An Englishman in Strasbourg

This Saturday hails the opening of the second annual comic-strip festival in Strasbourg. A week-long event that brings some of France’s best comic-strip authors together under one roof, providing the backdrop to a ream of associated ‘bande-dessinée’ events around the city throughout the week.

‘Strasbulles‘ is a typically French title for the event, a play on words combing the word for ‘bubble’ (as in speech-bubble) with the name of the city. If you’ve ever read any Franco-Belge comic books you’ll know this kind of humour is mandatory and sometimes very funny (see anything written by René Goscinny).

As I have noted before the French have a fanatical love comic strip which I have to say is rubbing off on me. I have been using my library membership to delve into the rich cultural pool of comic-art and bring my BD savoir up to scratch. Over and above Asterix and Tintin I have discovered Thorgal, XIII, Blake and Mortimer, Jo Zette et Jocko, Gaston Lagaffe, Spirou and Fantasio, Alix, Iznogoud … to name a few.

One author who is a must see at Strasbulles this year (in my humble opinion) is Alain Ayroles, creator of the ingenious ‘Garulfo’.


Unfortunately his series of six albums is only available in French, but to give you some idea of Ayroles’ tale - Garulfo is about a bombastic frog who becomes a Prince and whom can only remain so - if he manages to find a princess who will marry him. It’s written in a similar vein to Shrek, poking fun at childhood fairy-tales, but in doing so creating a new one of equal measure.


Alas I will not be there to meet Monsieur Ayroles due to being in England next week, so - I shall have to hope that he returns for Strasbulles 2010. So if you do go to Strasbulles 2009 and manage to see him, please do me a favour: convey my regards and say that I’d love to translate Garulfo into English for him (no charge).


(Whenever I say I’m travelling to the UK people automatically seem to think it’s for a holiday - if only that were so!)

… is a phrase that can have a number of meanings.

If you’re American it implies a period of anger; for an Englishman it indicates a period of inebriation; but if you’re Strasbourgeois it is simply the (phonetic) name of a rather pleasant cycle route.

The ‘Piste des forts’ is a little know cycle path that circumnavigates the city along some of the most beautiful and tranquil byways that Alsace has to offer. As the name implies the route follows the line of some of Strasbourg’s outer defences from, one assumes, the period between the end of the Franco-Prussian war and the start of WWI (why else would the forts be on the French side of the Rhine?).

The only problem being however that the strongholds in question are now so overgrown with bushes, trees and undergrowth that even when standing on top of them - it is hard to imagine exactly where they were, or indeed what they looked like.

This does not detract from the enjoyment of the cycle ride however, which from the Château du Pourtales winds it’s way through the Robertsau forest, along the banks of the river Ill, through a collection of pretty villages and then up to a natural ridge that runs along the city’s western flank; from where you can enjoy views of the Vosges and over Strasbourg, with it’s Cathedral, to the Black Forest mountains beyond. The route then descends down to the old abandoned Bruche canal which runs east-west between Molsheim and central Strasbourg, bringing you directly back to the quartier Petite France.

At this time of year it’s truly magnificent with the fields bursting with colour and the hedgerows alive with the birds and the bees doing their thing. The entire route is very well sign-posted and over 90% of it runs along either dedicated cycle lanes or agricultural tracks. At a rough guess I would say it’s about 35km from Portales to Petite France, with only one hill to climb at Mundolsheim (Fort Ducrot).

The route is marked upon an excellent map published by the city council “Les itinéraires cyclables de la Communauté Urbaine” in 2005. Which you should be able to pick up at the Cité administrative at Place d’étoile, the Tourist office next to the Cathedral or at the ADT office on rue du Dôme.

The one possible downside is the lack of well positioned pubs along the route, which in Britain would be mandatory to truly enjoy a day in the saddle. The most picturesque spot with a well placed boozer is on the river at La Wantzenau, so if you want to truly earn your pint before you get there - it’s best do the route clockwise from Petite France.

In my book a pint is earned for every ten or so kilometres - which means you should have earned at least two, if not three glasses of large by the time you get there. Just try not to fall in the river on your way home, otherwise you could well be branded ‘pissed des forts’.

A quick question for you all you regular readers - I have been offered a sum of money from an advertising agency to place a ‘viral’ ad on this site to promote a provider of online gambling services.

What do you think - should I:

• sell-out and take the money?
• resist the urge to support the proliferation of vice?
• ask them for more money?
• do it provided they give me a good tip on the 3.30 at Kempton Park?
• offer space on the site to only genuine Strasbourg-Alsace firms?
• do something else?

Something suddenly struck me as I sat beneath a blazing sun on court No1 at Roland Garros this Monday; no, not a tennis ball served up by Maria Sharapova making her return to top flight tennis I’m afraid, nothing so exciting - rather it was the names of the tournament’s lead sponsors pasted up everywhere.

Unlike Wimbledon, the French Open relies on major corporate sponsors to keep the money rolling, to which end their names adorn the hoardings and boards that flank the courts in order to profit from the near constant TV coverage.

The sponsors?

• BNP Paribas (Bank worth €44bn)
• FedEx (Courier worth $17bn)
• IBM (IT firm worth £139bn)
• Afflelou (French high street optician)

Yep, that’s right, a high street opticians is up there with the likes of IBM in having enough spare cash sloshing around to splash out on a major bit of international sports sponsorship.

I had suspected for a while that running a chain of opticians in France was a license to print money, given that French commercial TV is saturated with spectacle ads, and here finally was proof.

The ophthalmic system is subsidised by the health service, however the tariff coverage of 65% is unlikely to cover the cost of a pair of heavily advertised designer Johnny Hallyday specials, with a price tag of €200 upwards. Which means most of the cash is simply lining the pockets of the opticians.

But what choice does the populace have when, in true French style, the industry is protected from foreign competitors by its prohibition of the sale of spectacles online; meaning people like glassesdirect.com are barred from the French market, resulting in almost zero downward pressure on prices?

As a spectacle wearer it gets my goat when Mr Afflelou smugly strolls on to my TV screen to announce that he’s made paying him easier than ever before. I may be short-sighted Alain, but I’m not blind.

I for one won’t be buying anything from Mr Affluent not this year nor ‘nextyear’, I shall be buying my glasses in Britain.

People of this demeanour existed in the UK back in the seventies and early eighties; I remember them well. What drove them indoors and out of the limelight could be the subject of many a sociological study, but in France they still exist.

Who am I talking about?

Old-timers, pensioners, grannies, old men - but not all of them of course, just the ones who feel it is their duty to demonstrate that ‘older’ really is ‘wiser’, by pouring unwanted advice on people passing by, or indeed people who aren’t passing by - but who obviously need a good talking to, which in France, unfortunately, is most of them.

Old ladies in particular can’t help but serve up childcare advice at the slightest opportunity:

• “Your child should/shouldn’t be wearing a coat - it’s very cold/hot today”
• “Here’s a hanky - your child’s nose/mouth/hands are dirty”
• “Your child shouldn’t do that - they might hurt themselves.”

… being among the most popular.

For old ladies queue jumping is not impolite - it is a divine right.

Last week an old man caroomed his bicycle across the park lawns to give me and my 18 month-old son a piece of his mind. “Don’t pick the flowers” was the underlying theme of his tirade which included some supporting information about tax-payers and municipal facilities being for all to enjoy. Once finished he went on his way, clearly feeling no guilt at spouting his petty dogma in front of a toddler for whom the flowers were simply ‘pretty’ things.

The fact that he was having a go at me for allowing my son to pick WILD flowers was neither here nor there, nor indeed was the fact that he was cycling in an area which is prohibited under the park bye-laws, but there you go - old people clearly know best. I wished him ‘Bonne journée’ and shook coffee beans in his general direction.

What this demonstrates though is something rather nice about France, the fact that the older generation feel safe enough to be able to get away with being miserable old sods to all and sundry, they feel respected by society and safe on the streets.

In the UK I have a feeling that an elderly person wouldn’t dare open their mouths these days for fear of being insulted, mugged or stabbed as a result. Am I wrong?

Whatever the case - I look forward to growing old and miserable in France.

From one type of lottery to another - no this has nothing to do with the level of childcare nor hospital facilities (thankfully) but er… postcodes.

While I accept that being abroad, and expecting to be able to carry on as if I still lived in the UK is somewhat of a high expectation, but that’s what the EU is supposed to be all about. You should be able to live where you want, buy and sell where you want - without much ado (provided of course you pay your taxes)*; and you would think that with the dawn of the ‘virtual’ commerce and ‘e-business’ it would be possible to do this, and pretty much anything else, from anywhere, provided you have a computer and internet access to hand?

Happily this is true most of the time, indeed if it weren’t I would not be in France working for a British firm. However some things are still as painful as queuing at a UK post office on the first Monday of the month (behind all those pensioners).

One righteously ridiculous situation has been thrust upon me by Barclays Bank. Due to lack of traffic, they have hereby ceased all cash transactions at their branch in Strasbourg, except from the cashpoint. Which means I can no longer transfer money from the UK to my French account by card nor by cash. Which means even if I waltzed in with half a million in cold hard currency - they’d have to turn me away. Their reason being - it would encompass too much paperwork.

Their answer is for me to open a Barclays account in the UK and make free international transfers from bank to bank - nice idea if Barclays UK would actually let me open a bank account, but they can only open accounts against a UK address. The other alternative would be to get my UK bank, Lloyds-TSB, to facilitate online IBAN transfers - but nope - they only offer that service to their ‘off-shore’ customers with accounts in Jersey, who pay through the nose for a no questions asked service. The helpful girl at Lloyds-TSB phone-banking suggested the best alternative would be to just ‘walk into my local branch’. Clueless!

So good old fashioned cheques it has to be. The information age? Please!

The second, and equally ridiculous situation is that of online forms that assume a ‘country’ field is not necessary, as all of the people filling out the form couldn’t possibly be living anywhere but in the UK - could they?

One high profile guilty party on this front is - er - the British Government’s inland revenue service! Anyone who owns UK property, but lives abroad now, is practically barred from using the online self-assessment service because foreign postcodes are ‘not recognised’ - and without one the system won’t let you submit your return! Marvellous.

While I might be a keen advocate of the virtual office and e-business, unfortunately sometimes it is still all about location, location, location.

*unless you happen to be Tesco, Barclays etc..

This, unfortunately, is now a subject very close to my heart - which is now not beating quite the way it should without medication.

I have just completed my third year as a ‘liberal professional’ in France, and while I thought I had things well under control, the French accountancy system coupled with the fall of sterling and the tightening of banking practices means I too may have to throw in the towel, like so many others before me. (or throw in the sponge, as they say in France)

Now, I have an accountant, a nice man who made me feel very secure about the whole thing when I first signed-up in 2006, saying ‘your tax payments will be based on actual figures, so there’s no need to worry about nasty surprises’. What he failed to tell me, and he confessed this was indeed a bit of an oversight, that when it comes to social security payments - it’s an entirely different ball game. Why?

Well over an above your income tax (which incidentally is peanuts by comparison) you have to pay pension, social security and health insurance.

During your first year of business you pay each of these to a statutory ‘minimum’ level (regardless of earnings). During the second year, you again pay this minimum for the first 10 months of the year. So you’ve gone nearly two years getting used to paying the ‘minimum’. At the end of your second year you are required to pay balancing payments for your first year of business in the last two months of the year (November and December).

Now it is entirely likely that your first ‘year’ was not actually a whole year, unless you set it up on the 1st of January - so these payments at the end of year two are again unlikely to seem too harsh.

During year three your payments for the first 10 months are based on your earnings for year one, again this won’t seem too harsh if year one was not a complete year. Then at the end of year three, you must pay balancing payments for year two. This is when you break down sobbing.

The November and December payments in year three are the first time you have to pay according to your real income for a full year in business. This comes as quite a shock, not only because the payments cover your second year in business - but also because they cover off balancing payments for your first year too (to cover the months before you set up business)!

It’s at this very time they start asking for actual payments in advance for year three (even though you haven’t submitted accounts yet), and your income for year four isn’t taken into account until year five.

Which means if in year four (where I am now) a global financial crisis should hit, for example, and the value of your income plummet by 30% thanks to the exchange rate, for example, then you’re righteously stuffed.

This is where I am - and while I have no problem with the philosophics of paying social security, the way in which it is levied makes it almost impossible to plan effectively. I am now staring at the reality of a negative business cashflow from now until November 2010 - when the government should refund a wad of cash based on my final 2009 earnings.

That’s why I’m playing the lottery.