Bliss all Day

Of course some people are grumpy and others are not. I think much of it has to do with upbringing. If, for example you were born in a smoke filled pub, reeking of unemptied ash trays and stale beer then obviously your outlook on life is going to be pretty jaded. Especially if you still smell like a stubbed out fag end.

I on the other hand feel on the top of the world. I had a really good day. Colinb whingeing about my kindnesses and saying that I had destroyed his perspectives for being a Telegraph guest blogger. I am truly, wholeheartedly, sincerely and honestly (or at least to the extent that those adjectives can apply to a Brit) sorry Colin. See where being kind can get you. Anyway it was an enjoyable read over the muesli.

On to visit a new customer. He is a police inspector. Offered me an aperitif at 11 am. A bit early, but it was in the line of duty. So we had a good chat about the difficulties of policing in today’s world. He said how difficult it is to be a patron (good man, will go far) Of course the Gare du nord incident came up. His wife is Malgache, so I then had a good reminisce about my time working in Antananarivo. Sitting by the pool eating gorgeous salads, the wonderful steaks, the visits to Nossé Baie and the scuba diving in the coral reefs. The journeys into the bush. Lovely people, lovely country.

Then to cap a nice day there is the news from Iran. Doesn’t Faye Turney look nice in her headscarf. Great improvement on the previous photos of her toting a machine gun. Apparently the British soldiers are refusing to go back to their barracks; they say the food is so much better in Iran as well as the medical treatment. Blair is of course furious. Looks like his term in government will finish up much like that of Carter. I smell humiliation on the horizon and it is most enjoyable. Hope the Iranians play their hand well, so far so good. You’ve been bad boys so Faye doesn’t get her freedom, beautiful.

GUESS WHERE THIS RESTAURANT IS

29/3/2007 The Colin of Antibes has now commented on his blog 'that he is livid' at being proposed as a guest blogger on the Telegraph. Strange people these Brit's, I don't think we are going to manage any meeting of minds. Anyway with all his different colours, pictures and styles his blog looks like a kids bazaar.Or should that be a Neopolitan ice cream. No taste, no elegance.



28/3/2007 The incorrigible Colinb sent this post to the Telegraph:


"I see the incorrigible Richard of Orléans is still trying to use other people's blogs, in this case Shane Richmond's, as his kangaroo court.


Comment: I supported his attempt to become a guest blogger. I'm not sure I'll do that again


It's the same old story: trumped up charges, and 'R of O' acting as prosecution, judge and jury, all conveniently rolled into one.



Comment: This he pinched directly from one of my posts

It's easy to do that, Richard, when you hide behind a pseudonym, but unfair and irresponsible when your target blogs under his real name.


Comment:same old blah, blah blah. Nothing stops him calling himself Colin Of Antibes

Sorry, Richard, but I don't wish to participate in your warped little game. Kindly give it a rest, and do please stop misrepresenting the facts. For the record (sigh) I rarely comment on world politics, but can assure folk that I do not fit Richard's stereotype. I am broadly pro-EU, but anti-federalist and against Britain joining the single currency. I strongly opposed the Iraq war, believing that Saddam had no WMD to hide - that he was just playing cat-and-mouse with the inspectors, to wind up GWB/TB, and that bilateral US/UK action was premature and probably illegal.


Comment What I said was that his blogging would appeal to supporters of the Iraq war, I never said he supported it. So who is misrepresenting? It is Colinb straight up. I make the argument that he would appeal to the core beliefs of a significant segment of the Telegraph readership. Afterall a sound argument to support his cause. He turns it into a personal attack. Unbelievable narcissism.

Thank you Louise for correcting Richard on that absurd claim about no longer accepting comments. That is yet another instance of Richard misrepresenting the facts, just so he could work in his little joke about Stalin.

Comment:He has disabled the 'comment' facilty so in blogger jargon he does not accept 'comments' E-mails oblige the poster to disclose their address so it's clearly a different animal and hinders free speech.

I think this is the point to stop, but if anyone wants clarification on any of the matters raised here, by BT, 'R of O' or Louise then I shall be only too happy to oblige. (BTW, Louise, thank you for the clarification re emails)"


Comment having made a number of fallacious statements Mr Berry as usual, wants to stop.So anyway no more support from me for his guest blogger ambitions




Yes in order to win a big, big prize all you have to do is guess in which well known town or city you can find this restaurant.
In case of a tie, the tie breaker will be guessing what I consumed today in this restaurant. How long it took, how much I paid and what the lady behind the bar said to me.

Here's a clue.

The Canal Builders

In the days before railways, shipping wine from Bordeaux to Paris took a while. It would be loaded on a ship in Bordeaux and brought up to Nantes. There it would be transferred onto a special flat bottomed river boat to ascend the Loire. The Loire was always a nightmare for boats because it is shallow and extremely variable, now a raging torrent difficult to navigate, then a trickle of water barely enough to wet the boat.

On reaching Orléans not a few barrels were no longer drinkable. These were converted into vinegar, a traditional industry of Orléans. The last manufacturer of vinegar finally disappeared only in the 1970’s.

But the wine was still 150 km from Paris. The rich bourgeois was impatient awaiting his fine wine. The last stage was the canal, the Orléans canal, which after a roundabout route connects with the Seine and hence to gay Paris.

The railways destroyed canals probably faster than the internet is killing papers. Before the railways, passengers would travel from Paris to Orléans in a stage coach then take the boat down to Nantes, a journey of a few days. Overnight it was Paris Nantes within the day. The trains travelled at the stupendous speed of 30 km per hour. Our local newspaper recently reprinted its aticle describing the inaugaral journey Paris Orléans.The same thing happened to the wine from Bordeaux to Paris. So it was bye bye river boats and bye bye canals.

The Orléans canal is still there, to the east of Orléans, though not navigable at the present time. If you look at the picture above you can see the Orléans canal to the left of the Loire. This picture is taken about a kilometre from the starting point of the canal in downtown Orléans. In the early 1950’s that last kilometre was filled with soil and rubble and the space used for parking and the vegetable market.

The picture above is taken from a bridge looking east. What if I look west?




Yes it’s a massive building site. That first kilometre of the canal is being rebuilt. The parking spaces have been suppressed and the market moved. In Orléans we are building: fast trains, autoroutes, internet superhighways and……….canals.

Please somebody stand up to the Thugs

Updated 27/3/07

So far the Iranians are doing well, they are holding on to the English spies and resisting all pressure. I have nothing against the individuals involved but it is important that the Iranians show the British to be powerless and to put them in their place. The decison of the Brits to put out some fake GPS coordinates to 'prove' they did not encroach on Iranian territory is pathetic and laughable.Do they really think people still fall for these old tricks.



This week end we celebrated 50 years of the European Union. Those 50 years have brought peace and wealth to our continent. Is it not worth asking why Britain has been opposed to this project throughout?

Let us look to the Middle East to see why. It’s obvious; the Anglo Saxons are war mongering nations that don’t find their economic return from peaceful coexistence.

So now we start the Iran war. Isn’t the run up similar to the Iraq war. We had the over flights and bombing in Iraq, now we have the spying and violations of sovereignty with Iran. Exaggerations on WMD with Iraq, same again with Iran.

I don’t blame the Anglo Saxons; we know who they are and what they want. We are well aware that they won’t change. I do blame the European Union, Canada, Mexico, China, India, Brazil, and the UN for not standing up to these thugs once and for all.

The Simple Life

When I was a young man and wanted to visit London I would drive up to Hyde Park and find a convenient parking spot not far from the Serpentine where I could leave the car all day for nothing, not far from a tube station.

No, you can’t do that any more. But what you can do is drive up to the Bois de Boulogne and park near Le Pavillon Dauphin (photo above) close to the métro station Place Dauphine. It’s not as good as my wife’s maternal grandfather who told us about parking for free in the rue de Rivoli but it’s not bad and perfectly free. So that’s what I did on Tuesday. Actually rather than take the métro I walked up avenue Bugeaud to Place Victor Hugo,where I had my first meeting.

Later I went over to rue de la Boetie where someone kindly invited me to lunch, and was generous enough to let me choose the wine, Savennières 2003. It was gorgeous, lovely yellow colour, dry and mature. That and the delightful meal convinced me that I should enjoy life to the full. I walked up the Champs Elysées and back down Avenue Foch (below) Ah the simple pleasures in life is what I like.

Back to cabbage leaves

I see there is some discussion on the blogs of environmental issues. As a lover of nature I am always interested in preserving the health and beauties of our planet. The problem is that there is often as much subjectivity as objectivity in our discussions. Man after all is part of nature; we are none other than one of the numerous species living on earth. Is an elephant knocking down a tree OK and a man cutting it down not OK?

Look again at your favourite landscape, are there not a few old stone cottages carefully nestled somewhere in the scene? But surely not a copper mine nor a gravel pit. Somehow we have decided certain human activities are OK and others not OK. But surely, unsightly as they may be, a pit or a mine do little real damage to our planet. The grand canyon is considerably bigger than most mines. Should we fill in the Grand Canyon?

On my journeys to Paris I cross the Beauce. It is the largest cereal growing area in Europe. Huge flat, treeless, hedgeless fields growing wheat, barley, sugar beet, maize. Each time I travel there are a few more eoliens powerfully turning their mighty blades. With about 30 so far, from a distance, they look majestic. I wouldn’t like to live next to one though. Just as the farmers are finally getting taken to task and required to reduce the nitrate pollution so that the villagers can again drink the water from their taps, so they wake up in the morning with these enormous noisy behemoths on their doorsteps. So is this the way to keep the Maldives above water? One country’s saving grace is another man’s polluted doorstep.

Well no it’s not actually. The thing about the environment is that we do what we want, not what we need to do. Sarah is courageously seeking to recycle her vegetable waste. To what gain? Filling a landfill with carrots and turnips is no big deal. The vegetable matter quickly decomposes and mixes with the soil. Yes there is the transportation to the tip but there is also the plastic bin to be manufactured and transported. Wouldn’t it be better for Sarah to cut out her frequent trips back to the UK? There we really do have CO2 and noise pollution with some NOX and SO2(3) as well. The massive cement runways at the airport with the inevitably polluted water runoff.

When I came to France in 1973 almost all journeys by plane arrived at Orly Sud, and you went to Orly West for onward travel. In 1974 the Camembert, Roissy 1 was opened and Orly Sud largely closed. Since then we have had Roissy 2 A,B,C,D,E,F,G. Many regional airports take international flights and are growing rapidly. And if you return to Orly Sud, what do you find? It’s chock a block with flights and being expanded.

Oh yes I know we all deserve a holiday. But when I raised recently on Shane Richmond’s blog the issue of the wasteful and abusive use of airplanes I received a solid round of insults with nobody supporting my opinion. Suddenly the consensus opinion that we should do something about the environment had disappeared. Is it really more important to recycle a few cabbage leaves than fight the ridiculous culture of excessive air travel?

For I know something about the ridiculous excesses to which air travel has gone. Having for two years arrived at Roissy airport at 6 am each Monday morning to start my weekly visit of an average of three countries. I was not alone in my exhausting Odysseys; at 6 am there is no problem of traffic on the péripherique, but there is a massive jam at Roissy as all the international managers take their early morning flights. Yes, with globalisation there has developed a business model of heavy centralisation which requires endless travel. An international group is run as if it is just one firm. But instead of simply walking down to the sales department you now take a flight to wherever.

Hand in hand with the evolution of this business model of centralisation has arrived the mainly English phenomenon of second homes in the sun with the frequent Ryanair flights to do the weeding and pick up some wine.

So if we are really serious about the environment shouldn’t we do something about this air travel? Hiking the cost of car travel is going to cause many problems for poor people but eliminating a lot of air travel is just going to slow down equity buyouts and restructuring as well as reducing the number of English in France. Not many downsides? Not for me, but for the readership of the Telegraph we would be attacking their very way of life. Back to recycling cabbage leaves.

Free lunch man

As usual I spent nearly all week end working on my little company. Actually it’s now a little group with the welcome of a new Eurl. Yes that’s Entreprise unipersonelle de résponsabilité limitée. In this highly bureaucratic country you can set up a new company with 1 Euro capital, 1 shareholder, i.e. yourself, in half an hour. (well that’s a slight exaggeration let’s say a couple of days). Everybody is helpful and cooperative. The Chambre de Commerce explains exactly what you have to do and keeps all the different departments informed (greffe de commerce, fisc, and social security). I made a couple of mistakes, but of course they helped me to correct both of them with no trouble. The one thing that was a bit difficult was HSBC, that well known British bank, who acquired a marvellous French bank called CCF, changed the name, fired the employees and sent the service in a heavy southerly direction. So the only thing I don’t have is my cheque book. I ‘ve already partly left HSBC, I may well go further in the coming months.

It was a good weekend in many ways. First off, the company got a new customer. A French telecom manager who spends all his time working next to Paddington station!!! Goes to London for the week and comes back to Orléans weekends. He didn’t volunteer to speak English, enough is enough. The local vet did though, fed up with talking to horses.

Between making drawings, preparing quotes, making invoices, calculating a P&L I have been checking on the news. Of course a better weekend for rugby with France winning the 6 nations for the 4th time in six years. Maybe time for France to join up with the southern hemisphere, I fear we are not being sufficiently tested up north. Though I’m not too much in favour of excessive travel and the concomitant pollution. An alternative would be to convince the Germans to play the sport and fold the Brits into one team, rather than all these teeny peeny teams they come up with. The Italians are improving, so with the Germans, French and Italians we could look forward to some competition. The Brits could hold our track suits.

There were just three opinion polls on the Presidential election. Overall they showed Bayrou stalling just short of Ségo and Sarko gaining a slightly larger overall lead. We are now into the heavy slugging part of the election, with each team going for the others’ jugular. It’s nice watching.

Bayrou, like all our politicians has been around a long time without ever setting any houses alight. In fact his greatest achievement was writing a good book on Henry IV. (He was an important figure in our history since he closed out the wars of religion. It was bit like modern day Iraq before he came along.) Bayrou was education minister back in 93, 94 and didn’t do too well with reform. He got everybody into the street because he wanted local authorities to be free to put money into private schools as well as public schools. Bit like Windsor council pouring the rates into Eton (slight exaggeration there). Didn’t go down well and was withdrawn.

The line of attack against Bayrou, from left and right are ‘no programme’ and ‘will create a constitutional crisis”. The latter comment harks back to the fourth republique (1945 to 1958)in which the president had little power and the unstable governments were being continually made and broken. Not a very pleasing period in French history. I think the electorate is attracted to Bayrou simply because he is not one of the previous two governing parties. Both UMP and the Socialists are in fact talking in reasonably responsible tones and not promising too many handouts. So everybody hopes it will be UDF’s turn to come up with a free lunch.

We all hate a frog

So the Anglo Saxons have had a field day attacking Chirac as he signalled his intention to stand aside in the forth coming presidential election. Of course the French have criticised him a lot too. But their criticism is from a position of respect, not dislike. Both de Gaulle and Mitterrand were highly unpopular at the end of their stints, but that does make them unappreciated politicians today.

The crux of the Anglo Saxon criticism seems to be that he did nothing or alternatively showed no leadership. The only area he gets any credit is in foreign policy and his better reading of the Iraq situation.

I find it strange to say ‘he did little’. We have switched our currency to the Euro. When did the Brits and the Americans last enter into an internationally pooled currency? The presidential term was reduced to 5 years from 7. There was considerable privatisation. When he was prime minister he abolished exchange controls and freed prices. There was significant decentralisation. Inflation is currently running at 1%. Women have gained greater representation. There has been massif immigration. Our big companies have become truly international through aggressive growth strategies. The Airbus 380 has flown, Ariane 5 has become the heavyweight satellite launcher. The viaduct of Millau is built, TGV est is running, autoroutes have been extended. Throughout, our companies and administrations have been in an endless process of restructuring. Life expectancy has increased, cancer has become less deadly as well as our roads. Cigarettes have been loaded with punitive levels of taxation. The PAC has been reformed. The list is endless

He said himself he would have liked to have done more but this is a democracy and people get consulted on the speed they wish to move forward. In fact the truly great achievement of Jacques Chirac has been to keep the show on the road. Through all this change the country has continued to grow, democracy has been strengthened; there are no significant independence movements and we are at peace with the rest of the world. He managed to keep those wanting to go faster working as a team with those who wanted to go slower. No mean achievement.

The criticism that he gave no leadership is even wider of the mark. The French are not about to be lead in the condescending manner of Blair and Bush. No, to lead the French you do not go around telling them what to do all day. It is the surest way to achieve the opposite of your intentions. Chirac gave leadership the way the French expect to be lead, as mature adults who are free and live in a democracy. They need to be encouraged, loved, sometimes aided but it is they who will find the way forward with their infinite skills and ability. It is why France is such an efficient country, because the people truly do feel responsible for what goes on.

The strange thing about all the different articles I read in the US/UK press was that nobody took the time to explain why they actually hate the guy. Does it all come down to Iraq? Or is there something I’m missing?

This week's treat

This week's treat from the Jardins des plantes in Orléans. With the mild weather the Magnolia soulangiana have just come into flower and this is a rather fine specimen.

Mild weather but also a lot of rain. The Loire has risen a bit more but still has a long way to go. It usually covers the island at least once a year.



This is the path from which I took the duck photo. They are now swimming along it!

Today's strange event. I saw a muslim lady with the full veil kit (niqba?). Not that frequent in Orléans, just the slit for the eyes. I was quite close to her when she approached a car driven by a young lady, in western atire, with a young family. Just in front of me, so I had a full frontal, the muslim lady whipped off her veil and gave bissous to the kids. Are we managing to introduce French reasonableness by subterfuge?

A close run thing

As I already said I don’t much like films. Nor do I like theatre, music, opera or ballet. I used to think I liked art but then I went to the Tate Modern and realised it wasn’t my thing anymore.

When I was a young man I read a lot of novels, but I can’t stand them anymore. I spend my whole time thinking how the characterisation has been made so artificial in order to please some fashionable critic or another.

I used to like non fiction, I read a lot of history and biographies but at some point it becomes repetitive, there were only so many Henry VIII’s or Charlemagne’s. I liked economics for a long time but once you’ve been through 2 or 3 ‘ new economies’ you start to get a good feeling for where things are going. Philosophy is good, but quite honestly it requires a lot of time and concentration, and I’m getting lazy.

Well I hadn’t done that analysis, consciously, before 10 days ago and I got quite a shock. It suddenly transpired to me why I was struggling with conversation in pseud’s corner.

With one weeks vacation I was determined to do something about it and read a book.

This had to be a low investment project, so I rummaged furiously through my father in law’s book shelves of mainly rather old books and came up with: La Grande Guerre by Pierre Miquel. Published in 1983 all 650 pages of it.

And I loved it; I was completely entranced by what must be the greatest epic of human endeavour in the history of mankind. Yes I knew the result and this was probably my fourth book on WWI. But it was fabulous. Those plucky little Belgians being overrun by the unprincpled Germans. The incredible discipline, organisation, innovation and single purpose of the Germans. Their stupendous belief in their ability to deliver the results, taking on first France and then Russia.

Oh yes I was on the road with the straggly French troops steadily retreating towards Paris as they lost one fight after another. How could it be possible to turn around such a forlorn situation? The Germans were unbeatable, this time the Marne would not be held, it was impossible. And boy was it close I was sweating all the way through, but they did it the miracle happened and against all predictions the Germans were pushed back.

Trench time was upon us. My feet were cold and wet as I sat in that house even though there was comfort and central heating.

My stomach churned, my heart sank. The young kids sat through their school exams, were called up for the summer battles and were buried 4 weeks later. It was mathematical, a good push took 250, 000 lives, 10 000 a day mowed down by the machine guns. If you were lucky you won a couple acres of land. As the resources dried up the Germans stripped the dead before they were cold and recycled them on to the next future dead body. Yep mankind can be creative.

And Verdun, unbelievable, the total experience, the outer outer edge of being alive, for those few who came through. Heroics, tenacity, single mindedness. A moonscape, nothing recognisable as being planet earth. No animal no bird, no tree no plant. Just man slaughters man in the midst of the churned mud and booming cacophony of the sound of death. Would the Saviem trucks deliver the goods and save the day? I was far from certain, but they made it God bless them.

Yes I will return to see those acres and acres of smooth lawns covered with impecable white crosses; everyone bears the name of a young man.

The UBoats, the sinking of the allied merchant ships. Germany starving, spreading illness. Give up? No way. We have a plan and we will win.

They almost did. It was close, close, so close. No film, would dare that level of suspense. Nearer and nearer to Paris. The German artillery reaching into the metropolis. The Marne crossed. The French and English running out of troops. The key rail lines lost, the horses out of food and dying. The tanks broken down and inefficient. The Americans not yet ready to pick up the baton. The plans in place to retreat to, yes, Orléans. It was hopeless, just hopeless the teutons had done it, history was wrong.

The miracle happened, the allies out resisted the irresistible. Suddenly it was all over, there was nothing left, the Germans had given their all and much more besides.

What a story, what a week. I’m giving up books while I’m ahead.

Usual routine

Benodet opposite. That tree in the middle is under serious threat for it's life. The one on the left is a graceful knarled Cupressus macrocarpa.

The little boat (click on the photo to see) is one of the smallest fishing boats. We keep an eye on when they return to port so that we can watch them unload their catch. Amazing how a big boat will only have a reasonably modest catch. No wonder fish is expensive.

Looking towards the peninsular of Isle Tudy. I believe Saint Tudy was a Brit, he was thrown out of England, couldn't get on with the Anglo Saxons.

A pleasant week away from the antics of the British blogs. Hidden away in my hole in Brittany. Crêpes in Pont l’Abbée and Audierne. Sauntering through the old streets of Quimper and having dinner in a fish restaurant. Aperitif in Lesconil on the port. Langoustines stacked high, bought at the local port and cooked by yours truly. Bottles of Kerné cider brut. Walks along the coastal GR. Admiration of Atlantic wall.

Stop overs in Baugé and Vannes.

All the usual stuff. Oh yes and admiring the view from the bottom of my garden. See photos above.