An Englishman in Strasbourg

If you’ve lived in France for any length of time, you can’t have helped but hear this little ditty once or twice during your daily routine; because it (Le Brio by Californian rock group ‘Big Soul’) is played on French radio at least ten times a day, and it is one of those tracks you can’t help wiggling to when it comes on, even though, yes, it is in French.

Only Supertramp’s Take a look at my girlfriend seems to enjoy similar exposure on the airwaves (hard to see why such a mundane and dated track is still so popular in France, particularly seeing as it is in English!)

Quite why an American rock band decided to sing in French I have no idea - but it’s a classic, and worthy of it’s regular play slot a la radio. The lyrics are pretty meaningless - “I prefer Rock” being the underlying message. Heck, you probably know it already, but DJs rarely bother to tell you what they’re playing, so here you are - now you know.

I have included the original video below for your enjoyment.

Ready? Un, deux, trois, quatre …

It’s that time of year again when our screens are graced twice weekly with the fine figure of Nathalie Simon, France’s answer to Anneka Rice (a once familiar face on British screens some years back - which shows how old I am!).

Former windsurfing champion Simon now presents LA CARTE AUX TRESORS, a show not entirely dissimilar to Rice’s ‘Treasure Hunt’. Instead of doing all the running, Simon arbitrates from the comfort of her own helicopter, while the contestants do all the hunting from theirs; yes there are three helicopters in play! It’s not exactly a carbon neutral show, but holds a similar audience to that of le Tour de France - it’s all about armchair travelling.

She also has the honour of being the action-woman on the bull-fighting summer spectacular INTERVILLES, of which I have spoken previously. Being the youngest presenter (at 43) she has the task of demonstrating how each game is to be played before the contestants have a go themselves. This often involves dressing up in one of the ridiculous outfits and getting dunked / soaked / slammed.

But Simon is much more than a TV presenter, she owns a number of holiday windsurfing clubs in the Mediterranean and Caribbean, has put her name to various lines of sports clothing, and even written a book on healthy living (Mangez beau, mangez forme).

So, needless to say, Ms Simon’s celebrity status is hot property, particularly when it comes to advertising. But what brandname has Nathalie Simon chosen to put her name to lately?

Think sport, think healthy living … think Mars bars! Oh Nathalie!

Did I mention that she’s blonde?

…is that there are many problems. Many of which are neatly encapsulated in my former home town of Frome in Somerset. With a population of around 25,000; it is not dissimilar to many other small towns up and down the country that together share many, yet quintessentially British, problems*.

On the plus side - Frome is now hailed as a cultural gold-mine by publications such as The Times, partly because it has retained many of it’s older buildings and therefore retained much of it’s olde worlde charm. Surrounded too by some pretty villages, scenery and attractions also makes it’s location hard to beat, certainly if you’re after a break from the city. But for me that’s where the positives end.

The sad fact is that Frome has been mismanaged for decades. Rarely has anything been done, built or planned for the public good; residential property development, commercial interests and a general NIMBY attitude by those in a position to solve issues have perpetually taken precedence over the actual needs of the town.

These are the things that upset me most about Frome:

• The town’s railway station is a joke. The overgrown platform is too short to accommodate trains of more than six coaches. There are only two direct services to London per day (five days a week) even though Frome is on the mainline into Paddington. The local service to the nearest interchange at Westbury (smaller than Frome!) runs once an hour - with no evening service to speak of. The ticket office has been replaced by a machine. A single taxi firm has a monopoly over the non-existent Taxi rank outside, and they are based out of a neighbouring town - so start walking!
• Frome’s dying town centre is congested, dirty and a nightmare for pedestrians. Attempts to solve this issue have included moving the town’s only source of commerce, it’s farmers market, to an out of town location six miles away; discouraging car use by charging for parking; allowing the construction of two large out-of-town supermarkets out on the by-pass; oh yes - and closing the central Post Office. Recently, a golden opportunity to create a relief road, via Welshmill, when the Singers factory closed, was ignored in favour of a (fast buck) large residential property development. Because of this, the town’s most picturesque street is still not yet pedestrianised.
• Frome used to be able to boast about being home to the biggest one-day farmers show in Britain. The Cheese Show, due to it’s importance to the local community at one time it had it’s own set-aside land near the middle of the town which although standing empty most of the year, was also a great open space facility to the locals. Now of course - a large (fast buck) residential development sits where the show once took place, and the Show itself now takes place in a field four miles out of town - and is now probably the country’s smallest one-day show.

Frome is now simply a large suburb (and property ‘hotspot’ (YAWN!)) serving as a commuter belt to far better managed towns in the vicinity. If the town’s (and Britain’s) masters had ever taken a vaguely socialist leaning towards transport, infrastructure and public facilities - then I might have been tempted back by now.

The contrary is what I love about living in France. All these things are placed above personal ambition and money-making because ultimately what the French value most is, not property or money, but quality of life.

*note to Management consultants - a ‘problem’ is like an ‘issue’ only harder to spell

It’s about time someone pointed out that cross-border on-line trading in the EU is a farce; and thankfully it’s someone with a bit of clout: eBay. The article on the BBC today suggests eBay is most concerned with transatlantic trading, but the on-line restrictions whether imposed by the EU or by businesses themselves can make cross border shopping a minefield.

We came up against a wall of idiocy like this recently when we tried to buy a toilet seat (yes - a toilet seat, one of those kiddie friendly type ones) from the UK. Every distributor we approached refused to send us the item because we were based in France; and their distribution channel agreement prevented them from selling abroad. In that case, would they know where we could buy it in France then? Of course not!

Normally we only expect this sort of static because of the billing issues (few UK on-line stores give you the option of paying for an item with a UK bank card registered to a French address).

Of course taxation is the big issue, and until tax harmonisation comes in (which I feel it must), we Euro-consumers are going to be perpetually stiffed by nation states protecting their VAT revenues. At the moment, as a consumer, if you actually want to benefit from the cost savings that cross-border purchasing can offer you, then you have to physically cross that border; which if you ask me - seems to defeat the whole idea of the common market?

Just arrived in the UK for a month-long jaunt, and I’ve caught a stinking cold. This may by due in part to it being on average 10 degrees colder here than in Strasbourg, or it could just be that British cold and flu viruses are much hardier than their European counterparts.

Whatever the case, I’m in England, and I’m miserable.

One of Strasbourg’s finest features, beyond that of its historic buildings, is to be found north-east of the city centre facing the Palais de l’Europe. Here stands the Parc de l’Orangerie - a masterpiece municipal facility.

Andre Le Notre, who created the gardens at Versailles, is said to have first drawn the plans for the park in the seventeenth century, but it was when the city inherited 140 orange trees after the revolution, and a pavilion was built to house them, that the park got it’s name. The Germans though are credited with much of the park’s current appearance following the Strasbourg exhibition of 1895.

Today the park is home to a stork hatchery, a mini zoo, a mini farm, an ornamental boating lake (with grotto, waterfall and fountain), a bowling alley, two restaurants, three play areas for children, a Greek temple, a skateboarding area, a mini football pitch and a fairground ride.

But it doesn’t stop there, the city spends a great deal on the park all year round. The Pavillon Joséphine (named after Napleon’s bit of fluff) plays host to a variety of events and exhibitions throughout the year. The ground staff are at work permanently keeping the flower beds blooming, the grass cut, and organising other seasonal features (such as adding palm trees for the summer, and Christmas trees in winter). Best of all - the park is practically poop-free, unlike certain other parks in the locality.

So needless to say the park is a magnet for the Strasbourgeois, particularly at weekends when the sun is shining. Although it can feel a bit crowded on Sunday afternoons there is usually more than enough space for you to enjoy a bit of greenery. It could be the perfect park, were it not for one thing … joggers.

Okay, not all joggers, I exclude the ones with rippling muscles who get up at 5am every morning and plod around the park out of sight of the rest of the world. It’s the ones who get up in the morning and say to themselves “I feel fat and unhealthy. I know I’ll go for a jog this afternoon.” And where do these people choose to go jogging? Along the canals? Around the parliamentary buildings? Around Wacken island? No. They choose to go to Strasbourg’s beauty-spot: the Orangerie.

If there’s one thing that ruins the park’s ambience it’s the site of ugly people (for all joggers are ugly) in ill-fitting Lycra, sweating, wobbling and blowing their way along the footpaths. So do us all a favour you people - go and jog somewhere else!

One thing that perpetually irritates me about British culture is that sport equals football. That is to say, to the common man football is the only sport that matters, nay exists. Indeed I have noted this before.

So it is with not without a hint of schadenfreude that I will be following the Euro 2008 Championships this summer. And the same might be said for those among us who enjoy following sports other than ‘Le foot’.

It is clear however that British sports journalists are still in a state of denial over England’s failure to qualify for said championships (no-one actually expects Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland to qualify for anything). It seems that the papers are still stuffed with news about England’s efforts on the field; particularly against the USA and Trinidad & Tobago, as if they were worthy opponents, and as if the result even mattered.

Today, this is the leading headline on BBC Sport website: “Hughes appointed Man City manager”. Yep - English football still makes the headlines even when the season is well and truly over. The fact that Mister Hughes “…has done well [at Blackburn] and taken the club into Europe a couple of times by finishing seventh twice.” and is now taking charge of another mid-league club, does not strike me (although I might be alone) as earth-shattering news. If perhaps he had won the lottery or struck oil before taking the job then that might have made it interesting.

In France however, the sporting headlines do at least have some relevance. The French Tennis Open is in full swing, still with one Frenchman in with a fighting chance of making the semi-finals; the football team’s warm up matches have enabled the French public to size up their chances in their first competition match next week; then there’s the basketball and the build up to this year’s drug-riddled Tour de France.

So if, like me, you’re intending to integrate into French society … not only are you going to have to get used to seeing other sports hit the headlines, you may have to also get used to supporting a winning side once in a while.