27 février 2005

Oh dear oh dear oh dear

And that will be the end of this impromptu week-end trilogy.

Love! Valour! Compassion! is being performed in Paris. The city of love, sensuality and debauchery. Debauchery obviously being the operative word here.
Yet, it has apparently sparked sufficient controversy as to think that we're in the US of A, back at Superbowl time last year. Reports, news features, debates. The whole nine yards.
Well, not really, but it certainly is feeding this post.
Now I'm no howling hysteric (no I'm not), but I think it's pretty damn cool that the play would be acted in reality by 8 naked men (or so they're selling it anyway).
Let me explain. As far as I'm concerned, being a bit of a fag hag, I think it's fantastic that gays be represented in all their humour, fears, sickness, madness, neuroses. Life. Normality. (Such a cheesy construction and argument should have automatically self-destructed before this gets published - I'm taking chances in the name of bloggistic integrity.)
Also, being completely stuck up, I like the fact that nudity is being desacralised. I'm not even sure such a word exists, but break it down if it doesn't, I'm sure it's understandable.
And the thing is come ooooon, some of the actors are just plain gorgeous.
I'm going to check it out.
Of course we're talking about the text and the acting.
I'll keep you posted.

26 février 2005

Oh dear oh dear

I have few words and very little voice left in me after France's game, sadly, sadly lost against Wales.
As of now, it's go Ireland. Go get those English ruggerbuggers.
Please.

Oh dear

This morning, I just had to re-sort my books. Woke up and thought, this is it, I'm doing it now.
To give you an inkling of what I went through, I'm a compulsive reader, and, more to the point here, I'm a compulsive book-buyer. So they just pile up.
I had started some kind of order at some point, sorting them first by language, then in alphabetical order. Useless once you start buying more and more, and lending some, and then re-reading some that you really enjoyed the first time around, etc. So my (few) shelves were a mess.
Back to today: I decided to sort them purely alphabetically. Sod the language, I don't care, I'm a show-off anyway.
It took me near on two hours. I'm dusty all over. My back aches. And I'm not happy. It doesn't look good. I might have to just hurricane through them to go back to the mess it was, which, looking back, I enjoyed.
Oh dear.

24 février 2005

Clumsies of the world, unite

I have a problem in that I've got two left hands and ten thumbs. I couldn't hammer a nail into a wall to save my life. It took me two days to do a proper job painting a stool.
Now this wouldn't be a problem if I lived with a DIY professional, but my goldfish isn't going to help me much in that department, now is it...
The thing that really gets me most is that apparently I'm one in very few such appallingly clumsy individuals.
So what I'd really like to know is this: can you use a hammer ? And I don't want your criminal record here.

23 février 2005

Perfidious France

It appears I'm actually living in Scotland, not - as I have thought for the past four years now - in France.
Indeed, the blizzard that had been with us since last night was suddenly replaced with sunny weather and dazzling blue skies. The better to deceive us, I'm sure, as the temperature has remained well below zero.
Or maybe I'm just exaggerating this. Few people will ever know.

Oh my, the weather is changing again as I rant. Will you read on if I give you hourly updates all afternoon? Could I be your life-line with the weather on the continent?

I really need to get a life, don't I. Or a more intense job.

The office

Jay-sus, what a brilliant show.
We were watching the Christmas specials (first episode only so please don't go spoiling it for me) with a friend yesterday: it's so bloody good we were hiccuping with cackle.
And then, at some point, it just stopped being so funny. Which I find even more brilliant.
I tend to view David Brent as the most pathetic loser in the history of pathetic losers. I find his character hilarious but it's one thing, isn't it, to laugh at a pseudo-boss because we've all worked with someone like him and it's sooooo easy and harmless to relate. And then it's another entirely to watch someone free-falling - and that twist is not entirely in keeping with the rest of the series. He was a lot less guilt-inducing/sympathy-triggering before. Now don't get me wrong, I've not much sympathy for David Brent. And I know it's not an actual documentary. I've realised it's all fiction and it's all meant for entertaining purposes. But the acting is so amazingly good that it's hard to not "believe". Or am I just putting way too much into this and should I just sit back, relax, cackle away and worry about the guilt only if it really settles in (in which case I'll be really concerned about my mental health)?
Oh but Gareth. The pathetic little worm. Now here's one who doesn't make me feel guilty for laughing.

22 février 2005

Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow

Not.

Actually, I like snow. Especially since my windows overlook a pretty backyard with flowers (yes even in winter) and lots of greenery. Opening them this morning, I was childishly happy to see it all turned white.
It does make me a child again, you know, reminding me of Christmas and all. Needless to say I was very disapointed when I got to work and no pile of pressies was waiting for me underneath a brightly lit tree.
Anyway, every child has to come crashing down to earth at some point, and even before the aforementioned disillusion, I knew there was going to be no Christmas spirit in February.
Rather people've put a new spin to the Lent thing. They've given up their dignity and basic human qualities. Things that I hold dear.
The bus ride from home was a jaw-clenching affair - the bus driver
seemed definitely unused to driving around snow-covered pavements... One would have thought he was imagining joyously cavorting in the snow and just acting it out, not really minding the busload of people.
Then again, as is to be expected on a weekday morning, only ten times as obvious in bad weather, the busload of people was for the most part a very annoying set. There was the annoying elderly (who could not go out at any other time than rush hour, now, could they), the annoying teenager (oh the annoying teenager) thinking the world is his oyster - and the rest of us are worthless algae, the annoying I'm-in-a-hurry-get-out-of-my-way-or-I-will-trample-you-to-death-or-squash-
you-flat-against-the-wall-of-the-bus-and-I-won't-be-sorry-because-I-can't-I-
just-can't-wait-for-the-next-one" type person (I'm hesitating here, should we really include them in the people general category). The latter definitely being top, first, and foremost on my "to-kill" list.
And I will get them some day.

I am so looking forward to going back home tonight.

19 février 2005

Sugar and spam

Nicest spam ever received (with high priority too, they obviously know to whom and how to send this) - almost cheered me up.

Call out Gouranga be happy!!!
Gouranga Gouranga Gouranga ....
That which brings the highest happiness!!
Kind of like the Candyman stuff, so I haven't tried out, but you give it a go and report back to me ASAP. Ta.

AAAAArrrrrrggggggghhhhhh

There. Better now.

18 février 2005

TGIF

I need an action hero. Notice the wording here, it's not I want an action hero, or ooh I'm so lusting after an action hero. No, we're talking basic, essential stuff. Need, as in need to pee. You'd die of a bursted bladder if you didn't. Well, I'll shrivel and die if I don't get an action hero.
I'm blaming Spooks and 24. I'm blaming those tough guys with rugged good looks (although somehow that doesn't apply to all of them); I'm blaming the easy wit, the killer one-liners in the face of danger, the oh-so-manly grunts and/or screams when tortured. The reckless disrespect of authority. The vulnerability in front of women*. Their resistance to stress.
Oh dear, considering this, doesn't it also apply to Rachel giving birth on "Friends"?

*Have you seen the girl on the third season of 24? How can your entire face look like a botched job and still you get a role on one of today's most popular series?

16 février 2005

I'm cold

All the energy spent in the battle of the sexes has left me weak and trembling.
The fact that it's below zero in my flat may also be partly responsible but I'm sticking to my exhausting heroic contribution.
Although, it is a fact, electric heating is worth nothing against disjointed, single-glazed windows.
So here I am sitting, slumped more like, on the couch, huddled in layers and layers of clothes, plus some kind of poncho, plus a blanket. I'm scared to go to bed, because that means having to change into a flimsy nightie.
It's going to be flannel jammies, but never you mind.
I'll be dreaming not of a white christmas, god no, but of white-sand beaches, blue seas, yellow suns (yeah several, I am very cold), red bloody marys, and whatever is orange (not my tan). Something green would be nice, but the only thing I can think of right now is dollars, and it's no use fantasising, is it?

Flooble

I've found the most amazing site. Flooble is an automatic post generator. I guess most of you have already seen it, but I'm slow.
This is what they say on their home page.

Now you can have a ready-to-post entry for your blog with just one click of a button. Our system is random enough that there's thousands of variations to the post that it can generate, so if you don't like how it came out, you can simply keep clicking until the generator comes up with something you find acceptible.
How lazy can you get that you can't even be bothered writing your own posts?
Actually... to that I can relate.
But the thousands of variations remain to be proved: so far it's been sister/cousin/niece, with the relevant name change, and not much else.

Too bad. It might have been really useful.

15 février 2005

Please don't let the bed bug bite me

I've just been the victim of some very unfair mickey-taking. I was at lunch with some friends/colleagues, and who knows why, the conversation broached a very sensitive topic of mine: winged beasts.
Anything that flies and cannot boast any vertebrae is a very intimate enemy of mine. I mean that. I could go very very mad, very very really so. Not knowing where the little bugger is and having no clues as to where it intends to go is enough for me to lose all sense of dignity, self-respect and anything that usually makes me part of that great big family we call mankind. Not to mention the shrieks. The profanities I may have to utter. Linda Blair, here I come.

It can all be explained by my very troubled past, you see. When I was just a little girl, I asked my mama what will I be. Oops, wrong text.
When I was little, we lived in Cameroon. Has any one of you lived in a country where cockroaches are bigger than a male adult thumb? Where cockroaches - which, I'll repeat so you're sure to understand,
are bigger than a male adult thumb - fly? Where every year, without fail, there comes a time when locusts, biiig locusts, bigger even than the roaches, will flock to scare you (OK, me) to bloody insanity? This is a city we're talking about here, you understand, we weren't out in the wild: we had all amenities, roads were goudronnées*, phones worked fine (as opposed to what people seem to think is going on in Africa, and picturing us children going to school hurling ourselves from liana to liana, Tarzan-like, and communicating through smoke rings because people that are ignorant like that tend to mix their metaphors).
Then, when I was marginally older, I lived in Scotland. Well, I have one word for you.
Midges.
Australia, strangely enough, could have been a walk in the park. Roaches I'd seen, and they don't even fly, in Sydney. And I'm not scared of things that crawl or scurry.
However, it turns out that Oz definitely has the winner of them all. Bogongs. God, they are scary. The sheer multitude of them makes me shiver all over again, just looking at the picture. They're huge, they're gross, they're overwhelmingly too many, and they're sneaky too. You think you left danger behind when you walked through the porch and survived. Oh no. Because they came into your flat through the air-con ducts. Oh and they snuggled into your pillow. Or between the mattress and the wall. Or anywhere that is guaranteed to have you fly screaming like a banshee at the sight or, eeeeeew, feeling of them.

I can't believe that people would take the mickey when I tell them about the trauma.

Please tell me that you have phobias too, and that you have made a fool of yourself in front of clowns, mice or teddy bears. I won't laugh. Promise.

*sorry, but as Zoe pointed out in the comments, I don't know the proper word

14 février 2005

Something (slightly more manly) to talk about

Well, we did the Valentine's Day thing, so let's talk about sport.
Yesterday's rugby, to be specific. Can anybody explain to me how England can lose two in a row, when France undeservingly wins both of its games? Now don't get me wrong, I lived in Scotland for a wee while, so I'm ecstatic that England is so far on a par* with Italy and, well, Scotland. But still, there is a lot of unfairness in this world, isn't there?

Update:
One of my friends has provided me with a girl's explanation: apparently, it's karma - as there were a couple times that we lost when really we should have won. So it's a clear case of "what goes around comes around". I think not, but hey.

*match-wise, I'm not going to go into the point system because it would ruin my argument

Violets are blue

This will be short and sweet.
You know how there's been an epidemics of D&V lately. Well, it's not only in London, Paris was hit too. I've been spared so far (I sensed your worry), but today being sweet lurve day, I beg of you: please don't make me sick to my stomach with nauseating displays of affection. Please. I'm quite happy that you've found love, I just want to keep that knowledge to a minimum.
Thanks a bunch.

12 février 2005

Career change?

I've just watched a show on TV called "Ca balance à Paris" - a pun on a French song title (ça balance pas mal à Paris, by Michel Berger, for those of you who are interested in French 70's-80's culture), which literally means that there's quite a bit of back-stabbing in Paris.
Why this particular title for the show, you ask? Well, the people presenting it all belong to France's intelligentsia, and they are not afraid to speak their mind. So they go about giving acerbic critiques of all things cultural happening in France. Well, in Paris really. It's a bitty annoying, but hey, better than The Young and The Restless.
OK, you get the picture.
Being in France, though, all things cultural apparently extend to food (even though I'm French, I find that hard to fathom. Whatever). Oops, I should really say cuisine.
So this guy gets paid to take one of his friends along and go spend a small fortune in restaurants that he fancies going to, on the excuse that he tests and grades them. A cheap date is what I call it. So there he was, not five minutes ago, telling us that this lovely appetiser of lukewarm pumpkin and coffee soup, followed by one scallop and seaweed, some more fish with a crepe, crowned by a coconut and pineapple sorbet thing, was worth every cent of the 300 euros it cost him ('bout the same in USD and around 200 British sterling things). Except it's not really his euros, because it's obviously all expensed.
So here's my plan. I was thinking I would do the same, and you could read my critiques here. Are you with me?
Here's the snag. I'm out of a job in less than three months, so I thought I'd appeal to your generosity to sort of sponsor me through it: instead of an Amazon wish-list, I'd post a list of all the restaurants I'd like to go to, I mean professionally obviously, and you (all four of you...) would fund me so that next time you come to Paris you know exactly where you can go get some grub. Deal?

11 février 2005

Week-end!

I trust you will all have a good one, but before that...
No, can't remember. Well, have a good one then.

10 février 2005

French job advertised

Personal newsflash. I am leaving my job in a few months. Three to be precise.
Anyone interested? In Paris, small team, fast-growing training/consulting company, office-manager type position (with responsibilities regarding up- and downstream organisation of training sessions - can be very interesting). We're desperate for someone bilingual. Let me know if you're interested, I'll send you the ad.

Back to the post. As I'm a nice person (read silly cow, really), I've agreed to process the application letters for the position and I'm to make sure that whoever gets an interview with the rest of the team, the rest of the team won't be totally wasting their time.
Weeeellll... The ad went on line only this morning, and we had near on 50 applications this evening. That's FIFTY applications. 10 times five. Or 5 times ten. A lot. Way, way too many. And last time I checked, they were still pouring into my mailbox.
The thing is, there's this story going around that unemployed people take blatant advantage of all that France has to offer in terms of unemployment claims and stuff and basically enjoy extended paid holidays. Well, huh huh, no siree: they're looking all right.
How do I sort through 50 letters so far, probably double by tomorrow evening? How do I know from one sheet of paper that he is just unsuitable for the job, while she will do just fine...?
Wouldn't it be easier if I just stayed on? Oh wait...
Gotta go, I've got some reading to do.

PS: The ad is valid, the offer is too. Three more letters aren't going to make that much of a difference... ;-)

08 février 2005

Ooh, writer's block

Right, here is what I'd feared all along. My inspiration has dried up, my muse has deserted me, I'm not creative any more.

Was I ever, I hear you snigger. Well, believe it or not, for the whole two days it lasted, I felt I was. Now I am but a forlorn soul wandering the streets around Bastille without an aim, a mission, or indeed a penny. Farewell, dear readers.

Naaa, just kidding, never was creative, never will be, and probably never really had a reader (thank you Zoe, for nurturing in me the impression that someone, at some point, cared). But I do mean to continue contributing to the overpopulation of the Internet blogging space. Oh yeah. And using words I'm not sure I actually understand - see forlorn, nurturing, reader.

I wish you could all hear my manic laughter and cringe in fear (and here I go again with those words), but I'll just keep that for the office. In which I'm about to get busted for not being too brisk or efficient, this morning... oh gosh, the boss just walked in.

07 février 2005

Tell me why I don't like Mondays

Oh, pesh. The mere fact that it's Monday has me depressed for the rest of the week - well, until Friday evening that is. Then I'm back to my cheerful self, two whole days being all bubbly and fluffy and dandy. Then I go to work. And I'm depressed. And it's the week-end. You get the picture.
The thing is, there's just not enough time in the week-end, is there. I mean, come on, you get out of work on Friday evening, what do you do? You go out. Then you need, what, half of Saturday morning at least to recuperate 1/ from the fatigue and stress and basic annoyance of the week, and 2/ from that booze-drenched evening you just had the night before, because it's only natural that you should be celebrating the return of life as you'd always intended it to be (doing eff all), with booze, booze, a little finger-food (you are watching that silhouette), and one more for the road.
Anyways. Back to the second half of Saturday morning. Lots of coffee, a long shower, and it's off to the pub because the Six-Nations Tournament is starting and you don't want to be missing France v. Scotland. Now that takes you to 6, 6:30 (you felt you had to stay on with those nice Scots just to cheer them up - because France really didn't deserve to win - with a few friendly VB's (yeah well, the one Scottish pub in Paris was packed), and ooops, there you are outside the shops which are closing. Don't even think about catching up on "proper" shopping on Sunday morning, because you know that Saturday evening - just round the corner by then - will be making sure you either don't wake up in time, or if you do, that you just won't be able to face shopping with THAT hangover. Which, by the time you've nursed it, has in turn guaranteed that Sunday has come and gone without your contribution.
Now it's already Monday evening (look at that, a week-end gone in a couple of paragraphs, what was I saying...): 4 more days and you can do it all again, yay!

06 février 2005

Neighbours

No, not the televisual masterpiece from Down Under: I'm talking about the real McCoy here, I'm talking about the very people who can make your life hell on earth, those who could make you become paranoid, those who could get you to believe that the whole building has been conspiring against you and thinking up plots to make you go totally bonkers and leave the building. Preferably in restraints.

But they're not gonna get me. I'll fight. And even when they start hoovering again right at the moment when the name of the culprit is being revealed or when Clint Eastwood whispers something extreeeeeemely sensual to Meryl Streep, at 10:30 at night, I'll stick to my sanity. I will. I will. I will.

Talking of repeating things, is it me or can we safely say that Martin Scorsese suffers from a bizarre obsession that means all his leading characters must repeat things until I go mental (because it seems I'm the only one who's bothered)? I thought that was just a mobster thing, and that I would be OK going in to see The Aviator (excellent film, terrific acting, bloody good direction all-round). I should have known. Howard Hughes had an obsessive compulsive disorder and yup, that's conveyed, among other freaky stuff, by Leonardo DiCaprio mumbling the same sentences over and over. Definitely didn't ruin the film for me, but it sure has me wondering. Will Scorsese end up in a straitjacket, going "You talkin' to me? D'you f**k my wife? Come in with the milk. You talkin' to me? D'you f**k my wife? Come in with the milk. You talkin' to me? D'you f**k my wife? Come in with the milk."? But then, who will be there to film him?

Wow

Before anyone asks, the name of this blog is not a rip-off but an homage to the great Bill Watterson.

It's the first time I've done this blog thing, so you're going to have to excuse the many gaffes and mishaps. All jitters aside, it's funny how I do feel like I'm well on my way to winning the Pulitzer or something. Yes, I've more chance of or something happening than I will ever have of getting the Pulitzer, but you can't blame a girl for dreaming, right? Or stop her, for that matter...

Huh. I thought I had loads of things to say, and I can't remember any of them: this might be the shortest-lived blog in the history of short-lived blogs. And there goes the Pulitzer.

Anyway. I'm not sure how this works, so feel free to shout or jeer when you think I'm not doing it proper.