Equality

It's one of the three words in the famous motto of the French State: Equality, and two letters which arrived on the same day summed it up. One was to tell us that we earned too much to get state aid with our mortgage repayments (OK, fair do; never thought we'd get it, anyway), the other to inform Mrs. Fingers that, as an 'official job seeker' she would find enclosed a free rail pass with which to tour around the department as often as the mood takes her. In one delivery, our household was classed as 'sufficiently well-off not to need' yet also 'in need of help'. Go figure. Why not just give us the cash to help with the mortgage and we'll have a day out on it with the Fingernails somewhere? It's a grand scheme, though, and maybe I'll be happy of it one day, though I'm not sure a free trip on SNCF down the boondocks will yield much in my line of work. Still, as Equality goes, it's not bad, though judging by customer service in this country I think the 'Fraternity' bit needs a bit of work.

The Discontents

They're all having a wail: civil servants, train drivers, energy workers, students, teachers. You name it, they're cheesed off. The protagonists of French National Therapy week are making headlines for, er, something they do regularly. In terms of news, it's about as significant as those predicatable driver interviews on clogged motorways the first few days of the summer holidays. Why strikes in France are considered of any interest to anybody is beyond me; it's not as if society changes radically after a few days of transport chaos and blocked universities. What is incredible, though, is the ability of certain employees to continue defending rights which have no place in any country outside of Wonderland and students who rally around to keep a higher educational system which consistently fails its members. It's crap. OK, let's reform it. NO!! Anything but that! Solutions on a postcard, please. Or a postage stamp.

I sometimes wish the French could be foreigners in their own country for a while. Then they'd see how lucky they already are.

Wassailing...

Well, my Christmas singers are getting better and better and ever more numerous. We had 18 there, tonight and they're really sounding good. The carrot cake at the interval was arguably the star, though, and the Fingernails along with Mrs. F wil probably polish it off, tomorrow. I got a lift back from a the patrons (and cooks) in their hybrid car. It's amazing; you don't hear a thing when you've pulled up at traffic lights or wherever. In fact, the car is so silent that, just after they bought it, they ran over their dog and killed it. This could ultimately make it a selling point for those looking to improve the state of the pavements in this city.

In all seriousness, if electric or hybrid cars really do catch on some time before the planet disintegrates like soap in a bowl, there's going to have to be some other way to alert people to your presence. How quickly will everyone adapt to the concept of always looking both ways before crossing a road? We're so used to hearing cars, lorries and motorbikes that the idea they could move about silently is unthinkable: it's already dangerous for cyclists but being noiseless and motorised will spell a huge danger for others. Will people just wind their windows down and shout at pedestrians the entire time? Will they play music full blast (as if they didn't, already)? Will the cars have 'pedestrian sensors' which bellow out warnings if small families look like they're going to cross the road at the wrong time? Basically, we can't win: either the fumes will kill you or the car itself will.

It's nearly over. Maybe.

Mrs. Fingers is off to start a computer course, tomorrow. Nothing remarkable in that, you say. Well, you would if you were reading this, but no-one does, so there. Mrs. F stopped working when we left Paris for Germany in 2001, started making people (with a little help from me) and hasn't been seen inside a place of work since. "Enough is enough" she cried recently, possibly in French, and will now abandon, at least for the next two weeks, two very well-adjusted and loving children to their father, who can't claim the same. Thanks to the vagaries of my work I have two weeks free, so it's all going to work out just fine, unless it doesn't. Racking my brains for things to do, I suddenly realised that my two daughters, aged five and two, know NEXT TO NOTHING either about British pubs or the UEFA Champions' League and that now would be the perfect time to fill in some gaps in their education. They're pretty shaky on French First Division football, too, and with the stadium just fifteen minutes' walk away there'll be the chance to catch up on a bit of homework.

Being a househusband, if only temporarily, is something I always fear but end up enjoying immensely. It's like reading the whole story instead of getting home tired at night and immediately having to act out the last three pages. Apart from November 20th, when all the staff at school are on strike, there'll be pockets of a few hours each day when I can get ready for going back to work. Maybe it'll make me more productive and efficient, too. Then Mrs. F will return, now an Office virtuoso, get snapped up by some wonderful company and we'll...pay more income tax. Every silver lining etc etc.