France's got talent

We have some excellent local bands here in the Tarn. Such a shame I'm not around this weekend to see Burning Fart in action. I assume they take their inspiration from the Flaming Lips.

Marten not Martin

Just saw one of these outside the dining window. Quite startled me - it's a bloody great thing, the size of a large cat. It ran along the window ledge, up the wall and disappeared into a hole at the top of the window with just its tail hanging out. Nesting, maybe.

Pine martens are extremely rare in Britain: the few that are left are almost all in Scotland, though it's believed that they're beginning to reappear in England and Wales. They're more common in France, especially in hilly or mountainous regions. We have pine trees in the garden, so maybe it's not so surprising to see a marten here.

Rising Sun

This makes it seem real. The Tokyo Bunka Kaikan calendar for March 2009 includes, on Sunday 15th:

"The first concert of Chuckerbutty ocarina quartet in Japan"

Suddenly it's scary.......

Les voitures

More words you never wanted to know:

Rotule = broken bit on car
Barre de direction = broken bit on car
Amortisseur = broken bit on car
Pris en charge = covered by insurance : )
Franchise = excess on insurance : (

Social progress

French TV is showing a programme on 27 January called L'abolition about the end of the death penalty in France in .... 1981. The last person to be guillotined was in 1977. Britain got there rather earlier, with the Murder (Abolition of Death Penalty) Act 1965.

One of the main forces behind the abolition in France was a lawyer called Robert Badinter, who became Minister for Justice in 1981. He was also responsible for decriminalising homosexuality in 1982. Again, England got there first, in 1967, although the Scots had to wait until 1980 and the Northern Irish, for some reason, until 1982.

France has also lagged behind on other social reforms. Women have been able to vote in the UK since 1918, subject to limitation, and all women since 1928. French women got the vote in 1945. British 18-year olds have been able to vote since 1969; French ones, despite (or maybe because of) the 1968 riots, only since 1974. Britain has had separate taxation of husbands and wives since 1989; France hasn't got there yet.

Still, in one area of life the French are a century ahead. Church and state were formally separated in 1905, and laïcité is now a central Republican value. Not so in Britain, where the connection goes right up to the very top and, incredibly, 25 bishops still sit in the House of Lords.

Underground music

At last, someone discovers how to make money playing the theorbo.
Thanks to David Hill for the cartoon. More here.

Córdoba

These characters are Galatea and Polyphemus. You can tell it's Polyphemus because of the eye in the middle of his forehead. This large mosaic from the second century AD was dug up 50 years ago in Córdoba and now adorns a wall in the Alcázar de los Reyes Cristianos in the city, along with various other equally splendid mosaics.

I was in Córdoba at the weekend to play a concert for the Sociedad de la Vihuela, the Spanish lute society. Such a specialised audience could have been intimidating, but they were actually extremely warm and friendly and the concert went well. José Romanillos, maker of Julian Bream's guitars, was in the audience and came to chat to me afterwards. A good weekend.

My concert was in the Casa Góngora, in the old part of the city near the Mezquita. Luis de Góngora, as it happens, was a Cordoban poet who wrote La Fábula de Polifemo y Galatea in 1613, long before the mosaic was uncovered. The Mezquita or mosque is an astonishing building from Córdoba's Arab past: endless pink and white arches below a low roof, with a cathedral plonked in the middle of it by the Christian reconquerors. I wandered around it for an hour just admiring the space.

Musical extremes

Last week was the Chuckerbutty Ocarina Quartet, recording a new CD in advance of our Japan tour in March 2009. Our usual bizarre mix of repertoire, ranging from renaissance pieces on super-large bass ocarinas (which feels like playing a set of weights) through to a new addition to our repertoire, Michael Murray singing the serenade from Don Giovanni to the accompaniment of ocarinas and charango. His new English words are nicely lascivious yet in keeping with the spirit of the original (we persuade ourselves). The CD will be called 'I love my Ocarina' or, for the Japanese market, Okarina ga dai suki desu. I'm sure they'll like it....

Then next weekend I am playing a solo concert in Córdoba for the annual meeting of the Sociedad de la Vihuela. The Sociedad has put together a fine programme for the weekend. I'm going to play more or less the same programme that I played last year for the Lute Society in England, with renaissance lute music by Dowland, Holborne and Spinacino followed by Britten's Nocturnal for classical guitar. I hope it'll be warmer than it is here - it was below freezing this morning. I'm looking forward to seeing Córdoba, especially the Mezquita , the old Moorish mosque which was converted into a Christian cathedral. Meanwhile, lots of practice.

Home from home

There are relics of France's colonial past scattered around the world. Commonly known as "les DOM-TOM" (département / territoire d'outre-mer), they have their own government ministry to look after them.

Some of them - Guadeloupe, Guyana, Martinique, Réunion - are treated as départements equivalent to those on the mainland. This apparently means that they are part of the European Union, despite being thousands of miles away. Then there's a whole bunch of lesser island territories in the Pacific, Indian and Atlantic oceans, plus a chunk of the Antarctic. The journalist Matthew Parris once wrote about his voyage to the Kergeulen Islands in the Southern (i.e. cold) Indian ocean. It was pure whimsy - he just liked the name. There wasn't much to see when he got there.

Possibly the strangest is Clipperton. No, I'd never heard of it either. Clipperton was discovered in 1705, taken over by France in 1858, and confirmed as French in an arbitration by the King of Italy in 1931. It is a tiny uninhabited island 1,300 km off the west coast of Mexico. Even though it is only two square kilometers in area, this gives France sufficent grounds to claim an Exclusive Economic Zone of 425,000 sq. km. around it, and the right to catch lots of Pacific tuna. It boasts some coconut trees, lots of crabs, about 300 rats, thousands of seabirds and a pervasive smell of guano. See the pictures here.

Half cat, half computer

This computer has no mouse.

K 406

We've just had a lively bunch of musicians in the house, who descended on Castres to play some chamber music concerts with Lowri. The tour covered Croze (Lot), Saint-Pompont (Dordogne), Saint-Gaudéric (Aude) and Vénès (Tarn) on successive days. Herne went on tour with them and must now know this music better than any other nine year old on the planet: a Mozart quintet, Brahms B flat major sextet, and Strauss sextet from Capriccio. I made it to the last two concerts: a real treat to hear such good music, so well played.

As it happens, I recently brought home a miniature score of the Mozart, bought second-hand in England for the bargain price of 10 pence. It's in excellent condition, right down to the slip inside it still advertising new releases for 1917.

World of Silicon

I'm writing this on the New Laptop which I bought last weekend. The Old Laptop has been seriously misbehaving: not a good idea during the summer holidays when there is serious contention for computer time at home. Since I was visiting Purley, my father kindly gave me a lift to PC World and settled down to watch the Olympic cycling on a display of 30 large flat screen TVs while I got stuck in to the computers.

I wanted to buy in England because then you get an English keyboard. I am not good with French keyboards because the keys are all in different places and I end up typing a load of Qs instead of As. It's also nice to have software talking to you in English rather than French. I ended up with an HP Pavilion Entertainment PC which has a decent sized screen and a numeric keypad, useful for the occasions when I do want to type in French (Alt-130 and all that). It works (phew), and I am online (double phew).

Timeo Danaos

My hotel in Zagreb last week was next to a grand edifice, the Mimara art museum. I was one of the few visitors and wandered round the antiquities, medieval polychrome wood carvings and old masters alone. The museum was opened in 1987 to house the collection given to the nation by Ante Topic Mimara. The leaflet given out to visitors is gushing:

"This publication provides us with a further opportunity to express publicly our gratitude and our appreciation of our late donor, Ante Topic Mimara, who has placed his nation and the city of Zagreb in his debt by a noble gesture - the gift of his magnificent art collection ..... He was a man of subtle taste with an innate sense of true beauty and the harmony of aesthetic experience, a cosmopolitan spirit, to whom no expression of true artistic worth was alien .... It is certain that his personality, his intelligence and the nobility of his purpose will remain for ever present in the display, the richness and the beauty of these works of art."

No information, though, about who he was or how he acquired the means to build this collection of over 3,750 works, or where it came from. Curious, I googled him and came up with an article by Thomas Hoving, former director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, which describes him as

"a scam artist, art thief, art forger, a master spy for Tito, a KGB agent and perhaps a killer"

Which is a rather different assessment. Hoving's article alleges, in some detail, that Mimara stole hundreds of works of art from the Collecting Point, the Nazis' central repository in Munich for works of art seized during the war. There's another long article entitled The Master Swindler of Yugoslavia on lootedart.com which sets out Mimara's villainy and dismisses many of the works as fakes. Intriguingly, the collection includes paintings which used to belong to Martin Boorman and Hermann Goering.

So maybe this is why no-one visits the museum: it's a highly visible embarrassment for the city.

Hello, hello, I'm back again

It's been rather a long time since my last posting to this blog. Apologies, all my faithful readers.

Part of the reason for the gap is that I've started doing some English teaching for the Chamber of Commerce here in Castres. My work is individual coaching for business managers who need to improve their English. All my students work for the CCI's biggest client, and Castres' biggest company, the Laboratoires Pierre Fabre. It's rather extraordinary that a modest-sized town like Castres is the headquarters of an international pharmaceutical company which employs over 9,000 people worldwide. It was founded by Pierre Fabre, who ran a pharmacist's shop in central Castres, in 1961. Nearly 50 years later, he's still going strong as the major shareholder and absolute boss. He's invested heavily in the town too, including the Castres Olympique rugby club and a local paper, Le Journal d'Ici.

Since I am supposed to 'simulate business situations' with my students, I am rapidly finding out about all sides of the company: IT projects, recruitment of graduate trainees, accounting, environmental regulation, product marketing, patents, logistics. I now know about the REACH regime for handling of chemicals, the CMMI software engineering standards, and the differences between filing patent applications in Europe and the US.

It makes a change from practising music, which is also keeping me busy. My next concert is in Vénès, near Castres, playing music for cello and guitar/theorbo with Lowri on 24 July. Then Sambuca and the Chuckerbutty Ocarina Quartet in Zagreb on 29 and 31 July, followed by the COQ in Bled (Slovenia) on 1 August. That's three different programmes, of which two are from memory. Always good to have a challenge.

p.s. follow the title link...

Goosey 2

Finally I have procured a picture of the bishop with the goose in Castres cathedral (see my post from last December). The poor beast has suffered some damage around the head but the bodywork is sound. It's really very odd.

Thirty minutes of fame

I finally managed to see my episode of University Challenge this evening, courtesy of a kind friend who recorded last week's programme and sent me the DVD from England (thank you, Sarah!). Wow, it was close! I don't think I realised at the time that the opposition came within five points of us before we pulled away at the end. Phew.

It was nice to see our little film at the beginning too, with the four of us playing a lute quartet in a wood-panelled room in Sutton House. Came over very well, I thought.

Those of you who have been following the series will now know that we didn't get through to the semi-finals, despite winning our first round match. There were five first-round matches but only four places in the semi-finals, and we were unfortunately number five. Still, it means we retired undefeated from the contest. Well done, Lute Society!

Boot

I'm not normally an active football supporter, but I thought last weekend that I should go and support Herne in his match playing away for Castres Football Club Poussins against Blan. CFC played a fine match but in the end went down by three goals to two. Better luck next Saturday.

On the way back the car overheated and clouds of steam came out from under the bonnet. It's working again now after shelling out €192 for a new relai de ventilateur (more unwanted vocabulary).

Fish glue

The Chuckerbutty Ocarina Quartet is in conclave at the moment for three days of intensive rehearsal prior to our concerts in Madrid this weekend.

Our set of rubber fish (as seen in Schubert's Trout) is suffering from years of enthusiastic overuse, so master fish repairer Yuzuru Yamashiro has set to with glue, scissors, cutter, sticky tape, and a packet of ham (on far right of picture) to repair them. When the clothes pegs come off we will find out whether the repairs have worked.

National characteristics

Kanji (Japanese pictograms) are often made up of two or more elements.

The lower half of the kanji for 'man' is the character meaning 'power':



The lower half of the kanji for 'cheap' is the character meaning 'woman':


The Japanese haven't quite cottoned on to this feminism thing yet.

What's the buzz?

My children are enthused by anti-adult ring tones. Adults can't hear as high as children. So an appropriately-pitched ring tone can sound in the classroom, say, without the teacher hearing it. (Presumably you have to speak in a high squeaky voice as well for this to be really useful).

The principle is sound, anyway. My hearing cuts out before 12KHz. But a loud 16Khz will send the children diving for cover with their hands over their ears, while I blissfully wonder what the problem is.
http://www.freemosquitoringtones.org/fr/

Which points to the other use of this phenomenon. The 'Mosquito' is a device used to disperse unwanted teenagers at shopping centres. As the inventor says, "It's very difficult to shoplift when you have your fingers in your ears."
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/29/international/europe/29repellent.html