WINTER

So there I was looking forward to settling down in front of the big screen with my pint of Guinness to watch the SF-Toulon away match, especially as both Mauro AND Mirco were in the first team! But alas there was no action since southern France has been suffering from lashing rain and lots of snow this week-end and the match was cancelled. Well, it is winter after all. It’s certainly cold in Paris but at least the sun is still shining brightly and the days are getting longer. What’s more, one more week and it’s the school holidays and the VI Nations! Yaay!

THE SECRETS OF ENGLISHNESS

I’ve finished my ‘English’ book and it would seem that we are a seething mass of contradictions (or hypocrisy depending on how kind you’re feeling). We are fiercely private, yet desperately nosey, stumbling around under a cloud of slightly autistic social ineptitude, always grumbling yet never actually doing anything about it because we don’t like to make a fuss or to draw attention to ourselves. We have an in-built sense of class consciousness too and are therefore quite judgemental and we are forever saying ‘sorry’ and minding our ‘Ps and Qs’ (although not necessarily genuinely). We are masters of the art of understatement ‘a bit of a nuisance’ translates as ‘a complete pest/absolutely debilitating’. ‘A sort of curiously sunny pessimism’ as the author puts it at one point. Yet we are saved by some redeeming qualities like our sense of fair play and our humour (not necessarily funny) which are the constant undercurrents of our daily lives. However, I didn’t feel depressed by this book. On the contrary, I think it demonstrates our innate human-ness. And actually once you get past our defensive, awkward shell, we are really quite charming and amusing and indeed lovable.

The English Genome according to Kate Fox

VIRGINIA WOOLF

Just to show that I can be cheery, today is the birthday of Virginia Woolf! Okay, she’s dead too (oh goodness, another suicide) but today we are celebrating 124 years since her birth! Just as art would have been the poorer without Modigliani’s gorgeous nudes, where would Nicole Kidman and her prosthetic nose be today without VW?

24TH JANUARY

© The Metropolitan Museum of Art

A professor at Cardiff University has concluded that the 24th January is, apparently, the most depressing day of the year. Hmm. It’s also the day (in 1920) on which Modigliani died of tubercular meningitis. The next day, his companion, the pregnant Jeanne Hebuterne, committed suicide. They are buried together in Père Lachaise cemetery. RIP.

SAD :(

So, Stade Français will not be playing any further part in the Heineken Cup despite the win on Friday as there were better ‘second bests’. If only the silly buggers hadn’t lost to Ospreys and Leicester in the away games.

Never mind, while Stade focusses on the Top 14 French league, I’m looking forward to the prospect of the VI Nations. The French become unsufferable at this time of year, thinking that they are on for the Grand Slam, (they already think they are going to win the rugby World Cup next year). I just hope that England do better than last year and that Italy don’t get the Wooden Spoon again.

OSPREYS

So, Stade Français put last week-end’s horror behind them with a win (43-10) against the Ospreys yesterday evening. You could almost feel the desperation in the air as they tried to score the maximum points possible in order to be in with a chance of qualifying for the quarter finals as one of the second best. However, when the score was something like 22-3 – in true English fashion – I started to feel sorry for the underdogs and secretly hoped they would score a try, which they later did! Mirco had a very versatile game, coming on in his usual wing position but also playing scrum-half as well as pushing the scrum in the back row! What a boy! And well done Stade!

MUTTER, MUTTER

This morning I encountered one of those muttery old people I often see wandering around Paris (especially the metro stations) ranting away to themselves in their own little worlds. Not that it’s been a bad day but I then spent most of it wishing I could get away with telling people what I think of them and mumbling ‘drenk’ and ‘feck’ with impunity like Father Jack.

EST-CE AINSI QUE LES HOMMES VIVENT?

Tout est affaire de décor
Changer de lit changer de corps
À quoi bon puisque c'est encore
Moi qui moi-même me trahis
Moi qui me traîne et m'éparpille
Et mon ombre se déshabille
Dans les bras semblables des filles
Où j'ai cru trouver un pays.
Cœur léger cœur changeant cœur lourd
Le temps de rêver est bien court …
LOUIS ARAGON

This evening, while walking around the Luxembourg Gardens and admiring the exhibition on the gates, we had stopped to discuss the juxtaposition of a particular photo (of young American soldiers training in North Carolina) with another photo next to it (of a field of war graves in Northern France) when an extraordinary thing happened. A smartly-dressed middle-aged man came up to the photo of the young troops and, with his thick black marker pen, quite casually wrote “U.S. GO HOME” underneath and then ran off smartish. My friend remonstrated with the man’s rapidly fleeing back but to no avail.

The exhibition itself shows sometimes unexpected views of landscapes and people but strangely, my friend always guessed correctly when the photos came from England. Something to do with our eyes and our pasty pale skin, apparently.

OH WOE!

You may have heard that Stade lost this week-end. Then again you may not, seeing as rugby is not exactly the centre of the sporting media’s universe. To cut a long story short, Leicester staged an amazing comeback in the last quarter of an hour of the game. Actually, not even that amazing since Stade had taken their eyes off the ball and thought they were sailing towards a comfortable 22-12 win. Don’t they know that you can’t trust the English? That as a nation, we never roll over, never give up, that we always need to be treated with care. So in the end, the final score was 22-29 in Leicester’s favour …

Having said this though, the Leicester fans proved once again the rugby is such a gentlemanly sport although my poor compatriots had a hard time getting their heads around someone with a Stade Français flag (i.e. therefore must be French) speaking such impeccably good English. Duh! All respect to them though, they really got behind their team and it made the hairs on the back of your neck stand on end to hear nearly 16,000 people chanting ‘Tiiigeeers, Tiiigeeers’. Shame the same couldn’t be said for Stade’s supporters who numbered probably a paltry 14 with a big flag.

Never mind, it’s only a game, after all! :)

LONG WEEK-END

Well here I am back home in England again, praying that I don’t fall ill like the last time I was here and EXTREMELY excited about the forthcoming rugby match on Sunday, which is really the reason I have returned. It’s going to be an exhilarating game with lots of “passion”, just like a typical Anglo-French rugby game. I don’t think I’ve even been as excited about a rugby match, especially as Mirco is in the team, albeit on the bench! Come on Stade!

DAVID

The ‘David’ exhibition is quite a gloomy one, full of dark, museum-red coloured walls and subdued lighting. I admire David’s work enormously but the exhibition has been squashed unfairly into five tiny rooms. However, I particularly liked his studies for the Sabine painting and Le Peletier on his deathbed because, even if the subject matters were not very cheery, they were drawn so beautifully. However, despite this, I personally couldn’t wait to leave the museum hosting this exhibition, stopping just long enough to appreciate the sculptures and the Tiepolo mural but skipping quickly past the frilly state apartments and garish wallpaper. Imagine how people could live amongst all that tut! Take my advice and go and appreciate David properly at the Louvre.

THE RULES OF QUEUING

Still in pursuit of understanding Englishness, I noticed a funny thing today (confirmed by the book I’m reading) about the subtle rules of queuing. Someone once said that ‘an Englishman, even if he is alone, forms an orderly queue of one’ and presumably this applies equally to Englishwomen. In any case, I found myself in a rather disorderly French queue today and it became obvious that they clearly have no idea about the rules of queuing. Don’t these people realise that if you leave the queue to do something else, you have naturally forfeited your place in the queue? And their concept of personal space is a bit too cosy for my liking. On the other hand, they probably thought I was some kind of nutcase since I was giggling away to myself at these observations.

STADE FRANÇAIS – NARBONNE

© me and dudu

Yaay, the rugby has started again! On Friday, SF were playing Narbonne, which was always going to be a tricky encounter since we lost to Narbonne in the away match. I had a great seat for this game, close to the touchline thanks to a special person who is away gallivanting in Argentina at the moment and who gave me her season ticket! The game itself was not all that, a bit fumbly and uncohesive but at least the shirts were colourful and Stade won (36–24) with five tries and the bonus. I hope for better next week as it will be an even more difficult match against Leicester on their home turf. But never fear, I will be there waving my flag. Allez le Stade!

WHAT IS IT TO BE ENGLISH?

© daily drew drawings

In an attempt to analyse and understand what makes me act the way I do as opposed to acting in any Continental sort of way (in short what makes me English) I am currently reading a very funny and insightful book about the hidden rules of English behaviour. And believe me, they are many and convolutedly subtle! One passage is particularly relevant since it relates to where we are now:

“The Internet – the whole thing could have been invented for the insular, socially-handicapped, word-loving English. In cyberspace we are in our element: a world of disembodied words. No need to worry about what to wear, whether to make eye contact, whether to shake hands or kiss cheeks or just smile. No awkward pauses or embarrassing false starts; no need to fill uncomfortable silences with weather-speak; no polite procrastinating or tea-making or other displacement activity; no need for the usual prolonged goodbyes. Nothing physical, no actual corporeal human beings to deal with at all. Just written words. Our favourite thing.”

Uh-oh! Maybe I’d better go and brush up my social skills but first I’ll just do a bit more reading while having a nice cup of tea!

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Well the new year is just a four-day old puppy but time seems to have been suspended as these days have whizzed by. Being ill is rather like being drunk in that everything becomes rather vague and woolly. So while I rallied for Christmas Day and Boxing Day, I then caught another nasty bug and it was downhill all the way after that and New Year was decidedly cosier spent snuggled under the duvet! I’ve slowly been regaining my strength since returning to Paris and have even been skating at the Eiffel Tower – such fun and a brilliant view! Anyway no new year’s resolutions like being a better person as I think it’s already been decided that I’m off to hell and I can’t stop smoking since I don’t and there’s no way I’m giving up wine! So although a bit late, I still wish you a Happy New Year full of joy and lovely things, like Stade Français winning the Heineken Cup and Mirco scoring lots of tries :)