In 1837 Hermés was a saddler and a family-run business. Seven generations later, this French firm still makes saddles but it also creates high-end fashion and luxury goods, employing 3,500 people worldwide and selling in over 200 Hermés stores.
Tags: Hermés
On Friday night and Saturday morning we had major gale force winds here in the Corbieres.
The house shook a few times and the trees outside bent to unbelievable angles.
A gale was still blowing on Friday night when we went to bed and Saturday morning was no better.
At 11 am the power went off. This is not unusual here because we have a couple of short power cuts a year, either during very wet weather or very hot weather. Most times the power is off for no longer than an hour at most, and 10 minutes is more the norm. Come noon we still thought nothing of it, but come 3pm we started to worry.
Our house is all electric, with only a couple of paraffin heaters which we use for additional heating.
Planning for the worst, we decided do to a quick smash and grab on the fridge, cheese, tomatoes and relish grabbed at super speed, we sat down to a late cold lunch of cheese sandwiches and a cold drink. Not bad but not so good when that was all that was on offer for dinner also.
Sunday morning was wind free and sunny so we drove to Sigean, a nearby (30 minutes) small town with hope of a hot meal, but nothing was better there than here, with the odd generator giving a bit of power to the cafes, so they could brew coffee. I did manage to buy a tin of canned meat to eat in case of a prolonged blackout!
We both had a couple of cups of filter coffee (espresso sized!), we appreciated our first warm drink in 24 hours. It was so warm when we got home, that we had the windows and door open to warm the house, and we managed to rummage and find enough food for a salad. Even without any power it was rather a pleasant day, but when night starts creeping in you start to remember what a wonderful thing electricity is, and how lucky we are in the west to be able to flick a switch and have light, turn a T.V. on, cook food, and wash cloths and dishes in machines.
Monday still in blackout mode we drove down the the next village (Durban Corbieres) just before 11 am, and wonder of wonders, their lights where back on. After getting bread and wine we scooted home to find out that our power was restored. After 49 hours most of the contents of our freezer where still frozen with the exception of the fish section which is at the top. The Scallops, Squid, Mussels, and Salmon had started to defrost, so not wanting to risk food poisoning, I cooked it all up to feed the local stray animals.
The power may have been out for only 49 hours !!!! but we lost our ADSL connection for 7 days.
Aftermath of the tempest in France
Hundreds of trees in the Landes region in France were uprooted during the tempest that swept across Spain and the South West of France.
Tags: Storm
Thousands of Britons who headed off to France to start a new life are struggling as the Euro soars against the pound
Street artists in Paris say cheap imports from China and eastern Europe are putting them out of business.
Tags: Paris, Street Art
Storm in a teacup, if you ask me. I remember when Tony Blair was first elected in the U.K. We saw the same kind of euphoria, only for a couple of years down the line the truth was that he was not just the same old dullard but happy to go to war in Iraq for no other reason then to support a buddy!!! Obama’s already reneged on most of his pre-election promises and he is taking over a sinking ship. This will mean being Liberal will go out of the door and some right wing policy will start creeping in. The only good thing is that Bush is out of the White House, it is just a shame Hilary Clinton did no win the nomination, she would have been a bit more hard headed to start with. Poor old Obama, who is being over hyped around the world can not possibily live up to the hype and a year or so down the line there are going to be a good number of disgruntled voters in America. That said I do wish him well and do hope he does stand up for the convictions that got him elected. ONLY TIME WILL TELL.
A Video Moment
The Medieval city of Carcassonne
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Just Finished Reading
L.A. Confidential by James Ellroy
A modern day classic. It is hard to know what to write about this novel apart from the fact it is classic noir crime fiction at its best and a must read for fans of crime fiction. I read this book a couple of times before, but not for a good many years. This time around I keep placing the actors from the movie into the roles, a bit annoying for the first 100 pages but after that I was O.K. This is one of the few books that I’ve read that the film is equal to.
Amazon.com Review
James Ellroy’s L.A. Confidential is film-noir crime fiction akin to Chinatown, Hollywood Babylon, Raymond Chandler, Dashiell Hammett, and Jim Thompson. It’s about three tortured souls in the 1950s L.A.P.D.: Ed Exley, the clean-cut cop who lives shivering in the shadow of his dad, a legendary cop in the same department; Jack Vincennes, a cop who advises a Police Squad- like TV show and busts movie stars for payoffs from sleazy Hush-Hush magazine; and Bud White, a detective haunted by the sight of his dad murdering his mom.
Ellroy himself was traumatized as a boy by his party-animal mother’s murder. (See his memoir My Dark Places for the whole sordid story.) So it is clear that Bud is partly autobiographical. But Exley, whose shiny reputation conceals a dark secret, and Vincennes, who goes showbiz with a vengeance, reflect parts of Ellroy, too.
L.A. Confidential holds enough plots for two or three books: the cops chase stolen gangland heroin through a landscape littered with not-always-innocent corpses while succumbing to sexy sirens who have been surgically resculpted to resemble movie stars; a vile developer–based (unfairly) on Walt Disney– schemes to make big bucks off Moochie Mouse; and the cops compete with the crooks to see who can be more corrupt and violent. Ellroy’s hardboiled prose is so compressed that some of his rat-a-tat paragraphs are hard to follow. You have to read with attention as intense as his—and that is very intense indeed. But he richly rewards the effort. He may not be as deep and literary as Chandler, but he belongs on the same top-level shelf.
James Ellroy: On His Los Angeles Life
The Movie Trailer
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Wine Time
This is a real bargain bucket wine at around 2€ a bottle, but it delivers a lot more. There is not much of a nose on it. That said there are well rounded fruity flavours, with cooked rich red fruit, and a hint of sun baked earth. A good wine to stock up on for a party, be it indoors or out in the sun.
This wine is made in Capendu, Aude
Tags: Carcassonne, James Ellroy, L.A. Confidential, Obama
Le Ministère de la Culture et de la Communication a décerné le titre de “Maître d’Art” à 15 artisans, des virtuoses au savoir-faire exceptionnel.
Tags: Maître d'Art
Tags: champignons
A jaunty bargain wine from Domaine de Pigeonnier, Roquessels, Herault. Mellow smoky notes and plums. Nice and even balanced and excellent value for money at around 3.20€ a bottle. Best left to breath for an hour or so, otherwise it is a bit tart.
Tags: Domaine de Pigeonnier, Faugéres, Roquessels
Pupils at three French schools are being taught PE lessons in English to help them master the language.
Oh Hum, the New Year is steaming ahead, the silly seasons just ended and already I can smell spring on the horizon. Even the birds outside seem full of vim and vigour. All we need now is for the clouds to scud away until next winter!
Him and Her
I feel like burying my head in the sand for a couple of months. In the news and on every form of media, all there seems to be of late is doom and gloom. Am I asking to much, for a little good news to be broadcast? There must be some positive stories out there. Added to the the hard winter, it makes me want to wrap up warm and stay in bed until spring. I bet the suicide rate must be sky high at the moment.
Ice Patterns
Ahhhhhh. iMovies is killing me. For short videos it’s O.K. but I knocked up a 90 minute movie creation and tried to save it, as a Quicktime movie. It started out saying it would take 240 minutes and then jumped upto 350 minutes. After about 2 hours of the movie being saved!!! my entire system froze, forcing me to do a hard restart. In the end it took 5 hours to save. I’ve thought about getting Final Cut Express but the reviews make it sound even worse then iMovies. Not being a Pro film maker (i.e. not making any money from them), I’m loath to fork out a small fortune on a professional package
A Video Moment
The centre of Narbonne
Just Finished Reading
Dance,Dance,Dance by Haruki Murakami
This is a stunning novel, thoughtful and insightive. At time surreal and funny. The tempo of the writhing fulls you along with it. It is a fast moving stream of surreal and odd events
Review
Sequel to A Wild Sheep Chase, picking up the nameless narrator four years after he lost the woman with the beautiful ears in Hokkaido. Now, in his dreams, she summons him back there. This time he becomes involved with a bespectacled receptionist, a 13-year-old girl, a one-armed poet, two hookers and a matinee idol, all linked by supernatural experiences and a murder mystery. Apart from the Hokkaido hotel, the locations are Tokyo (it helps to have a street map handy) and Hawaii. As always in Murakami’s work, there is a lot of consumption, especially drinking; anomie, both acute and free-floating; and naff rock-band name checks. The story unfolds slowly and repetitively, the cuteness is sometimes forced, and the metaphysical message amounts to little more than the title injunction, but the author has a plangent charm all his own. Alas, the translator is Alfred Birnbaum again. First published in Japan 1988. (Kirkus UK)
Product Description
High-class call girls billed to Mastercard. A psychic 13-year-old dropout with a passion for Talking Heads. A hunky matinee idol doomed to play dentists and teachers. A one-armed beach-combing poet, an uptight hotel clerk and one very bemused narrator caught in the web of advanced capitalist mayhem. Combine this offbeat cast of characters with Murakami’s idiosyncratic prose and out comes Dance Dance Dance. It is an assault on the sense, part murder mystery, part metaphysical speculation; a fable for our times as catchy as a rock song blasting from the window of a sports car.
About the Author
Haruki Murakami was born in Kyoto in 1949 and now lives near Tokyo.
Wine Time
Les Foncanelles 2006 ~ Merlot
A very drinkable table wine from FONCALIEU Vignobles - Domaine de Corneille 11290 Arzens in Aude. A good depth of colour and a pleasant note of ripe red berries with a hint of tannins.Good value for money. Worth buying a few bottle for the cellar.
Tags: Domaine de Corneille, Final Cut Express, Haruki Murakami, iMovies, Les Foncanelles, Narbonne, Quicktime
Events in Gaza have cast a long shadow with thousands demonstrating over the weekend in several European cities. What impact will this crisis have in France, home to Europes biggest Muslim community and to its largest Jewish one?
Two petrol bombs have been thrown at a synagogue north of Paris, police have said, days after another French synagogue was attacked.
Tags: François Boucher
Times must be bad. Today I found a couple of brochures in our mailbox from leading supermarkets. Nothing unusual in that, in fact not finding one in the mail box would be unusual. What was odd was the fact that both of them are for the stores own value brand goods, which is very odd. I don’t think I’ve every seen a supermarket mailshot for the cheapest supermarket brand products before. A sign of the times I wonder? I must admit both Carrefour and Giant have seemed a bit on the quite side of late and there was a real shortage of punters leaving with trolleys piled high with Christmas goodies pre-Xmas. In fact the both stores seemed a lot less festive then last year, with much less space given over to toys and the Christmas tat that seems to have invade France (at least here) in the last few years.
A Video Moment
Narbonne Food Market
Just Finished Reading
For Crying out Loud ( The World According to Clarkson) by Jeremy Clarkson
You either love or hate Jeremy Clarkson. I fall into the love camp, and enjoyed this book of his articles published in the Times newpaper. That said I will pick a few holes. The dead donkey starts life (or death) be a male called Geoff and ends up in a later article called Kirsten Scott Donkey and female. I know Jeremy Clarkson is getting on in years but is there really a need to repeat himself so often. You may not notice it in his newpaper columne but when reading them in book form it looks like he’s copy and pasted whole blocks of text from one article into another.Sloppy.
On the bright side,it is very funny and un-PC and he pus the boot in, where it is deserved
Product Description
The publication of The World According to Clarkson in 2004 launched a multi-million-copy bestselling phenomenon. But to no avail. Jeremy’s one-man war on crimes against common sense has not yet been won. And our hero’s still scratching his head at the madness of it all. But it’s not all bad. He’s learned a little along the way, including: Why binge drinking is good for you The worst word in the English language The remarkable secret of eternal youth The pleasure and pain of middle-aged drumming The problem with America And how to dispose of a seal For anyone who’s ever been driven to wonder just what is the matter with people these days, For Crying Out Loud is the perfect riposte. Surprising, fearless and always laugh-out-loud funny, Clarkson’s back. And he’s got a point . . .
About the Author
Jeremy Clarkson began his writing career on the Rotherham Advertiser. Since then he has written for the Sun, the Sunday Times, the Rochdale Observer, the Wolverhampton Express & Star, all of the associated Kent Newspapers, and Lincolnshire Life. Today he is the tallest person working in British television.
A Jezza Clip ~ Jeremy Rides an Elephant!
Wine Time!!!
Chateau Montaurone 2005 ~ Coteaux d’Aix-en-Provence:
A rather indifferent table wine from Provence. Notes of liquorice and a little sour, so not a very good wine. This is a wine to give a miss, even at just under 4€ a bottle.
