Snippet

Heard from a colleague today, concerning the train drivers' strike :

'So, if they're asking for a four day week, does that mean that on the fifth day we'll have to make our own way to work?'

Well, it did come from the same person who, some months ago, asked to a roomful of very proper, very dignified people what 'to emasculate' meant.

(I work amongst very proper and very dignified people.)

"Do you have a flaaaag?"

England is out of the Euro 2004.
Hurrah!
France is out too.
Hurrah!

Before the England/France match, I was literally defied by workmates, as obvious representative of my country of birth, whose collective arse would be kicked.
I shrugged, because I didn’t care either way. I don't think they believed me.
After the match, I was asked if I was triumphantly glad about the unbelievably unfair outcome of the game, and if I thought that Zickam was better than Becdane.
I shrugged, again.
As far as I am concerned, if some on-pitch spontaneous combustion occurred to any of the long-socked, nylon-clad overpaid men, I probably still wouldn’t care.
The good thing is that now my upstairs neighbour has finally shut up; and the little white and red flags that were gracing just about everything have disappeared overnight.
The flags are one of the aspects of my dislike; as soon as flags are flying, regression’s in the air. Although I feel nothing but mere disinterest in twenty-two sweaty guys kicking a ball, I wish them no harm; I just wish the whole thing wasn’t turned into a feast of patriotism.
It makes me sad.
Off to think about why flags make me sad.

I’ve always had that fantasy of turning into the incredible Hulk.

My girlfriend says she would let me beat someone up for her.

I am so sorry to have to respond to this wish with a humble offer of kicking her opponent in the shin. Then running away. I’m a fast runner.

I am told, however, that, on a good day, I can look fairly mean. Strangely, it has brought me my fair share of positive attention in the past, from potential lovers who foresaw much promise in my general demeanour. Perverts. Games aside, I also have to admit, at the risk of sounding like some psycho on the loose, that I have in the past physically dented two assholes that had gingerly overstepped the mark – but I knew them, so that was different.
And now, Girlfriend would like me to be the physically assertive type.
I don’t really know what to do about that.
I do tend to avoid conflict with strangers, especially if it involves potential tooth loss. Furthermore, on my days of depleted hubris, of which there are many, I almost wish she would protect me from, let’s say, the obnoxious teenagers crowding the top decks of the London buses. She seems to have a nearly endless supply of cutting repartees, whereas I am good at thinking something up much, much later, when it’s too late. Around here, her accent is also far cooler than mine; I can’t help but think that it helps. She’d be a much better fighter, too.
I hope she’ll make do with a dour expression.

Archeology

I don't have the slightest idea how on earth I stumbled upon this article on a trove of ancient Chinese bronze dildoes being discovered in a Han dynasty tomb:

Archaeologists say the dildos uncovered in Xian could have been used by eunuchs.
They also say palace maids may have used them on sexually-deprived imperial concubines.

Ah, I could really do with a palace maid.
Forget the palace; a maid will do.

Aero versus Marks & Spencer's bubbly chocolate bars.

Both offer negligible cocoa contents; I would guess about 22% from the taste.
M&S's creation has, however, a certain advantage over Aero in the fact that it contains tiny malty crunchy bits.
On the other hand, there is far more to eat in an Aero bar.

My little cholesterol-smothered heart sinks at the thought that cocoa trees are slowly dying from some terrible cocoa tree disease, and that sooner or later chocolate will become a luxury, then a rarity, then a thing of the past. We'll have more and more substitutes, and that will be a sad, sad thing. Some years ago Britain already tried -unsuccessfully- to lobby the European Parliament into lowering the minimum cocoa contents in milk chocolate. Wrapped up Crap! Death by Cadburys! Mediocrity Bars! Just as well some of us have standards.

Etcetera

I am a disgrace to my highly political family.
I’m pretty much apathetic. And lazy.
I have voted, in the past, mainly because I was nagged. By both parents. Different styles, same message.

Mother : “ don’t tell me you haven’t voted yet; it’s 8 am, you only have til 10pm tonight, hurry up and get dressed, I’m picking you up ten minutes ago.”
Father : “ I'm not going to tell you who you should vote for. It's your own decision. Just not for him. Or him. Or him. And no you can’t wear this to go to the polling station.” (This coming from a man who had little promotional booknotes printed with his picture on the cover when he ran for the 1986 regional elections. I have kept one. It makes me proud.)

I voted more because I would have felt guilty for not voting than because of my deeply felt convictions. Convictions, of the left-wing, liberal, green type, I do have; they’re in there, somewhere…hold on; let me look.. oh yes. A bit crumpled. But they’re in there, and I occasionally defend them if needed; alternatively, I at least consort with the similarly minded sort, which is easier. But mostly I keep quiet on the big questions, too aware that my stance on the current political situation is mainly a regurgitation of media or family opinions.

Still, for all my apathy, I have just written a short letter to the mayor of Bègles. I can’t be bothered with translating it right now.
Bègles is a little French town near Bordeaux; its mayor is Green Party politician Noël Mamère.
Bègles is nothing special really, apart from the fact that it has been attracting a fair share of media attention over the past two months; earlier this month the mayor agreed to perform France's first-ever same-sex marriage ceremony, as the first step towards the equality of rights.

Good luck, this is France we’re talking about.

The wedding ceremony took place; scores of journalists were there, rice was thrown, vows were exchanged, threatening slogans were brandished by self-righteous angry guys with deep-seated issues. The Mayor was suspended for a month; since then, various people are doing their best to have the whole thing cancelled.
Etcetera.

The daily paper Libération published some of the –anonymous or signed- letters that Mamère subsequently received .
Even with coffee and magic brownies- fuelled imagination, I’d find it hard to imagine more violent, hateful, threatening, self-hating or downright insane diatribes. Scum put into (mispelt)words. Mostly from men, threatened to the core of their being by the notion of two men having sex – (as usual, women don’t even come into it). Peril of all perils, a threat to natural order.
Etcetera.

Poor Mamère. He has had his share of death threats; so I thought I would also write in – and offer my warmest words of support.
Hey, you can do it too! Email the mayor!

And more !
A bill to outlaw homophobia in France was approved by the French government on Wednesday.
It was!
The bill, which will go before parliament next month, will make "incitement to discrimination, hatred, or violence against a person on the basis of gender or sexual orientation" punishable by a year in prison and a hefty fine. The proposed law was conceived in the wake of a vicious attack on a gay man who was covered in petrol and set fire to earlier this year. As you do.
The bill aims to put sexist and homophobic remarks on the ‘same criminal level as words encouraging racism or anti-Semitism’.
Sometimes, laws change before mentalities. Sometimes, mentalities regress.

That’s all. Next time, I will extrapolate on the merits of Marks and Spencer’s bubbly chocolate bars versus Aero.

Nightclubbing with an agenda

Interesting conversation tonight with my long-time friend I. She is by nature a very bubbly, warm person, immediately at ease in any situation, eager to talk to people and make new friends, generous with her laugh and her enthusiasm. She returned to live in France after a few years’ lull in Portugal and has tried to rebuild a circle of friends; it involves kicking her own ass to go out, and start again from scratch. Over the past few weeks she was not a little puzzled to hear comments about herself and her behaviour: some guys she met in social contexts thought that she was shamelessly flirting with them; a few girls thought she was shamelessly flirting with them and were quite repelled that there should be some lesbian in their midst.
She felt she had to put this question to me, as a Certified Lesbian and Giver of Useful Advice : is there anything in her behaviour that brands her a member of the team? Not that she’d mind if she thought she had indeed been flirting shamelessly; but she’d rather know about what signals she is giving out – most unwillingly.
Well. It just looks to me that her main fault is to be utterly devoid of the aura of competition and envying insecurity that most French girls are literally wrapped in. She won’t compete, try and be the most popular, sexiest girl in the room. She won’t put her opponents down, because she has no opponents; she’s without the agenda of the prowling female. She is, as I said, warm and easy to talk to; she also shrugs at the common artifices of the latest fashion and her array is always infinitely individual. Only those idiotic girls, too worried about their image and too unsure about their own sexuality, can’t quite get it. I can’t help but think she’s in the wrong country.
She’s quite a catch; I hope she knows it.

I was told that …the English believe in queuing up; they apologise when you step on their toes; they are polite and reserved. The French, on the other hand, are rude and arrogant. They think their country is the best in the world. In fact, France would be fine if it wasn’t for the French. Oh, and, they eat a lot of garlic. And snails.

I wonder how many people, reading the above lines, will have thought: ‘but it is true!’
Part of my job is fighting stereotypes. (I don’t mean my job here; my real job.) In fact, I often have a harder time with the grown ups than with the kids. The grown ups’ prejudices are subtler, or expressed in a pretend humorous way, just like sexist jokes aimed at women who really can’t have a sense of humour if they don’t laugh heartily.
Only today in the space of an hour I heard: ‘Garlic sauce, how disgusting; that should be your type of thing.’ And ‘You won’t mind me being rude to you, being French you are used to rudeness, aren’t you.’ On a bad day, I choose to ignore those comments; on a good, vitamin-pumped day, I flare up, and flatten them with a few chosen words.

So, far from me the idea of perpetuating stereotypes; on the other hand, and I am aware that it is a fine line, I am fascinated with how different nationalities express their interest, enthusiasm, sadness or disappointment. When I moved to England I felt myself adapting to the ways of the place. When in San Francisco, the same thing happens; I tune in to the (fairly different) ways of greeting friends, expressing enthusiasm or gratitude, dealing with shop assistants and strangers on public transportation.

Yesterday instead of doing my work I read an interesting piece in The Times about how the Russians perceive western politeness. The whole thing is not available online, therefore here are a few morceaux choisis:

Russia wants no more complaints from tourists who have been to Moscow and complained of the lack of smiling enthusiasm on the part of their guides. As a result, border guards have been ordered to smile.
“There is outcry on the streets of Moscow: 'The insincerity of it', they gasp; I know they're faking; why would they like me? Why would their lying make me feel good?'
It seems that Russians shudder at the insincerity of what we call good manners.
All those grovelling pleases and thank yous and sorrys and smiles; the social niceties that ease our day disturb the Russian soul with their downright falseness. ‘Would you be kind enough to pass the salt, please?’ left [the journalist’s Russian husband] pacing the room in exasperation. ‘It's only the salt, for god's sake, what do you say if you want a real favour?’
As Alexander subsequently smiled his way through my parents' little Cotswold village, he complained that he felt like the village idiot. In Russia, compulsive smiling is a sign of craziness. He watched in amazement as we swallowed bland food in other people's houses and I murmured ‘mm, delicious’…[…] The first time I entertained my Russian mother in law she told me that my soup could do with more flavouring. 'What, do you want your guests to lie?' Alexander asked when I ranted about it later. And that's just what our smiling politeness is to Russians: a pack of lies. […] Similarly, if, translating literally from the English I riddled my Russian conversation with smiles and pleases, his friends used to think he was shacked up with a mad woman. I taught myself brutal honesty and a Russian shrug.”

I have nothing to add; I shall therefore retire to the quiet sanctity of my bedroom and try to ignore my belligerent upstairs neighbour's yells of martial delight. I take it England must have won the football match against some foreigners. Phew; the pride of a whole nation is now restored. How I'd miss the pretty little flags.


PS I'm pleased to report that I contained myself and did not disgrace the dentist's chair on Monday.

Childhood trauma #584

When I was about 5, my mother took me to some optometrist to have my eyes checked.
I was brought up with the belief that to grow older was to accept the notion of ongoing decay, and that if we couldn't delay the inevitable we could at least record and document it by visiting various health professionals. I had teeth, eyes, hair, skin, limbs, but none of those were very good; living meant having to keep them patched up as much as possible until bifocals/dentures/wigs became indispensable. In my child's mind it meant : why bother brushing? They might as well all fall out now.
So, the optometrist.
He was old and grumpy; he lived in some kind of dusty-smelling dark lair. Or so it seemed at the time.
I was a quiet child, but not a very compliant one. I was even less compliant when scared. On that day, I was terrified. He shouted at me, grabbed me by the arm and forced me to sit on the examination stool.
To cut short ten minutes of ordeal, in terror I peed on the stool - not out of spite, although the idea is appealing - simply out of fear. I would like to say at this point that I graced his stool with a copious stream of urine - but that would be lying. It was more the pitiful letting go of the true fearful.

I was dragged out by my unapologetic mother.
I don't think I got glasses that day.

This afternoon, I have a 3.45 appointment at the dentist.
I'll try and exert self-restraint.

Today's reading

Stevens, Butler at Darlington Hall:

During my first days with Mr Farraday, I was once or twice astounded by some of the things he would say to me.[Often] I had no idea what my employer was saying. Then I realised he was making some sort of joke and endeavoured to smile appropriately, though I suspect some residue of my bewilderment, not to say shock, remained detectable in my expression.
Over the following days, however, I came to learn not to be surprised by such remarks from my employer, and would smile in the correct manner whenever I detected the tone of banter in his voice. Nevertheless, I could never be sure exactly what was required of me on these occasions. Perhaps I was expected to laugh heartily; or indeed, reciprocate with some remark of my own. This last possibility is one that has given me some concern over these months, and it is something about which I still feel undecided. For it may well be that in America, it is all part of what is considered good professional service that an employee provide entertaining banter. In fact, I remember Mr Simpson, the landlord of the Ploughman’s arms, saying once that were he an American bartender, he would not be chatting to us in that friendly, but ever-courteous manner of his, but instead would be assaulting us with crude references to our vices and failings, calling us drunks and all manners of such names, in an attempt to fulfil the role expected of him by his customers. And I recall also some years ago, Mr Rayne, who travelled to America as valet to Sir Reginald Mauvis, remarking that a taxi driver in New York regularly addressed his fare in a manner which repeated in London would end in some sort of fracas, if not in the fellow being frogmarched to the nearest police station.
It is quite possible then, my employer fully expects me to respond to his bantering in a like manner, and considers my failure to do so as a form of negligence. This is, as I say, a matter which has given me much concern. But I must say this business of bantering is not a duty I feel I can ever discharge with enthusiasm. For one thing, how would one know for sure that at any given moment a response of the bantering sort is truly what is expected? One need hardly dwell on the catastrophic possibility of uttering a bantering remark only to discover it wholly inappropriate.

(Kazuo Ishiguro, The remains of the day.)

Nibbles

I've asked around - no-one wants to go and see Harry Potter and the prisoner of Azkaban with me. I'm the perfect cinematic experience companion; I don't talk, even during the trailers. I'm the very embodiment of manners. I ony snort and snigger -rather quietly- during the ads for mobile phone companies/sugary soft drinks. I don't smuggle in sweets with wrappers that will rustle; I don't mechanically plunge my hand into a giant popcorn popcorn. I don't slurp. All I do is stare, sometimes with my mouth slightly open. That is all. Still, it looks like I'll experience HP III on my lonesome.

The first time I ever went to a cinema on my own was in Paris; I was 16. I'd disagreed with my (male) friend who wanted to see Terminator when I wanted to see Dangerous Liaisons. We went our separate ways. It was a stifling afternoon in August; I paid, went in, sat near the back. I wasn't so short-sighted then. The film started.
There were two of us in the cinema; and where would the creepy guy sit but right next to me?
I moved two seats to the right; he moved two seats to the right. I wasn't so easily indignant then; yelling at him, or getting the manager didn't even enter my mind. I was still in that childhood frame of mind that if something unpleasant happens to you, it feels like it's your fault.
For a good five minutes I tried to ignore his obvious frantic fidgeting on my left.
Then he stood up, walked to the loo door, opened it and lingered there, beckoning. In vain. I just stared at the screen as hard as I could, cheeks aflame with shame.

What the hell did he expect?
He gave up and left.

When I walked out into the afternoon's heat, I thought : it was a good film.
My friend was waiting for me outside. I didn't mention the incident to him.

Lachrymose

I don’t usually cry.
Ok, that’s almost a lie.
TV commercials make my eyes well up. This is the scene : over dinner, a teenager announces to her parents that later, her life dream is to become a doctor. (not for the status,or the money, no, to help put something back into the community.) The middle-aged, still remarkably attractive mum looks tenderly upon her daughter, then over at her distinguished yet loving husband. We understand that although they’re well off, some careful planning, even sacrifices will be necessary to ensure that their promising offspring can fulfil her dream. It’s the idea that a future is to be built that makes my throat constrict; then I swallow the imminent tears, because it’s really retarded to cry over a bleeding commercial.
If someone else is watching with me, I feel terribly embarrassed.

When I was little and I used to cry, my grandma would say: cry, you’ll piss less. It’s with such tenets of popular wisdom that I was brought up.

I am more than reluctant to show my tears. I have this idea that not only is it a weakness, but that witnesses to your tears will resent being exposed to them, cry for help that they are.
These days, even on days where my whole world feels like it’s sliding down the drain, my eyes remain dry.

Maybe I need a commercial break catharsis.

They say 85% of statistics are made up on the spot. I think it's more likely to be 96%.

Black out

Once I was on holiday in a foreign capital with a friend, who got ill; after I took her to a doctor and she was diagnosed with an acute ear infection, she called her mother; her mother, being thousands of miles away, could not do anything about it. I remember thinking: why worry her? Better keep quiet.

Today I passed out in the street.
One minute I was fine, hopping onto a bus to go to the airport to greet my friend; the next I started to feel uncomfortable, hot, queasy, and decided to get off the bus and walk a little – only to find that my feet would not carry me further; a great wave overcame me and I lost consciousness. I don’t know for how long I lied on the ground while people were passing me by, no doubt in fear. I came to, tried to stand up; a lady was standing at the bus stop, looking away; I remember asking her to not leave me alone, and passed out again. Next thing I knew she had called an ambulance and asking me if I was drunk or diabetic or on drugs. All this time, I was faintly aware of people getting on and off buses around me. Finally, a man from a nearby restaurant came out and supported me into his place. Then a young gum-chewing paramedic appeared – I felt so, so silly, taking up his time, creating havoc, and thinking that I would never make it to the airport by 12.30.

I’m home finally, a bit shaken.. I’m fighting the urge to call my mother; after all, there is nothing she can do about it.