An Englishman in Strasbourg

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.

If you’re intent on showing yourself up as shamelessly middle class in Strasbourg here’s what to do: buy a house in Robertsau (miles from the tram stop), buy a large expensive German car and sit in traffic jams all the way to work and back twice a day, five days a week (remember everyone goes home or eats out for lunch in France). Then, on Saturdays, howl up and down the A4 to the various out of town shopping districts and buy up as much over-priced junk as you can. Sunday - go and play golf somewhere.

If on the other hand you want to do your bit to save the planet; and not have people sneer at you when you pause at traffic lights, here’s a few suggestions as to what you should do:

• buy/rent a house in a suburb that is actually served by the Tram system (e.g. Schiltigheim, Ostwald, Meinau), or even consider living in the city centre (though pick somewhere well away from student nightspots/binge drinking areas)
• don’t buy a car
• work from home
• travel around by Tram (not by bus - that’s for the proles & students)
• if you have a family, and need to regularly purchase ‘in bulk’ - buy a triporteur (e.g. a Triobike will hold a trolley load of groceries plus a child*)
• if you have a baby, buy a bugaboo pushchair in any colour but black or brown
• when you need a car, rent one or use Strasbourg’s auto’trement car sharing scheme
• on Sundays do a sport that actually involves physical activity**
• sneer at people in large expensive German cars whenever they pause at traffic lights

*but don’t buy one with a yellow or a black hood - as these colours are already taken by other Strasbourgeois.
**and respond thus when asked if you play golf: “No, I still have sex.”

My three year old recently came home from playgroup with a new word. Which no doubt has got the poor boy very confused. The word in question is ‘Nein’ (the German for ‘no’); which he likes to follow with the word ‘ten’.

Strasbourg’s location and history means that the German language is used a great deal in Alsace in addition to the unofficial local dialect (Alsatian) which is basically an Olde Wurlde version of German.

So there we were worrying about the affects of a bilingual environment on our child - when really we should have been worrying about the affects of a polyglot environment!

I am in the fortunate position of occasionally being able to benchmark French Television programming against contemporary British fayre. And I am afraid to say that they are both as bad as each other. Indeed the same could be said of popular music in both countries, but I would never dare to say so - for fear of sounding like an old fart.

There is one glimmering light on French TV however, a programme which can be enjoyed four nights a week on TF1. It’s a fast-paced, never-a-dull-moment, feast-for-the-eyes extravaganza factual programme (in French of course). The downsides are - it’s rarely more than two minutes long, and the show’s presenter occasionally goes off on holiday. BUT without a doubt the weather report with Evelyne Dheliat has to be the best show on TV, no question!

Glorious Evelyne hits the screen like she’s on amphetamines; and her eloquent verbal diarrhoea is accompanied by a presentation style that is all at once vivacious, confident, sexy, energetic, enthused and very very French.

Like newsreader Claire Chazal, Evelyne is no spring chicken, but she manages to dress with such carefree style that you can forgive her Judith Chalmers like complexion as she shimmies and dances around the screen.

Evelyne makes my day, Monday to Thursday. I don’t recall any British weather forecaster having quite the same affect, expect perhaps for Ian McCaskill, who’s “Hello” was usually the highpoint of the forecast.

So would Evelyne’s style work in the UK? Decide for yourself:

There is a family game, which I knew fondly as a child as ‘Consequences’, the equivalent title of which this side of the channel is rather macabre: Exquisite corpse.

Essentially ‘exquisite corpse’ (or cadavre exquis in French) refers to a method art-form by which collaborators add to a composition in sequence, either by following a rule or by being inspired the previous person’s contribution.

Last year I saw a show at the Kafteur of the same name without really understanding the title. Now I understand the title it is clear that the creators of ‘Cadavres Exquis‘ developed the show in this rather unconventional manner, while at the same time using the title itself as the inspiration for its theme: death.

Before you get too depressed it is worth knowing that the creators in question, Jean-Luc Falbraird and Etienne Bayart, are top-drawer comedians. The result then is a show that is dark, side-splittingly funny but above all - surprising.

Why am I telling you this now? Well, it is one of the few professional comedy productions you’ll be able to see in Strasbourg this year that are described as ‘quasiment sans parole’ (practically without words) - so if your French is still sub-fluent this is your one chance to go and have a right good giggle for a few Euros.

The show kicks off on Thursday 22nd May and runs until Saturday 31st. You can buy tickets at FNAC or on the door. See you there.

There seems to be no such thing as ‘Prime Time’ TV programming in France, at least not on the national channels (France 2, 3, 4, 5, O).

Nothing demonstrates this better than the Friday-night post-news slot on France 3, which has been occupied by the same show since mid September. At first, it had to do battle with the monstrously popular ‘Star Academy’ over on TF1, which is a guaranteed ratings hit year-in year-out. So it made some kind of sense that France 3 would throw in the towel and show a ’sea’ documentary during prime time.

Over half a year later however, the same show is still rolling out every Friday night for it’s specified duration of two (what seems like three) hours, with little competition. ‘Thalassa‘ as it is called (though I have no idea why) is essentially a reportage magazine show themed around the ocean: one week they’re following a ice breaker through the Arctic, the next they’re looking at crabs on sandy beaches in the south pacific.

Don’t get me wrong, the show isn’t that bad per se; but two hours? Every FRIDAY night? For seven months?!