple of hundred yards. On a couple of occasions, while I've just been standing around, admiring the view, a brace of Rovers have come up and sat down, one on either side of me, facing the same direction as I. It was as if we were imitating the garden gate of a particularly tacky suburban mansion. I'm also surprised at how healthy they look. True, they have great weather and probably know their way around the restaurant bins of the district, but the point is there's absolutely nothing stray-like about them. A human parallel would be, say, a large group of chartered accountants lying out in the sun or sitting obediently and minding their own business on the edge of pavements. I shall miss them when I leave on Sunday.

Las Condes - a breath of fresh air.

2011-06-10T22:34:00.002+02:00

With my time in Santiago running out and still not having anything in my case for the Fingernails I decided to track down a mercado artesanal and found one in the neighbourhood of Los Dominicos in the urban community/town/city of Las Condes, a sort of Chilean Beverly Hills tacked on to downtown's eastern border. The guide books instructed me to take the metro to Escuela Militar, then take the 401 or 407 bus and get the bus driver to tell you when to get off. Having obediently bought my Tarjeta Bip, a sort of latino Oyster Card, I did exactly as instructed and consequently wasted about half an hour. I could have stayed on the metro until Los Dominicos then just walked the two minutes straight ahead through the park to the church and found the market on its right hand side. Still, taking the bus enabled me to see quite a lot of this rich town (average annual household income: US$67,500 - a chunk of change in any country or language, let alone Latin America) and rather nice it looked, too. It also helped that the sun was shining, but, then again, it's all it ever seems to do, here.

Once you hit the end of the line it's like stepping into a different country: one where you can breathe. There was space, too, in abundance:

So off I headed over the park towards the church:

That's a pretty crappy picture, but you get the idea. The market was delightful; I spent a happy three hours, there:

That's where I had lunch. Nothing spectacular, but OK.

It's like a two-acre campus with little streams running through the pathways, little cafés here and there and unexpected little pathways that lead off to little, shady squares. Fantastic, actually; really well done.

I caught this man polishing off his bishop in a studio. I took other pictures, but they're pretty much the same as these. The lens on this little digital camera doesn't have great depth of field, so you can't really make out the mountains in the background, which is 90% of the charm of places like this. Anyhow, I got lots of lovely prezzies for Mrs. F and the Fingernails and then headed back to Lastarria to Skype with the missus and then run off to work, which I shall do now.

Missed, again.

2011-06-10T04:03:00.000+02:00

No can do at the Centro de Arte Alameda: the Screaming Finns started at 7.15pm, while I was still at work and I've already seen the two films starting at 9.15pm. Couldn't even tune in to the Playoff Final between Universidad de Chile and Universidad Católica. The offbeat Argie offering at 10.30pm is too late for me; I'm concentrating on getting up early tomorrow to find something for the Fingernails. They're expecting Lapis Lazuli, but I think they've already got some, so I'll go for Chilean ponchos, or chamantos as they're called in this region. They can put them over the dirndls we got them in Bavaria and really confuse any passing anthropologist.

I've just seen that Universidad Católica beat Universidad de Chile 2-0, so the opening 2011 season is finished, and with it my wish to see a Chilean football match live. These playoffs just coincided badly with work. Maybe next year, if we come. Nice to see that Chileans also go in for retarded tattoos, like that famous, fat Newcastle United supporter in England. Actually, I'm not sure if this final is over two legs or not. Pretty academic; I won't be able to get to a match before I leave on Sunday.

Blimey! Turn up and scratch the surface...

2011-06-10T02:46:00.001+02:00

I don't know if there's something in the air, but since I've been in Chile, two momentous domestic issues have been brought to light. In 1973, General Augusto Pinochet, aided by the CIA, deposed the elected Marxist president, Salvator Allende, who, apparently, subsequently commited suicide with the help of his friend Fidel Castro's AK47 rifle on...wait for it...September 11th, 1973. Neither rifle nor bullets were ever recovered and his family was forbidden from seeing the body. There was never an enquiry into his passing. The day I arrived in Santiago the news channels were full of the story of Allende's remains being exhumed and taken for forensic analysis to determine the real cause of death. The suicide theory has been doubted by many for a long time yet only now are steps being taken to ascertain whether or not he really did top himself or whether Pinochet's mobsters bumped him off. A week later, my old friend Pablo Neruda enters the frame...

Just before going off to visit Neruda's house in Isla Negra I blithely remarked that I knew nothing about him, save for the fact he loved women and died the year Pinochet came to power. What I didn't know was that he was not at death's door in 1973 but, according to friends who saw him a day before he died, a healthy, 69-year-old shagmeister who had, a couple of weeks previously, published a withering tract condemning Pinochet, more or less the day the dictator seized power. The next day he had died of...prostate cancer. Hmmm. The Chilean Communist Party is insisting on an inquest into his death. If this continues, the poor old current Chilean government is going to have its work cut out: there are 725 cases of alleged human rights abuse pending against their former dictator, who died in 2006, having sidestepped, with the help of our 'socialist' Foreign Secretary of the time, Jack Straw, all attempts to bring him to justice. It's just one big fucking game for them, isn't it?

By the way, there is something in the air. It's volcanic ash, and it'd better not prevent me from getting home on Sunday.

Chilean MILF politicians v. Blair's er, 'Babes' (sic)

2011-06-09T05:58:00.003+02:00

Brits first, sadly. At least that gets them out of the way. The following three politicians were instrumental in the cynical, wanton destruction of my country which occured on their watch from 1997 to 2010:

Ladies and Gentleman, I give you Harriet Harman. Please don't try to give her back. You may also be familiar with Jacqui Smith:

The only true words she spoke in the whole time she had her snout in the Westminster trough. There's also this creature called Estelle Morris:

Here's her potted CV, in case you're interested:

Estelle Morris (Birmingham Yardley) - When Labour came to power in 1997, Ms Morris had been an MP for five years and was appointed as an under secretary to the Department for Education and Employment. She became the first secretary of state for the new Department for Education and Skills after the 2001 election. But in October 2002, after a series of fiascos she surprisingly quit, saying she was not up to the job. After a backbench stint, she returned as a junior arts minister in 2003 but finally stood down as an MP at the 2005 election. She was made a life peer in 2005 and is pro-vice chancellor of Sunderland University.

Good to see talent being rewarded, isn't it? How much did you, the UK taxpayer, pay for her Westminster education? Will your children have a free run through university to make amends for this blatant profiteering? Thought not.

Chile is South America's economic success story. It's not hard to see why. Carolina Goic, will you step forward, please:

Ena von Baer's dimple is, in itself, allegedly responsible for $45bn worth of exports:

And just in case the deal could go either way, Santiago would roll out their secret weapon, Ximena Rincón, to ensure the signatures favour the GDP of the long, thin country:

The nice thing is that it's not considered a crime to be beautiful down in this part of the world, unlike in our over-legislated failed European Social and Economic Experimental Zone.What's important is that these babes are also apparently extremely good at what they do. In Europe, we only seem to respect female politicians if they look like Andrea Dworkin's ugly sister, even if they then prove themselves to be as inept as the trio I featured at the beginning of this post. So let's hear it for Chile. One, two, three...

More Chilean MILF politicians

2011-06-09T05:29:00.002+02:00

This country's just got it all right. Ximena Rincón, a Christian Democrat MP, has been on CNN Chile talking about food labelling and she's hot. Line up Ena von Baer, Carolina Goic and this latest manifestation of political fantasy alongside the likes of Jacqui Smith, Harriet Harman and some other overweight, frumpy so-called 'Blair Babe' and see which country's more likely to inspire you to start stimulating your gross domestic product. Seeing as every other aspect of British society has been dumbed down to the level of an afternoon TV game show, why not politics, too? At least if our representatives were more comely more people might actually get interested in this most important civic duty. If it takes making the actors prettier, then so be it. I mean, look what Blair and Brown were able to get away with because no-one could bear to watch...

Chilean Misinformation

2011-06-09T05:00:00.000+02:00

Having apparently been misinformed about the screening date of the film about the screaming Finnish male voice choir I decided to go and see an independent Argentinian film at 10pm this evening, the first of a mini festival. Being a fan of all things Argie I was looking forward to it. I turned up at the Centro de Arte Alameda at 9.55pm only to find the box office closed and a poster advertising the Screaming Finns as being screened this evening at 7pm. What about the Argies, I asked. Oh, that starts at 10.30pm and the tickets will be on sale outside...

The cinema's website is positively gallic in its uselessness. The only way of being certain what they're showing is to turn up in person and take a chance. I didn't finish work until 7pm so would've missed the Finns anyway, but

Ena von Baer has just been on CNN Chile, commenting on Ollanta Humala's presidential victory in Peru. That little dimple in her right cheek drives me insane...

OK, back to poorly-advertised cinema listings in South American capitals. Oh, what the hell. CNN Chile's current big-haired News Anchor, Paulina Yaurur, looks straight out of a Venezuelan soap opera; you could imagine her squaring up to her sister about flirting with her husband before firing off a withering threat and exiting stage right, shapely hips a-swaying, to dramatic music and a close-up of her worried sibling. I've quite clearly got too much time on my hands. Not surprising, seeing as I should be watching a film about down-and-outs in Buenos Aires.

Serious Socks

2011-06-08T03:37:00.000+02:00

If all you aspire to in life is to get your socks from the Co-op, I seriously suggest you take a flight to Santiago de Chile, where socks are taken incredibly seriously (as they damn well should be):

Yes, there you have it: THE NATIONAL SOCK INDUSTRY! Take that, Tie Rack; Bugger you, BHS: the Chileans are serious about what they put between their skin and their shoes. Those two ladies you see in the picture are also representative of the general customer flow; at no point was there no-one either in front or inside the shop. Not many things move this august race as much as the brush of sensual alpaca wool against a willing toe or brazen heel. Until we take our feet this seriously we'll be condemned to Sunday League Podiatry whilst our mirror-shaded latino despots-in-waiting dry hump our Old Traffords, our Wembleys and our Shea Stadiums with their immaculate, fragrantly manicured size 10's. And yes, I have had a couple of drinks.

Traditional Haircut

2011-06-07T21:29:00.002+02:00

Whenever I'm in a wildly different culture from my own, I always seek out a service which teaches me more about the locals than any guide book ever could. Not restaurants, not night clubs, not beach bars or the like: I look for an old-fashioned barber's shop, the type invariably run by a man in his fifties or sixties whose father founded the shop in the 1940's, kind of thing. Anyone who's been to El Vendrell in Catalunya will know the Plaza Mayor with its memorial to the great 'cellist Pau Casals as well as its old barber shop, called, simply and logically, Peluqueria. Well, this establishment will cut your hair better than any salon costing ten times more. Your hair is washed with the use of a large jug of water the proprietor fills from the tap (yes, it's warm) and you can admire the bottles of Vitalis and the decades-old posters and adverts he has hanging on the walls, stained in a bygone age when smoking was compulsory. As you'll be the only unknown who has frequented his shop in the last ten years or so he'll bring you up to date with everything that's been going on in the town since he last had a tourist in the chair. I found the same thing in Mexico City. Even though we spoke Spanish, my man in Central America insisted on proudly using the one English word he knew: Trim, and was suitably happy when I understood first time without him having to repeat it. He brought me up to date on crime in the Zona Rosa, how the little green and white Beetle taxis should all be banned and the fact that the air is so polluted that birds in the Parque Chapultepec would literally fall dead out of the trees.

I looked in the mirror this morning and decided I had too much hair on the sides. If you've got a broad face like I have, it makes you look like a bad joke in a Hall of Mirrors, so I decided to check out an ancient little barber's I pass every day on my way to work. Blink and you'd miss it: it's just a small, ground floor plate-glass window with graffiti on the frame. The dingy grey net curtains just about put the words Caballeros y damas in relief. No contest, this was to be my place.

Inside was like a tiny sitting room with a single chair for the cut and another for washing, bolstered by a couple of cushions. Yes, for CLP$3000 (about €4) he'd be happy to wash and cut my hair. I was probably the first tourist he'd seen in many a long year so he told me all the things I should see in Chile and Santiago, asked after my family, told me about how the country had advanced since Pinochet and warned me about the people most likely to steal my bag. It was still pretty early so I went back home to do some work. Later, when I passed on my way to the 'office', I popped in to ask if I could take his picture (see below). Not a problem, and would I like a cup of coffee? Sadly, I didn't have time, but he's extended the invitation to whenever I want to take him up on it.

See what I mean about his sitting room? And this on one of Santiago's busiest streets in the business district. He looks a bit like Fabio Capello, actually. What's more, the cut is superb; he took off just the right amount and now I don't look like a Cheshire Cat as drawn by a seven-year-old, anymore.

So, if you're in the back-of-beyond and need a bit of info, just look for the local Sweeney Todd. It beats most other ways of genning up on a place.

My Office

2011-06-07T00:28:00.000+02:00

A Steinway, Richard Strauss and one of the most handsome offices this side of anywhere. Poor me, eh?

We're even going to let people in to see it!

Isla Negra and Valparaiso

2011-06-06T04:14:00.001+02:00

Getting to the Central Bus Station couldn't be easier from where I'm staying: fifty yards to the metro station Universidad Católica, then eight stops direction San Pablo and Bob's your uncle, you're there. Then again, time was on my side and I was really curious to have a look at Gustave Eiffel's Estación Central, just one stop before the Busopolis, so out I hopped. It is a jewel, beautifully symmetric and flanked with palm trees. What's more, it's tiny when you consider that Santiago is home to seven million people. The only services which run are suburban commuter trains and a line to Callán, about eight hours to the south. There's a special offer there for the equivalent of €15 return, so that'll be something to do the next time I'm here. Trains really are the soul of a country in the way that coaches could never be. Anyhow, in the absence of a good old push-me-pull-you to Pablo Neruda's gaff I decided to walk the one stop to the bus station, and it was then I was reminded where I was. As soon as I left the station area, the Third World hit me right between the eyes. Boarding the Avenida Bernardo O'Higgins were rows upon rows of the kind of shops you see in documentaries about drug traffickers in Honduras or some such. The faces of the locals were etched with struggle and resignation, the majority of the shops crumbling or boarded up. The deafening roar of the traffic and the exhaust fumes were overwhelming, even at 9.30 on a Sunday morning. My blond hair and comparative tallness started to get the odd, questioning look so I did what I always do in these types of cases: I walk around as if I owned the place. You'll be amazed how people will leave you alone if you seem to know your way around. I reached the bus station not a moment too soon and got a return ticket to Isla Negra on a Pullman bus which was leaving five minutes later. If you've never travelled by bus in Chile (they're actually what the British call coaches) then I have to tell you it's a delightful experience. The stock is new and clean, the service courteous and punctual. My three-hour round trip cost €10 (CLP$7000) and there was even a bonus later on, but I'll get to that, later.

I settled down into my comfortable seat and the bus drew off. We went through the run-down western suburbs of the city before hitting the motorway and the sun decided to come out. The landscape could have been around Barcelona or Los Angeles, it was absolutely identical. You still get the feel of being amongst the pioneers when you see the little bodegas by the side of the road; wealth, here, is unequally distributed; you've got Mayfair and Thamesmead with little in between. After stopping at a few almost Wild West-like towns we got to Isla Negra at around 11.30. It's a village composed of a main street with shops and restaurants, virtually all the housing overlooking the sea. A little sign indicating a dirt track showed me where Pablo Neruda's house was, so off I set:

It's not a David Bailey, I know. The house was a little further down:

That's more the little café-restaurant behind. The light was dreadful. Here's another view of the house:

The original house, to the left, is only about 70 square metres, so he built the 'boat' on the right to house his collections of pretty much everything known to mankind: shells, ships in bottles, masks, butterflies etc etc. Goodness only knows when he found the time to write. The coastline is ruggedly attractive:

...even if it doesn't compete with the Giant's Causeway or the Amalfi Coast. Our guide was excellent, really taking time to explain everything and answer as many questions as we could come up with. I got Mrs. F a collection of his poems, the Antología Fundamental, which is as good a place as any to start.

By now it was time for lunch. The restaurant looked quite good, but I wanted to try my luck with a local joint, so I hiked back up the hill into the town, and it was then the lustre started to fade. The only problem with the seaside is that it attracts chavs. This is the same the world over. I suppose in Latin America they're called 'chavez' and they were certainly out in force this afternoon. When all is said and done, it was a bit like having Dickens' house in the middle of Blackpool. Isla Negra is much smaller but the social and material detritus that seaside resorts excrete makes any stay beyond the absolute minimum complete torture for me. I found a little local restaurant, ordered my lunch and started to read the paper. The Chileans started to come in to eat around two o'clock and one particular couple caught my eye. It was a father with his maybe five-year-old son. The lad had a lollipop in his mouth and the first thing to appear on the table was a pair of bottles of Fanta. Honestly, love this country as I might, but they can't teach Britain anything about eating habits. It's a bit like a latino Rotherham.

It was still pretty early when I paid up and left so I decided to get the first bus going anywhere and then see later. Within ten seconds a bus to Valparaiso turned up so I decided to go for it, after all. I'd had a few gulps of good sea air and now the Gods had clearly decided it was time for me to live the romance of that grainy photo taken through the rain-lashed windscreen so many years before. The weather even tried to play ball: the first raindrops I'd seen since arriving started to run down the windscreen. I dozed off and woke up on the outskirts to Valparaiso, a seaside city, a cross between a shanty town and Malibu with the most enormous market running about half a mile east to west leading up to the central bus station. Walking around outside, I have seldom felt so foreign or so conspicuous, so I flipped into Russian oligarch mode. The amazing market continued into the main square so I wandered in to see what kind of bric-a-brac merits a price tag in this part of the world. For the most part, you could have been anywhere, but the amount of German books, magazines and artefacts on sale was rather fascinating, particularly as all the books were stamped as having belonged to the Deutscher Verein Valparaiso, the Valparaiso German Club. I bought a cushion cover and a stole for Mrs. F, both hand-made by a lady from the north, the stole being made of Alpaca wool. It's apparently a Chilean ruminant which is in danger of extinction. If you're unfamiliar with them, here are a few pictures:

The last one's just had a haircut, in case you were wondering. So, with a bit of local arts 'n' crafts in my bag along with a few more pairs of cheap socks and a hand of bananas, it was time to find the sea. Unfortunately, the most direct route to the sea was via Valparaiso's version of South Central LA, so I decided to just call it a day and go 'home'. I was hoping my return ticket from Isla Negra would be accepted, but the bus driver was having none of it, insisting I buy another ticket. The nice chap at the booth agreed to change it, free of charge, for a single from Valparaiso to Santiago, so that turned out nicely. The bus was packed and I nodded off shortly after we pulled out of the station. One quick metro trip back to Universidad Católica and I was soon boiling the kettle for a welcome cup of tea. All in all, a lovely day out. I still don't know anything about Pablo Neruda aside from the fact he loved to collect things and clearly didn't see the best parts of Valparaiso, but there's time for all these things; life hasn't finished, yet.

Chilean MILF politicians.

2011-06-06T02:41:00.001+02:00

You know it's time to go home when you start developing crushes on female Chilean politicians, but Ena von Baer and Carolina Goic really do it for me. Where are their counterparts in our governments? I can't see them. It's a real shame. OK, enough of that. I'll post about Isla Negra and Valparaiso, next. Actually, last thought: as far as I've been able to ascertain, virtually all the visible powerbrokers in this country are of European descent, even down to CNN Chile's version of Larry King (or should I say Piers Morgan, now?), Tomás Mosciatti. I could be completely off the mark but that's the way it seems from the perspective of a new outsider.

Pablo Neruda

2011-06-04T05:28:00.000+02:00

Ever since I saw a picture in a magazine taken from the front seat of a car I've dreamed of a town on Chile's coast. The photo was grainy, evidently taken on a rain-soaked motorway and featured an enormous exit sign to Valparaiso. A mountain range was visible. Knowing the country was thousands of miles away only added to the romance. There seemed something so utterly almost extraterrestrial about the place that I decided I had to go there at some point in my life. Now that my enviable profession has decided to pay me to sit at this legendary location's gate, I find I'd rather go to a coastal village and stumble around the house of a poet I know nothing about. If I had another free day I'd love to go to Valpo, as they call it here, but I don't. Come tomorrow I'll have spent two weeks in an intensely polluted city in dire need of rain and I'm just gagging to get a bit of fresh air in a place where there are fewer than 65000 inhabitants per square metre. Or should that be kilometre. Doesn't matter, you get the idea. They've invited me back next year, so maybe I'll do my 'dream town' then.

Yup, this poet I know nothing about is Pablo Neruda. Apart from the fact he died the year Pinochet seized power and that he loved women he is a closed book to me. He was also an inveterate collector of pretty much everything, apparently. Sorry, there won't be any insights into his oeuvre, I seriously know jack all about this guy. I hope Sunday will help. I'll probably get Mrs. F a collection of his poems in an attempt to get her to read more in Spanish. She's a native speaker by virtue of her mother but treats it too cavalierly for my liking; she speaks fantastically but could have an astounding level if she exercised it a little more. This is the monolingual child speaking, here; I would have given anything to have grown up bilingual and cannot bear to see people treating their gifts casually. It might fire her up for coming over here next year, too, not that she needs any encouragement on that score.

I haven't been to South America's Pacific Coast since 1997 when I flew into Lima and cruised up to the Dutch Antilles via Ecuador, Columbia and Venezuela. My previous brief visit to Chile was a couple of days in Punta Arenas before tripping over to Ushuaïa and down to the Antarctic for a few days, so this particular visit is certainly more substantial, even if I am spending most of it in the geographical epicentre of the capital. If anything, it makes me ever more determined to end my days in Patagonia, free of neighbours and any other rubbish that might possibly pollute your life. There's a lot of graffiti around Santiago about 'Free Patagonia'; it's funny how the subjects change all over the world. I'm rambling, now, but it's only because I'm incurably in love with South America and can't really believe my luck that I'm being paid good money to be here. A word to the wise: if you end up practising a profession you didn't actually want to pursue, give it your all, anyway. Your efforts will take you where you want to be. Trust me, I know what I'm talking about. Sleep well.

The Doors

2011-06-03T05:13:00.001+02:00

Well, that didn't quite work out as planned. I got to the cinema, only to find that the Documental del més was still a film made by French actress Sandrine Bonnaire about her autistic sister, Sabine. It didn't appeal, my shallow personality is ashamed to say. Quickly eyeing up the list I saw there was a documentary about The Doors, When You're Strange, directed by Tony DiCillo and narrated by Johnny Depp, whoever they are. Kick-off was 9.15pm, so I bought a ticket and headed back to the flat for dinner.

The cinema had a group of acrobats doing yoga in the foyer when I first arrived. When I came back they were taking it on turns on the trapeze they'd suspended from one of the beams. It was rather nice. Sala Dos, where my film was playing, was upstairs over crumbling steps and impossible walkways which ended up in a fabulous, rather run-down bar area overlooking Santiago's main traffic artery, the Avenida del Libertador Bernardo O'Higgins, or Avenida Alameda, if you feel so inclined. It's enormously broad in the former communist bloc school of urban planning and puts me in mind of Moscow's Kalinin Prospect. Sala Dos was tiny: six rows of four fifties-style cinema seats (or probably actual seats from the fifties, come to mention it) with an extra one near the front, presumably because they had room for it. There were six of us to witness Jim Morrison's rise and fall. I didn't realise that he, Hendrix and Joplin were all 27 when they died. Anyone who normally takes even a passing interest in pop music knows this, I'm sure. For my part, I first heard their music just after his death was announced in February, 1971. Funny to think that Mrs. Fingers was a mere month old when he died. Funnier still to think that if she was put on this earth to replace him, she encapsulates his soul in rehab.

The shouting Finns start on June 8th, so there'll just be time to catch it before heading back to Europe.

By the way, this Bernardo O'Higgins was quite a colourful chap; I suggest you look him up.

A week in the Pyrenees, as experienced in early May.

2011-06-02T15:58:00.000+02:00

If your ideal holiday features banned substances, alcoholic excess and ambiguous morality you might want to ask your travel agent about Ibiza. If, however, your feelings are awoken by the prospect of bathing in the same mountain spring as Henry IVth before strolling through a wood straight out of the sagas of Merlin, might I humbly suggest the Haute Pyrénées in France’s deep south ?

For those of you not familiar with this particular corner of Sarkozyland, it’s the French-Spanish border territory between Toulouse and Lourdes. The gîte we booked was a converted, nineteenth-century barn; lovely in principal but even after its costly makeover more suited to housing hay than half-cut holidaymakers. Built into a hill, the ground floor was half underground and no amount of dishwashers, satellite TVs or rustic light fittings could deflect from the fact that it was as damp as hell; three lizards doing the backstroke around the kitchen table were a sufficient giveaway. They could have added a couple more windows ; despite the glorious sunshine we awoke to every day upstairs in our bedrooms, going down to prepare breakfast was akin to a trip to the basement in a Hammer Horror film. Fortunately, there was an east-facing terrace where we could have a sun-soaked start to the day.

A more general point concerning barn conversions is the fact that you can take a crumbling, derelict artefact, give it a lick of paint and shove it into the limelight but it’ll still be as limp and damp as it was when it first saw the light of day. Anyone who has observed Britain’s Liberal Democrat Party will tell you this. A barn will always be a barn, even if its proud owner wants you to think it’s a castle. If you’re in any doubt, make sure one of your party has arthritis ; they’ll tell you soon enough.

All that aside, the barn was a few hundred yards down a dirt track, which made the car ride the kind of thing you’d pay £5 a go for at Alton Towers. The lady who handed us the keys was as talkative as you would imagine someone who lives in the middle of the Pyrenees would be, considering we were probably the first people she’d spoken to since 1985 to whom she was not directly related. When she unlocked the front door to the barn/gîte, she warned us that it was ‘pretty cold’, which did make me wonder why there wasn’t at least enough firewood to tide us over the first night. The option was electric heating which would be tallied up and billed extra at the end of our stay, should we be rash enough to use more than a single lightbulb for half an hour, offpeak. Other extras included bedding and towels…hmmm…You might be thinking I wasn’t overtly enamoured with the first impressions of our trip away from the big city, and you’d be right. Things could only get better, but get better they certainly did…

The location, the vallée de Lesponne, is stunning. This part of the Pyrenees could not be more different from the streetwise, money-grabbing Alps if it tried. At 700 metres altitude we weren’t in skiing territory, but practically every house in the surrounding villages was a fully-functioning farm. There’s a living, working, viable community there which is not reliant on hoards of Hooray Henrys descending every winter and turning the place into Sodom on the Slopes. Many restauranteurs and hoteliers in the villages are younger families without any trade experience who have given up city life in search of something more fulfilling. If you’re in Lesponne or nearby, pop into Chez Gabrielle, a hostel cum restaurant which also houses a delightful curiosity : a grocer’s shop kept as a museum. Said Gabrielle of the title kept the shop until the early 1980’s when she retired. Even then it looked like something out of the 1940’s. The current owners have preserved it exactly as she left it and guests can wander around, admire its retro beauty and overdose on nostalgia. Our lunch, comprised entirely of local produce, was superb : a nutritious garbure, honey-fried lamb and a courgette soufflé preceded by local saucisson and topped off with crème catalane. If you’re passing, give them your support, they deserve it. Follow the road another seven kilometers to the end and you’ll come across another debutant hostel which will serve as your base for your hike to the lac bleu as well as other landmarks. They’ll be happy to serve you a beer or two, aswell.

The simplest pleasure on a gîte holiday is just striding out of your own front door with your lunch in a rucksack. Every time we did this in Quercy a couple of years ago we were adopted by a filthy local dog who looked like a canine Bob Marley. Interestingly, the same thing happened to us this time in the Pyrenees. Are these dogs robots provided by Gites de France for our vacational pleasure ? You might almost think so, particularly as the one we had recently was just as bizarre as our Rastaman from 2009 : to all intents and purposes he was a dalmatian, but had the head of a rottweiler, six nipples and full male reproductive equipment. He looked like the kind of dog a ten-year-old would draw to frighten his little sister. It was as if Tim Burton had decided to work for the Disney Corporation. He was a great companion, though, seemingly enjoying his day out with the new kids on the block before we all headed home. We visited waterfalls, scraped our way through unchartered forests and marvelled, as pathetic city dwellers always do, at the purity of yet another mountain stream.

Our local Sin City was Bagnères-de-Bigorre, a gorgeous little town of around 8,000 inhabitants which is rather like a cross between Bath and Clochemerle. It has all the required faded elegance of a provincial spa town yet supports innumerable hotels, restaurants, town centre businesses and a rather large casino. We fell in love with it and vowed to return at the very least as visitors, but ideally as property buyers. If you find yourselves there, get your bread from Thierry Sauvage, Boulanger Artisanal, just opposite the covered market ; you will not regret it. It was also in Bagnères that we found out about the fontaine de Crastes just outside the village of Asté, a spring discovered around four hundred years ago and a favourite haunt in his time of Henry IVth, who praised the healing qualities of its mineral-rich water. A local health shop owner advised me to go there to bathe my eczema-ridden hands, so off we trotted. I’d had this atopic eczema for two months yet, after two fifteen-minute sessions at the source, it had completely disappeared. My hands felt afterwards as if I’d massaged them with cream moisturiser. Needless to say, as soon as we returned to the stress of the city, it all came back, but we were all left stunned by the ability of this water to boot a skin condition which confounds conventional medicine, effortlessly into touch. Our resolve to move to Bagnères-de-Bigorre became even more determined.

Having cured your body of unsightly skin conditions, you can then turn left out of the fountain and walk further into the forest to the Casque. The path will take you through dried streams, lichen-covered trees, impossibly huge, asteroid-like rocks, planted in your way as if freshly arrived from another planet. The sight of the sun piercing the trees was the stuff of legend, we felt in the presence of magick. The fact that a simple mountain stream had eradicated my eczema on the spot might have had something to do with it, though. It also occurred to me that there might be malevolent springs, too ; maybe our Disney dog had fallen into one and emerged equipped for all manner of things.

On your way back to the Lesponne valley, you might want to visit the Grotte de Médous. It’s on the outskirts of Bagnères-de-Bigorre and is open all year round. Most of the tour is on foot but finishes up with a 200-metre underground boat trip which children of all ages adore. Tradition was observed in the form of the tour guide, a young student whose training course was apparently modelled on Soviet shop assistant motivational techniques. She couldn’t have sounded more bored or resentful of our presence if we’d been actively preventing her from attending her own wedding ; even her reminder to us that she was only renumerated by the grace of our generosity contained no hint of hope or charm, just annoyance that she’d been condemned to work and study – free of charge – in one of the most beautiful places in the world. Poor love. Don’t let her stop you from visiting the grotto, though ; it’s fantastic.

Leaving this corner of paradise was, despite our troglodyte accomodation, the most difficult farewell of recent years. We’ll be going back, but if you all beat us to it and push the prices up, I might have to, in true barn-owner style, send you a bill for the extra.

Screaming Finns

2011-06-02T04:23:00.002+02:00

What's more, Screaming Men is in Finnish with Spanish subtitles! Who said the European dream was dead, eh? Eh? Oh.

South American Indie Cinema

2011-06-02T03:43:00.000+02:00

Just got back from a showing of Metro Cuadrado, a film by Nayra Ilic, a young Chilean film director. It tells the story of a couple moving in together and basically going backwards instead of blossoming and progressing. This was at another indie cinema, the Centro de Arte Alameda, a great theatre I'll be returning to tomorrow to see a Finnish documentary, Screaming Men, a film about a choir that just shouts. They perform law texts, national anthems of the countries they visit, children's songs, instruction manuals, the lot. Promises to be quite an entertaining evening. Apparently, audiences in all countries are just bewildered. So we'll be bewildered, too.

The Concert, El Concierto, Le Concert.

2011-05-31T05:50:00.000+02:00

Having fallen hopelessly in love with El Biografo I decided I had to go back and see something else, there, even if that something else was, to judge by its publicity poster, the kind of twaddle I can't abide. I'd read and heard enough about Le Concert in France to reach the conclusion that I'd rather lick a lavatory seat clean than sit through a factually inaccurate, shallow, manipulative portrayal of miscarriages of justice under communism. However, you don't stumble across a cinema like this one every day so you try to keep your unfounded prejudices under control, pluck the CLP$2000 (about €3) out of your pocket and select the aisle seat of your choice.

You know what? I loved it. The set-piece comedy moments were well done, the dénouement not quite what I was expecting (but then again, I'm an ultra-gullible viewer, never wanting to second-guess what's coming up but choosing to let it unfold in front of my eyes). The cleverest part, to my mind, was the effortless flip to serious at the end after so much slapstick. I didn't care for the ha-ha bits like the director spontaneously kissing his gopher or the tacky 'bravo' shouted by the ultra-demanding critic but the ultimate realisation that the girl was the daughter of two of his friends sent to basically die in Siberia ensured that the old waterworks started up. I wept more than the odd tear; the last time that happened was when I saw Stuart Little in Paris about eleven years ago.Funny how the kind of films I don't like are the ones that end up making me cry. Hmm...

El Biografo and more...

2011-05-30T06:10:00.000+02:00

Here are a few (more) pics from Santiago, in case you're interested:

El Biografo, the cinema:

Lastarria (my street):

Another café on Lastarria:

There's no-one about as it was still early; nothing much happens here before 10am, unless you're in the business district.

OK, now I really am going to bed.

Good, fun film...

2011-05-30T05:45:00.001+02:00

...even if it wasn't the one I thought it was. It was actually "You are going to meet a tall, dark stranger" and not Midnight in Paris or whatever the Carla Bruni vehicle is called.

El Biografo has something of the Cinema Paradiso about it: the nice old man who sells you your ticket will then show you to your seat, run upstairs and set the film off then run back downstairs and show the remaining latecomers to their places. It's a little room with about 150 comfortable, deep, red plush seats. A ticket to this little corner of paradise will set you back the equivalent of €3 Monday to Wednesday or €4 Thursday to Sunday. I hope they change the programme soon as I'd love to go back before heading home.

Walking out of the cinema, I'd completely forgotten where I was. The film was in English with Spanish subtitles, but seeing as the last film I saw in Toulouse was in Spanish with French subtitles (El hombre de al lado, if you're interested; 'The Man Next Door', a superb Argentinian film) the notion of the language(s) in front of you is not necessarily an infallible guide to your current location. It was only as I stepped out onto Lastarria and saw the tarot dealers and strange-looking dog coat salesmen (yes) that I remembered I was in Santiago. The fact the film was set in London played a part too, I'm sure.

So that's my first week finished in the southern hemisphere. I'm still amazed by all the British names attached not only to the country's political life but also its history. I still need to look into this, but there was a very important man called Bernardo O'Higgins (you couldn't make it up). He was, apparently, the saviour and liberator of Chile but is now a rather long avenue running east to west through this city of 6.5 million souls. Notable contemporary politicians and writers include an Edwards, a Hargreaves, a Walker, a Golborne (previously Holborne, I'd imagine). There are others, but they escape me. Needless to say, there's a good smattering of German names including a leading Minister called Ena Von Baer. Look her up on Wikipedia; her case can't be that much different from many others in this country. German names abound in the rest of the city: architects, chemists, leading businessmen etc. I wish I had another six months to really research this place but if all goes well I should be back next year, when I'll be able to combine my love of things Germanic and Hispanic, contradictory as this combination may sound. Maybe this duality unknowingly underpins my love of Argentina, too; a country I know little about but which exercises an immense fascination over me.

Bedtime.

Woody Allen in Spanish. Or maybe not.

2011-05-29T23:42:00.001+02:00

We've got a local bohemian-type cinema in Lastarria called El Biografo which shows art house films. Not wishing to not support such an establishment I popped in on my way back from the Cerro Santa Lucia and bought a ticket for Woody Allen's Encontrarás al hombre du tus sueños or 'You will meet a tall, dark stranger' to you and me. I don't know if it's going to be dubbed or in English with subtitles but I don't really mind either way. The charming little old man at the box office reminded me I needed to reserve my seat: they have what is basically a pinboard plan of the seating with a piece of rolled-up paper with the seat number on every nail. I might not have got an aisle seat with Iberia from Madrid to Santiago but I got one, here, at El Biografo. The film also features France's First (Pregnant) Lady as well as a collection of people who can actually act, so it should be pretty enjoyable.

This is the first time I've been away from home when I've actually used Skype, and what a boon it is, too. It's also the first time I've taken my computer and have had Wi-Fi in my abode and, quite frankly, I never want to leave under any other conditions, again. Being able to see and speak to the family has been worth its weight in gold. Montaigne's observation that 'A man on his own is in bad company' will never go out of style and I find that having Mrs. F and the Fingernails just a couple of mouse clicks away is the most valuable addition to my suitcase I could possibly imagine. Long may Skype last and long may it remain free.

Hasta luego...

Take a Deep Breath...

2011-05-29T23:19:00.000+02:00

You may or may not be familiar with Santiago's location, but it's pretty stunning. Have a look:

I fancied having a piece of this view first hand, so I decided to hike up to the top of Cerro Santa Lucia, an urban hill park. This is what I saw:

So open those lungs and take a deep breath of that wonderful city air! What's more, today is Sunday and there hasn't been much traffic. Apparently, everything improves once there's been a bit of rain...

Santiago - What it really means.

2011-05-28T20:37:00.000+02:00

You may not know this, but Santiago actually means "The City of a Million Opticians, Very Often More than Seven or Eight Abreast". Seriously. Even in Europe, where urban eye-level is dominated by mobile phone outlets, opticians and banks, the capital of Chile makes our towns all look like pathetic losers. I'm not even sure who all the customers are supposed to be; those Chileans who do actually sport eyewear don't seem to have more than one pair, or maybe the answer is simpler: I've ended up in the Optician District; maybe neighbourhoods like Las Condes etc don't have as many. It's pretty impressive, though, having to be seen to be believed.

There's a huge march this afternoon in the centre against the construction of a hydroelectric power station at Aysén, called, inevitably, Hidroaysén. Having got genned up on the former Colonia Dignidad last night I'm going to turn my attention to this issue and try to find out why ecologists are so up in arms about the construction of one power station in such an enormous country. This place has a fascinating post-war history and gets more interesting by the day.

Dominique Strauss-Kahn as Baron Scarpia?

2011-05-27T05:31:00.000+02:00

Just had a thought, one which actually did occur to me during this evening's performance of Tosca: in Act II, an ageing lothario in a position of power attempts to use his status and influence to have his wicked way with Floria Tosca, who eventually responds by stabbing him to death. What price we'll see a production of Tosca before 2011 has breathed its last which casts Baron Scarpia as a Dominique Strauss-Kahn lookalike, Tosca as an African immigrant singer and Cavaradossi as her seemingly non-existent (ex-) husband. Watch German theatre listings for your opportunity to witness this profundity but remember you heard it here, first.

Does YOUR local theatre do this?

2011-05-27T05:16:00.001+02:00

One of the lesser-known facts about Turkmenistan is that residents there get free gas and electricity. I've just discovered something about Santiago that, if it gets out, might result in making it one of the most populous cities in the world.

I've just come in from a performance of Giacomo Puccini's Tosca, dismissed by the noted musicologist Joseph Kerman as 'that shabby little shocker', a wonderful expression and no mistake. Love it or hate it, Tosca has gorgeous music and, if well-sung, will be an unforgettable evening. Elisabete Matos, Alfred Kim and Sergei Leiferkus made sure it was the latter but it was what I discovered in the two intervals that made my jaw drop: I was wandering over to the refreshments table to get a glass of wine when I noticed that turnover was brisk; people were approaching and leaving incredibly quickly. Then I find out why: the glasses of wine lined up on the counter were...free. Yes: Eff, Are, Ee, Ee. Not only does this city provide you with the best opera singers in the southern hemisphere but it plies you with free local wine during its two intervals (one more than any other house, except when they're doing Wagner). That, in any sensible person's book, is reason enough to go home and inform the family that you're upping sticks and moving to Chile.

So now I'm sitting on my bed, tapping out words which will never be read by anyone I know, watching CNN in Spanish and generally enjoying life, as I always do anyway, but that's by the by. Skype means I can speak to and see Mrs. F and the Fingernails and that alone is worth its weight in gold. The inventer of Skype deserves a medal for services to society; the ability to see and speak to your family every day, free of charge, when you're on the other side of the world is beyond valuation and has probably already helped many a travelling businessman to retain a cool head whilst away from his loved ones. It'd be interesting to run a survey on that, actually; any takers?

Joseph Kerman did have a point; Tosca is a bit Tack-Ola, but if he'd care to head over to Santiago any time soon (born in 1924 but yes, he's still alive) I'd happily try to take his mind off the events on stage with a couple of gratis glasses of this august country's finest red...

In praise of Chilean wine.

2011-05-26T00:59:00.000+02:00

Seriously, these people know how to make wine. Stop me if I've already mentioned it, but two bottles of red were waiting for me when I moved in to the apartment building, and they were both superb. If you come across the Santa Rita vineyard, aim for a bottle of Medalla Real; you will not be disappointed...

Working with Chileans is a joy: they're intelligent, keen, open and uncomplicated; at least, those I've had the good fortune to meet so far are. The pretty girls at Starlight Coffee now know my order and have asked me where I'm from. It's strange; the little shop has one of the best locations in the centre, in a leafy pedestrian area next to the beautiful Teatro Municipal, but seems to be no more than a secret tip, a bit like my little lunch counter place over the way from my yoga class in Toulouse. I'm not complaining; there's always a table to sit at, watch the world go by and realise I'm sitting there without a cigarette in my mouth. That still feels strange, too; this is the first time in my adult life that I've ever been on my own as a non-smoker. That might sound pretty bland, but it makes me realise how much the weed determined my life. In some ways it still does, I suppose, otherwise I wouldn't be mentioning it, now. The desire to smoke when I first went out was overwhelming but, curiously, was not difficult to resist.

Tomorrow I'll post a few pictures so you can see what a lucky bastard I am to be here. The only downside is that the TV is shit, not that I'm any great fan of it anyway, but still. Maybe there'll be a football match I can tune into, tonight.

Santiago de Chile

2011-05-24T12:08:00.001+02:00

If there's one thing I didn't think I'd be doing at 5.42am my first night in Chile, it was being tucked up in bed, typing a blog post. I got to Santiago yesterday morning after a fourteen-hour flight fropm Madrid during which I only slept for about two to three hours. About five international flights landed within twenty minutes either side of ours and the queue to get through passport control was incredible. Still, my driver was there and we made it to the apartment exactly when my employer predicted we would. Just time to have a shower, head out and get a coffee before starting work at 11 o'clock. The lunch break was taken up with basic shopping and a maiden Skype with Mrs. Fingers back at the ranch, then it was back to work. When I got in last night, I couldn't wait to get to bed. Nonetheless, if I'd gone too early I'd have been awake even earlier but I really did think that turning in at 11pm would keep me comatose until at least seven this morning...how wrong I was, and here I am.

I've only seen a tiny fraction of the city but it looks and feels good. Our neighbourhood, Lastarria, is fantastic: full of trendy new cafés and restaurants, it's a bit like living in Neal's Yard. There'll be time to discover more. Since I now appear to have a good five hours before work starts I'll head off and visit the Mapuche chemist which is only about fifty yards from work and then hunt down some decent coffee. That, gentle readers, is easier said than done, believe it or not. There's still a marked preference for Nescafé and the like, yerba maté is not widely drunk and, as an Englishman, the only decent tea is the cup I make myself. There's a Starbucks here, which I'll avoid as long as I can, and a little Santiago Starbucks clone called Starlight Coffee, run by a trio of rather attractive Chilenas just next to the office. It's good, it's pretty cheap so I'll probably end up going there, again.

The supermarket I went to, Unimarc, was interesting: a reasonable selection of fruit and veg, lots of meat (ribs, in particular), a bit of fish, loads of different types of flour, virtually no jam despite having an 'English' bread selection that could hold its own with anywhere on our still-fair isle, lots of pasta, sweets, flavoured yoghurts and scores of different types of fizzy drinks. It was like shopping in Rotherham, honestly. Maybe I've been spoiled by living in France these last few years but I can assure you there are other countries who eat just as badly as we're supposed to. Chilean recipes look wonderful, just as British ones do in colourful cookery books, but I get the feeling that Señor Pablo Publico's everyday diet is just as dangerous as anything you'll find north of the English Channel. Anyhow, I've been craving Chinese food for the last week, so I'm off this morning to find an Asian supermarket and get my jollies that way.

The Chilean first division has entered its playoff phase, so I'm going to try to get to a match or two. There's also a good production of Tosca to see and that's before I've even started looking for things to do. These next three weeks should be quite enjoyable...

From Madrid Airport.

2011-05-24T01:47:00.000+02:00

This is the first time I’ve blogged from anywhere other than our sitting room. OK, I’m currently typing it into a Word document to copy and paste into FrenchFingers later on as the WiFi fees are so exhorbitant, but you are getting words direct from Madrid Barajas Airport, so there.

Taking off in Toulouse was as it ever is : people from everywhere, few of them able to behave. There was an adolescent Portuguese rugby team waiting to fly back to Lisbon, the boys’ faces as vacant as their language was offensive. Portuguese really is proof that romance languages can be excruciatingly ugly : if your sisters are Monica Belluci, Emmanuelle Béart and Penelope Cruz, how come you turned out like a lusitanian Lyle Lovett? Talk about the black sheep of the family. It takes an awful lot of skill to make a mediterranean tongue sound that bad, but the Portuguese managed it. They also gave us Cristiano Ronaldo and Jose Mourinho, so you can make of the little country what you will.

A consignment of soldiers was due to fly to Maesbrook. The airport changed their gate and proceeded to announce that the ‘flight to Brussels’ was now leaving from Gate 28, the woman’s voice getting increasingly frantic as she realised that no-one was turning up to board. One of the soldiers got wind of the mistake and started to phone colleagues to inform them of the change. Word gradually got around and the unit got on their plane. How do I know this ? Because our flight to Madrid was due to leave from the same gate at the same time, so we all witnessed the passage of information as it slowly seeped out, no thanks to Blagnac Airport, that is. Our Iberia flight was delayed half an hour because of this ; had the airport said ‘Maesbrook’ instead of ‘Brussels’ we might have taken off on time.

The other, predictable, joy of Blagnac Airport on a Sunday afternoon was the state of the loos. No loo paper, no towel rolls, puddles of urine on the cubicle floors and excrement encrusted in the bowls, yup, you’ve guessed it : la France d’en bas doesn’t work on Sunday. According to the hygiene chart on the wall (pure decoration, you understand) it had been three hours since a cleaner had last been seen in that establishment, which, for an airport, is inexcusable. Still, that’s Frogland for you ; the best you can hope for is a Gallic shrug and more of the same tomorrow. Making peace with this modus vivendi is imperative for a stress-free life, here.

In the meantime, night has fallen over Madrid. I can just make out the leaning towers around Chamartin, the rest of the city has descended into the worldwide generic black with yellow, white and red dots of light. We could be in Sharm-el-Sheikh or Shrewsbury, Dakar or Doncaster, Aberdeen or Adelaide. I could carry on like that for hours, but I’d miss my connection. Plus, you’d get bored, as it wasn’t you making up the alliterations.

There’s no available aisle seat on the flight to Santiago. This might mean nothing to you, but it’s life or death to me, he who hates being hemmed in by anything or anyone. The strategy is clear : three pints of Jack Daniels with dinner then oblivion until we hit the runway in the southern hemisphere, nothing else will do. The only downside to that scenario is that I have to play an entire Richard Strauss opera three hours after landing, so I’ll need to be pretty sober, too. Maybe a few yoga relaxation exercises could do the job ; after all, the novelty of the situation and the adrenalin will probably take care of the rest.

An interesting aspect of what’s happening here is that the South Americans waiting for the late flights to their continent are coming up and asking the café attendant to fill up their thermos flasks with very hot water. This is for their yerba mate, a very popular drink in Argentina, Paraguay, Uruguay, Bolivia and southern Chile. I’ve drunk mate for the last few years and absolutely love it ; it’s fairly easy to find in Toulouse. I was looking for the most popular drink in Santiago and stumbled across an article about a new Santiago tradition, cafe con piernas, which is, basically, espresso, cafe con leche and cortado served in dimly-lit joints by attractive waitresses in their lingerie or in bikinis. The cultural superiority of this concept is clear, even if the bombilla is absent.

There was a Spanish guy in Toulouse Airport who talked incessantly on his mobile from check-in to the moment on the airplane when the flight attendant basically says « Now turn those irritating fucking machines off ». Once we’d landed in Madrid, Senor Chatty-Patty whipped out his BlackBerry as soon as we’d entered the courtesy bus, pushed a couple of buttons, raised the infernal metal block to his ear and said « …Pues.. », as if he’d never been off the phone at all. Unbelievable. At least if his conversation had contained anything worth listening to, but it didn’t. It was just the usual stream of shallow diarrhoea that everyone feels we absolutely have to hear. God ; why can’t we go back to the days when people considered their communication discrete and private ? Everyone has to feel famous and appreciated these days, their every utterance offered up for universal praise and estimation. Don’t believe me ? Then why the hell is Twitter so successful ? I like the fact that I can ‘write’ this at a café table in Madrid Airport, but no-one knows what I’m writing except me.

Madrid Airport is now completely non-smoking. Yup, even the Spaniards have had to swallow what my old Bayreuth dining companion Elena Salgado instigated back in 2005 but had to dilute until recently. Like the French, they also appear to have taken it on the chin but I don’t know how they manage to get around it outside of places like airports. People keep saying that loads of cafés and the like in France flount the law, but I’ve never seen one, probably because I never go out at night. Now, Madrid Airport is just as antiseptic and characterless as any other Eurozone public building. Bravo Brussels ! I’m not saying there should still be clouds of blue carcenegenic mass swirling around our heads and down our throats, but one significant purification measure seems to ensure that any other element of individuality will also be eradicated. This departure hall could be anywhere, just like the passepartout nightscape outside.

I’ve just seen something which makes me want to retch. You know these signs that say things like « Here’s your freshly-made sandwich » when all that surrounds it reeks of industrial standardisation ? Well, there’s a refrigerated booth not ten feet from my seat, bearing the legend « Elige tu sandwich recien hecho ». Firstly, the Spanish for ‘sandwich’ is ‘bocadillo’, but even that is now considered too tacky and provincial in an airport café, so we’ll use the English word which is, apart from anything else, completely superfluous. What’s more, Spain has a wonderful gastronomic tradition, so the idea of foodstuffs being fresh or « recently made » is as normal as having coffee first thing in the morning. Behemoth-like Anglo-Saxon culinary philistinism then tries to patronise customers in a food-conscience society by informing them that their airport « sandwich » is – wait for it – fresh ! As opposed to the shit we’ve been feeding ourselves for decade upon decade and, therefore, ignorantly believe that everyone else has, too.

I’ve prattled on for quite a while, now. It’s been something of a novelty, ‘writing’ on the hoof and I could get quite attached to it, provided my computer plays ball. It’s currently 22.48, my flight leaves in an hour-and-a-half and my battery is 60% charged. Tomorrow, I’ll be in a completely alien culture, playing Ariadne auf Naxos in a country where it’s never been heard before, trying to find the right notes after travelling for 20 hours and a mere 180 minutes after getting off a 14-hour flight. Now it’s time for me to people-watch until take-off…

Dominique Strauss-Kahn IV and serial misinformation.

2011-05-20T10:08:00.000+02:00

I know I whack on about Flat Earth News and how we should be on the alert for misinformation in the press and other media, but one detail of this whole DSK farrago should set our alarm bells ringing, that of the personal status of the cleaning lady. On one day alone I was informed by so-called 'quality' news outlets, that she was variously married, single, seperated, divorced and widowed. It's nothing against her, but if the clarions of our daily information can't even agree on this one simple point, how can they be trusted to reliably convey infinitely more complex facts?

Now the Silver Shagger has got his armed-guard enforced bail, maybe the world's media can concentrate on something else to lie about, at least until September 8th when his case comes up.

Dominique Strauss-Kahn III

2011-05-19T22:09:00.000+02:00

So, the ageing lothario has got bail, so he'll enjoy a certain amount of chequebook freedom until his case comes up on September 8th. It's difficult to imagine him sneaking out of the country and setting up in a hacienda in Belize, but stranger things have happened. This one's set to run and run, but the funniest of all is watching the French Socialist Party frantically scrabbling around for another credible presidential candidate. The best they've come up with so far is François Hollande, Ségolène Royale's cuckolded husband and father to her four children who eventually resigned from the party chairmanship after his ex's crushing defeat in 2007. He's not a bad guy, but do they really, after all these years, have no-one else? I, for one, find it hilarious, but if I were a committed leftie and card-carrying froggy socialist, I'd be beside myself with either worry or rage that my political people were apparently incapable of mounting a credible challenge to one of the most unpopular presidents in the recent history of the French Republic (Versions IV and V, at any rate).

Dominique Strauss-Kahn II

2011-05-19T21:39:00.000+02:00

Ever since reading Flat Earth News I imagine I see misinformation, lies and manipulation in every news report, be they on the internet, in the printed press or on TV. This evening, France 24 decided to provide us with the following team to cover DSK's second attempt at getting bail: two gentlemen by the names of Perelman and Nathan King being interviewed by a an attractive black female journalist. Is there some kind of suggestion at work, here? I can't believe these are the only two demographic variations available for the diffusion of news, particularly an event focussed on a Jewish businessman-politician and an African cleaning lady. The longer this circus goes on, the less I see the chance of a fair trial, even if the man is a self-confessed serial shagger. The spectacle will ultimately prove more important than the result, and that's very sad, to say the very least.

Dominique Strauss-Kahn

2011-05-17T09:18:00.001+02:00

This blog's taking on water rapidly at the moment. Truth be told, I've got quite a few other things to concentrate on before leaving for Chile this weekend, so my head's not really where it has been these last few months. It's a shame, as current events are pretty entertaining, particularly the Dominique Strauss-Kahn saga in New York, where the French appear appalled by the fact that DSK is not being shown endless respect in the time-honoured manner of Gaul protecting its institutionalised criminals (Chirac, Tibéri, Dumas, Sirven, Juppé...oh, I could go on and on and on...) yet are so quick to critisicise other countries' deification of celebrities. I'm no fan of socialists, but this story is such a caricature it feels like a set-up. Could a randy old stoat like DSK be THAT stupid? In America, of all places? If he is guilty, he deserves to go down for a while, but I have a sneaking feeling there's a whole lot more to this story than we've been allowed to know so far. I wonder if Sarkozy's right arm is starting to ache after all the air-punching he must have been doing these last few days. More interesting still will be the laughable PS's attempt to find a new candidate for 2012. Search as they might, they seem incapable of discovering anyone outside of the circle of usual suspects: Ségo, François Hollande, er, maybe Manuel Valls. Let's face it: the PS has run its course, it's a spent force with no idealogical credibility or legitimacy. All parties believe in the welfare state and a fair working wage, so how can the Socialist Party show themselves as offering something more, something different? All they seem to fall back on is the old chestnut of making those disgusting capitalists pay higher taxes to bail out the 'less privileged' (sic). And this from a party run by unashamed millionaires (like DSK). What's wrong with this picture? I'd be interested to see how much of their wealth was 'redistributed' in the common good...

OK, back to Strauss and then off to yoga.

What's been happening.

2011-05-13T21:03:00.000+02:00

I've not been that silent for a while. We had a week in the Pyrenees which was absolutely superb, except for the ground floor of the barn-conversion gîte, which was as dark and as damp as hell. Upstairs was wonderful, but the sitting-room cum dining area was a mess: the fire was at the opposite end of the room from the sofas and TV, the cutlery and crockery cupboard situated as far from the kitchen range as it was possible to be. Nevertheless, there was a nice little terrace and the sun shone so splendidly from 7am onwards that every day started with a succulent al fresco breakfast and topped off with a ten-mile walk before lunch. We were adopted by one of the strangest dogs you're likely to see anywhere: it had a dalmatian's body, a rottweiler's head, six nipples and a full male meat 'n' two veg on brazen public display, demonstrating to perfection the expression 'Clear as the balls on a dog'. I've no idea what this particular animal had been raised on or whether he was in training for a nightclub job in Bangkok, but he really did look like he'd been designed by a committee. He was good company on our walks, though; he'd tag along whenever we passed his house and show us different routes through the adjoining forest and round the waterfalls.

If you're ever in Lesponne, near Bagnères-de-Bigorre, have lunch, dinner or an overnight stay at Chez Gabrielle. It's delightful and the welcome and cuisine are exceptional. There's also an old grocer's shop attached to the hostel which was frozen in time when its last proprietor retired in the mid-'80's. Even back then it was considered a curiosity from a bygone age and now it's a museum, one where you can see exactly what this lady was still selling when Spandau Ballet were topping the charts, Channel 4 was in its infancy and mullets were THE hairstyle to have (just call up some Chris Waddle videos on YouTube). I'd go on a bit more about the week away but I've just written a press article about it and, quite frankly, can't be bothered to go through the whole thing again. Sorry.

So we're back in Toulouse and I'm getting ready to head off to Chile for three weeks. Still jousting with my atopic eczema, I thought I'd look and see if there was somewhere in Santiago I could buy Chilean Indian herbal remedies or some such. White man's medicine has never done it for this particular complaint so maybe the answer lies nearer to the ground. A quick Google search threw up a bullseye: there's a chain of Mapuche chemists in Chile, staffed by Mapuche tribesmen and women, which sell a range of their own centuries-old herbal remedies, including, it has to be added, male and female herbal viagra. There's also something for eczema, so guess where I'll be headed once I've got off the plane. In fact, no; not that quickly: my employer over there has reshuffled his schedule and needs me in work a mere two hours after I get off the flight. Let's hope there's enough whiskey to knock me out as soon as we fly out of Madrid the previous night or I'll be fit for shit by the time we land in the southern hemisphere.

Yoga continues to be a blast. The more you work on your balance, the more your confidence grows. Honestly, there are days when I feel I could take on the world and win, whatever the issue, whoever the opposition. I tell you all seriously: stop smoking and start yoga; it will change your life for the best instantly, and without any side effects. And this from a twenty-a-day man for thirty years. When I smoked, the best scenario I felt I could hope for was not to be kicked in the teeth. Now there's more balance - in all senses of the word - in my life, the world feels like my oyster. Try it, really. OK, that's enough ranting and preaching. Sorry. Thanks for reading, love and kisses to you all.

Speed Limits

2011-05-11T20:23:00.000+02:00

On the day the French government announced plans to shave 10kmh of all its speed limits, I read in the Telegraph online that their British counterparts are toying with the idea of raising the maximum speed on motorways to 80mph. I'm sure there's something to be said about this and commit myself I shall, just as soon as I've written my Haute Pyrénées article and seen the ecxema on my hands heal; I can't tell you how much it hurts, and, if you're a pianist, it's not terribly practical...

Back from Holiday

2011-05-07T21:06:00.000+02:00

I'll post a fulsome account of our delightful week away once I've written up a version for publication. Thanks for reading these pages whilst I've been gone.

Holiday Time

2011-04-30T12:10:00.000+02:00

Haven't posted much these last few days; lots of work plus arrival of relatives with view to going off on holiday to a gîte in the Pyrenees this afternoon. Greetings to my new 'follower'! Thanks for signing up and I hope there's still enough of interest in the blog to keep any passing reader's interest until we get back from the mountains. It's going to be long breakfasts, rambles in the mountains, washing hands in clear streams and more than the odd bottle of Madiran, at least if I can get to the shops at some stage; we're going to be right out in the sticks, so any shopping is going to have to be planned like a military manoeuvre.

I'll let you know how it goes.

Spot The Difference I.

2011-04-25T21:20:00.000+02:00

Moscow, November 1993. The place: GUM, Red Square, Second Floor, Shoe Department. Tuesday morning.

Me: Good morning. I'm looking for shoelaces.
GUM Employee: That's my colleague. I only sell shoes.
Me: Do you have any shoelaces?
GUM Employee: Yes, they're in that box over there, under the counter.
Me: Could I see them, please?
GUM Employee: No, that's my colleague's department.
Me: But I can see them from here. Will you please sell me a pair of shoelaces?!
GUM Employee: No, I'm not allowed to. Come back on Friday afternoon.
Me: Do you know of anywhere else that sells shoelaces?
GUM Employee: No.

Toulouse, France, 2010. Accounts Department.

Me: Good afternoon. I need a stamp on this form. It's the same one as last year.
Employee: I don't understand it. It's not in French.
Me: I know, it's in German, but it's the same one as last year and the year before, and the year before that.
Employer: How do they expect us to understand it?
Me: They don't; it's standard issue. It's nothing personal. Please could you stamp it with the same stamp as last year so I can get it sent off?
Employee: You'll have to get it OK'd from downstairs
Me: I've already spoken to them. They sent me straight upstairs because they knew you'd done it before.
Employee: I don't understand it, though; it's not in French.
Me: Please just stamp it before I kill you.

OK, I made the last sentence up. Maybe.

(Slightly post-)Soviet Russia 1
France 1

Draw.

Soviet France II

2011-04-25T21:05:00.001+02:00

This was too beautiful for words. Mrs. F, the Fingernails and I went off to Jardin des Plantes this afternoon to enjoy the rest of a deliciously warm Easter Monday. As soon as we got into the park I was seized by a terrible urge to pee, so off we went to the public loo located next to one of the cafés. There seemed to be a little queue, but I waited my turn and then headed off to the handicapped cubicle, all of our urinals being cordoned off with red and white tape. 'No, Monsieur, you can't go there, you'll have to wait for the men's cubicle' bellowed a town hall employee, cigarette in the corner of her mouth (despite us being inside a public building). I looked round and saw the door to said cubicle opening. A man came out, leaving the way free for me. There was no lavatory seat, no paper and nowhere to either wash nor dry your hands. Still, there was a little tray by the door with a few coins in it, labelled MERCI. I would rather have chewed on my own vomit than put even a single centime in that dish.

The last time I saw that level of public inconvenience was in Moscow, twenty-odd years ago. No door, no paper, no sink, no soap, yet a very vocal dyezhurnaya, reminding me of appropriate behaviour. I had to wait until 2011 to experience it again, and that in one of the richest cities of a G8 nation.

There will be more 'Spot The Differences', because there are many more examples. Baby, I've not even started...

Spot The Difference.

2011-04-25T20:16:00.000+02:00

The more I think about official France, the more I'm reminded of the Soviet Union. In fact, I'm going to start a 'Spot The Difference' series, where I will compare my own experiences of both countries to see if there is, in fact, any difference between them at all. I fell in love with Soviet Russia just as I have with France, so please don't think this is criticism; it is merely observation. The first comparison will involve shoelaces.