Paris, April 30 2007 (Apr 30, 2007)
They said : Who will take care of the kids? They said: She's too pretty to have any brains. They said : How can a woman deal with foreign policy? They said : She's not married to the father of her children. They said : She has a foul temper.


And yet. This week might be a historic turning point in French history (forgive the purple prose) is enough French voters finally decide to vote for a woman.
I can't wait!


B. and I will be counting the votes next Sunday evening in the village.
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Paris, October 22, 2005 (Oct 22, 2005)
Hooray, half term is upon us! Full programme starting with two days at the seaside near la Baule for a lot of wind and rain I assume.

Yesterday I got a huge pile of books from amazon and read The History Boys (faber). Rather enjoyable, though less frothy than Forty Years on, more boys' genitals and general bathos, but who am I to complain? I am only a woman.

Perhaps it is the schoolmistress in me but I was shocked by the typos and the lax punctuation and syntax they had allowed in. No proof-readers these days are there?

"A stock vision of an undergraduate then (gleaned from movies like Robert Tatylor in 'A Yank at Oxford') was...". page viii

"Once there had been polished parquet floors the woodwork was of bright chestnut polish, and ..." page xviii

"abandon" (the noun) twice in the introduction (?)

"in the nick of time I began to get grips with it myself" page xxiv

"Ne soit pas timide" (should be "sois"). Other mistakes in French usage but that was the point. page 14 of the play itself.

Still it is very comforting to see misprints...
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Paris, October 21, 2005 (Oct 21, 2005)
Windy and rainy today. The little sweet and I had to rush home from the park. She has made huge progress in her eight weeks of nursery school and now masters quite complex syntactic structure, like the difference between "viens" and vienne". She has been told her mother had a little baby in her tummy and takes it in her stride. Her first copy book with drawings and photographs... Bless.
Poor dil is having a hard time at work. One would like to see young women treated fairly. Alas...
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Paris, October 20, 2005 (Oct 20, 2005)
Well, autumn has set in at last so it's back to the closet with summer things and roll on the shoe-buying spree. I tried to start a shoe thread but quite unaccountably, noone was interested, apart from Polly, who is not interested in shoes (how can that be?). And now I see it is more foreign travel for her...

We have a two-week holiday now looming and I have been kept busy all morning trying to organise the work I'll take to the country with me, thus spoiling the joy of using the new rotovator in the jungle.
Also had to check the corrections for the pocketbook edition of Port Mungo. Alwasy a sobering experience, alas, to discover you've used "encore" twice in the same sentence and DIDN'T SPOT it at the time.
The only consolation is that I insisted on leaving in New York's SoHo, instead of using Soho for both New York's and London's.

Thursday is cleaning lady day; we usually have a cosy chat over coffee and biscuits but she's fasting (Ramadan) so it's just the gossip and a few giggles.

Back to work. I miss the old boards.

I thought I would say that.

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FWT: "nana", "gonzesse", "nŽnette"? (Oct 20, 2005)
Literal meaning : "nana"= girl/ woman; "gonzesse"= woman/cow; "nŽnette"= young thing, Now this is a serious subject, this business of what you can call girls/women and what you can't.

"Nana" is the most innocuous. I would say (meaning no offence), "The BBC nana is having a hard time coping with the complaints". She might be any age between 25 and 65. Male equivalent: "mec". Could be replaced by "bonne femme" as in "la bonne femme de la BBC m'a envoyŽ promener" (= the BBC cow sent me packing). perhaps not quite "cow" but definitely not complimentary. Male equivalent would be "un bonhomme".

"Gonzesse" is more vulgar and derives from the Spanish "gonzo" ."Cette gonzesse me tape sur les nerfs" (This cow is getting on my nerves). I wouldn't use it but many men would.

"NŽnette" means young and cute and pea-brained. Of course no one could possibly have called me "nŽnette" for a while now, but few did it to my face even when I was young and cute. "Minet" (kitten), cute young guy, and "Minette" (=pussy..., in all meanings of the word) , both slightly passŽ.

Now I bet that will make your day.

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FWT:"craignos" (Jul 25, 2005)
Slang/youth-speak, meaning: dirty, unbearable.

A variation on "Ça craint" (literal ungrammatical meaning, "this dreads")

Example:
- T'as vu son nouvel appart?
- Oui, le quartier est plutôt craignos, non?

"Have you been to her new flat?"
"Yes, the neighbourhood is a bit iffy, isn't it."
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R., July 24, 2005 (Jul 24, 2005)

Feeling rather drained after the departure of O/H's eldest with toddler and baby, both girls. The baby is absolutely adorable and incredibly chubby and responds to music amazingly (very gratifying), the elder is rather a handful but I had the chance to introduce her to Bambi so we have bonded for life, I think. We also boxed a little, she has all that pent-up energy in spades and I gave as good as I got, which she enjoyed.

O/H's daughter (and all of us) was stopping over on her way to the seaside, without her husband who had to go back to Argentina to attend the funeral of his brother's young son and the child's maternal grandmother. Another young child is in intensive care. Cause : a drunken car-driver who mowed them down while they were walking on the pavement. He was first caught by the police then bribed them to take the first flight to Brazil (this is a true story)which he did. A rich guy apparently. Fortunately the family was able to use well-placed contacts and he was shipped back on arrival and is now in jail. The whole family is distraught and it is hard not to feel hate.

Selfishly, this has reawakened all the fears I used to have when I first started to take care of my granddaughter. I stay well back from the edge of the pavement, always wait for the little green man and pay extra attention whenever crossing a street, but what can you do against someone who is driving on the pavement?

This has put other gripes in perspective.
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FWT:" Mais que fait la police?" (Jul 23, 2005)
Literal meaning: what are the police doing?

Real meaning: it is a shame, the police are not doing enough.

Used today ironically to describe the knee-jerk response of blaming the police for not catching criminals.

Example:
- On m'a piqué trois salades dans le jardin.
- Mais que fait la police?

"I had three lettuces nicked in my allotment."
"Really, the police these days."

As kindly corrected by dagesh.
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R., July 21, 2005 (Jul 21, 2005)
Tomorrow is the fifth anniversary of my son's wedding. We had spent the day before the wedding in a state of feverish activity, decorating the church, getting sheaves of wheat, fixing the flowers, making appointments at the hairdresser's, endlessly going through the check-list. I had shed nearly a stone. Sigh. A wonderful memory for all and we'll reminisce tomorrow on the phone. What's five years? Silk?

Anyway, we're back from the land of arid and bare wasteland that is the Gard. Uglification of what was once wild scenery. Anyway, as I said last time, O/H's youngest and partner are trying to set up her own surgery with her partner. We called on the local vet, an old crook with a military pension and porcine eyes who devotes his whole time to horse and racing cows (vachettes) for the races they have there (no killing)and wants an extortionate amount for selling his non-existent practice. No village around is complete without its arena. When I think that she campaigned to abolish vivisection for first-year science students who would not be going on to work with animals (and she even got on TV, with dark glasses on)... Stop me if you've heard it before.

The area we visited was badly damaged by a freak flood of the Gardon three years ago and the flooded areas are dotted with pristine houses, the insurance money has been well-spent. Also dykes have been erected. Let us hope they'll stand the strain. Most of the neighbours were fatalistic and had got on with their lives. The village itself is on the site of an Roman oppidum. O/H's daughter fell in love with a lovely house in the village (high up) but it's a choice: either they buy the practice, redo the whole surgery with a special loan and live in a mobile home while sweating to win back a few customers, by offering new services (like massage,etc.), or they buy the house and then can't buy the practice. So reality is starting to sink in and it's sad to see their hopes dashed. As they had to get their degree in Belgium, because six years ago France was restricting the number of vets under pressure from greedy established professionals, it's good-bye rain and cold and hello sunshine for them. Anyway, they're young, they'll bounce back.

Two grandchildren with attendent parents expected tomorrow. Little to report on the translation front (I have been weeding instead).

I am of course saddened beyoond measure by today's "incidents", full of admiration for British spunk and loathing for this ideology of death. I will be giving a wide berth to The Bull on these matters as I suppose the usual suspects are still spouting the same sort of nonsense. I fervently hope none of you gets hurt.

ON a less sombre note: I have made an earth-shattering discovery in HP6. In none of the HP books is there any mention of God or religion. Interesting. Also I read the lukewarm Guardian review and the glowing one in the New York Times and I agree with both!!!

Ta ta for now.


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R., July 10, 2005 (Jul 10, 2005)
Back to the country after baby-sitting on Saturday afternoon and night. Little gddr lovely as always, this time she was sleeping over and her parents came back late to my place from the U2 concert. This morning she had a first breakfast of milk and cereal in a bottle and then a second breakfast of croissant and brioche with us. Bless.

I travelled by a train I expected to find empty but it was filled with young (8-10)Jewish children going to summer camp with their incredibly young camp counsellors. The noise level was incredible (like magpies, we would say) but they were a cheery bunch. They sang songs together, it was very jolly.

On arrival I just caught O/H's second daughter and family and O/H's third daughter and fiancé, who had made a pit stop on their way to the Côte d'Azur because she was poorly. Next week we join them to go house-hunting as they will start their own veterinary surgery down South. Buying the practice, then finding a house, then going to the bank and borrowing the lot... Anxious times.

There will be a lull of a few days before O/H's first and second daughters descend on us for a short stay with husbands and babies/toddlers. Then another lull, then a two-day stint of grandmotherly duties for me, after which we might have the little girl to stay with us before son and daughter join us and we go down to Brittany together. Just a few days for us and then back home.

Sounds exhausting? It's going to be. In the meantime, weeds will have to be pulled, grass to be cut, and translating to be done. O/H is manning the kitchen garden and we've already had lots of tomatoes, salads, redcauurant and blackcurrant sherbet, yummy.

Since the horrific events in London, I have felt a heavy pall upon me (trite but true) : nothing can ever be the same. I keep thinking of those still buried under the debris, hoping that death was swift, but knowing it can't have been for all. I am seeking to express my sadness and unbounded admiration for all concerned, from the Queen down, but you can't do that in the Bull without sneering clowns and embittered old Bennites and assorted Gorgeous Georges biting your head off and/or making cheap points. So I resort to the New York Times, a haven of humanism. Their article on the residents of the Arab district north of Edgware Road (?) was truly enlightening.

The BBC website is very reticent as to names, but in Le Monde and Libération, whole biographies of potential perpetrators are to be found.

Sumer reading so far: I Capture the Castle, which I found much better than I expected, and I have started on Amin Maalouf's Leo the African, though I have to ration myself because it's absolutely riveting.
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Paris, July 7, 2005 (Jul 7, 2005)
What is there to say? The worst kind of blind violence : it targets people regardless of nationality, creed or political orientation and can serve no cause. Even the IRA gave warnings. I remember one IRA bombing alert in the late 70s in London. I also remember when all the left luggage areas closed down. There was a consensus against such violence then.

But already some are trying to make cheap political capital out of this senseless carnage : the George Galloways, the Duncan Allisons of real life and ML.

I can't say how hurt I have been by the ridiculous musings of a few deranged types (in the Bull) that the French might be behind it. It was the early hours, but that's no excuse. What sort of parallel world do these people live in? They are ready to believe any sort of conspiracy theory. It makes you despair of the human race.
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(5 replies, Latest reply: Jul 8, 2005)

FWT: "pas de bol" (Jul 6, 2005)
Literal meaning: no bowl. Or rather no 'arse', from "bol", slang for "cul", meaning luck.

Topical meaning : may the best man win , but for the French, "pas de bol"! = No luck.

Other related phrases:
"coup de bol", stroke of luck.
"te casse pas le bol": don't go to any trouble/keep it simple.

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FWT: "J'étais véner, j'te dis pas"" (Jun 16, 2005)
"Véner" is "verlan" (meaning "à l'envers", the other way around) and it is to be read backwards as "énervé".

Meaning: I was so mad (cross), I can't tell you

A passport to the Mysterious World of the Young

Another favourite is "reloud", meaning "lourd", that is heavy / boring
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(2 replies, Latest reply: Jun 18, 2005)

"c'est complètement dingue!" (Jun 15, 2005)
Literal meaning: it is totally crazy.

Dingue has gone from being synonymous with crazy, nuts to meaning unbelievable, surreal. Much more used in everyday conversation than "fou" (mad)

Examples:
Il est dingue ce mec = this guy is barmy
II conduit comme un dingue= he drives like a maniac.

Tu verrais son appart', c'est complètement dingue= if you could see her flat, it's awesome.
C'est dingue ce qui se passe = I can't believe this is happening



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Paris, June 15, 2005 (Jun 15, 2005)
Tonight I am almost a free woman. The last papers have been marked and handed out and and I can relax until September 2. Not bad. I have given the first-years loads and loads of holiday work (reading the Merchant of Venice is just one of their duties) and they have a "culture générale" quiz the first week.

To-morrow we still have to decide who can stay on for the second year and who is not up to it and must look elsewhere. Tears and recriminations alas, though they have been given ample warning.

However I am going to find the Edinburgh novel on the door mat any day now and that will darken the horizon a bit. While others are lazing about in the garden I shall be locked up and battling with the English language. Lots of Burns and Auden.

On the advice of people at the Bull, I have been sending my sick friend gifts. She enjoyed the Fischer-Dieskau a lot. She finds it hard to read as her hands tremble too much. So I will try to find some essential oils, just to smell and look at. And a book of photographs. Suggestions welcome.


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(6 replies, Latest reply: Jun 16, 2005)

FWT:"fermer sa gueule" (Jun 12, 2005)
Literal meaning: to shut one's mouth. "Gueule" is the word used for animals. Vulgar for humans.
More sophisticated meanings derive from the literal one.

Example 1
-T'as entendu? Bush père a dit un jour que les athées ne pouvaient pas faire de bons patriotes.
- Oui, il a vraiment perdu une belle occasion de fermer sa gueule ce jour-là.

Translation
"Did you hear that? Bush senior said that atheists couldn't be good patriots."
"Well, he lost a good opportunity to keep his mouth shut (and avoid making a fool of himself)"

Example 2
Un ministre, ça ferme sa gueule ou ça claque la porte.
Translation
Government members should either comply or resign.(literal : shut their mouths or slam the door)
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R., June 12, 2005 (Jun 12, 2005)
Glorious 12th... The roses and the roses and the roses... And the grass growing, and the bindweed weaving, and the nettles stinging.

We had a good time yesterday using the shredder to produce mulch. This time O/H tried cardboard. And the result is not bad at all, but hard on the machine.

The whole activity if viewed at accelerated speed like old Chaplin movies would be hilarious. I am on my knees pulling up offending weeds, then I bring a bundle to O/H who puts them into the shredder and when the bag is full I put the whole lot back where it came from. This is best done much earlier, but we're doing what we can.

The conversation invariably turns to : why can't we find young people who would be glad to earn a bob or two to do this for us as a summer job. But no-one is interested. I would have thought with an ageing population, gardening and garden maintenance would be a gold mine. Professional firms cost an arm and a leg. We've had several estimates and are still wondering who can afford those prices.

Now for a bit of mowing and deadheading and then back to last pile of essays to mark (hooray).
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(5 replies, Latest reply: Jun 12, 2005)

FWT:"Bof!" (Jun 12, 2005)
Literal meaning: none
Everyday meaning: interjection denoting lack of enthusiasm and interest. Untranslatable(?).
Example:
- Et c'était comment l'épisode d'hier?
- Bof! Nul, comme d'habitude.

"And what was last night's eppy like?"
"Mmm, the usual cr*p."
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(2 replies, Latest reply: Jun 12, 2005)

Paris, 9 June, 2005 (Jun 9, 2005)
Well the beginning of the week was a blur due to second-years being back and demanding almost daily coaching for the oral examinations, which is no burden since they are delightful and I'll miss them and they'll miss me. They are on tenterhooks, waiting for the results of their written tests and touching in their anguish. Some of them are so good : I hope they get the recognition they deserve.

Meanwhile the first-years still produce an uninterrupted series of papers for me to mark. This is the first vicious circle of my life: I have got to keep the pressure on otherwise they will not learn enough. And this means tests, yesterday's was 125 grammar questions on all the points they had studied before. But I have to mark them now or I lose their trust forever. So I always end up with the piles of papers.

Another vicious circle in my life these days is that I have to work late, so even with my medication I find it hard to overcome the restless legs syndrome, and have to get up in a state of exhaustion and do various exercises. The less I sleep, the more acute the symptoms. But if I go to bed at 8pm then no work gets done. And I wake up faithfully at 2 with my symptoms.

Come to me soothing sleep and with thee bring forgetfulness and dreams...

Still today is granddaughter's day so frolics in the park, races, dancing, cuddling and this vaguely human shape sleeping it off in the carriage of the RER tonight will be me on the way home.
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(5 replies, Latest reply: Jun 9, 2005)

FWT: "un beauf" (Jun 8, 2005)
Literal meaning: brother-in-law (beau-frère) shortened in popular language to "beauf".
Current meaning; uncultured bigot, vulgar, sexist, unreconstructed MCP, vaguely wordlessly xenophobic. Not smart but not vindictive. A bit like Hyacinth Bucket's brother-in-law in fact.

This afternoon, F. came into the staff room to ask if anyone had a translation for "beauf" and we only had this long definition. So we came to the conclusion that the species was unkwown in Britain.

Also it seems to be a male thing. A small triumph in itself...
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(2 replies, Latest reply: Jun 9, 2005)

Paris, June 6, 2005 (Jun 6, 2005)
Saturday was devoted to feverish cleaning up of the garden and mowing grass (lawn is too refined a word for the species we have here). The problem with mowing is where do you stop? There is always a little corner that might be prettified. And then emptying the mown grass at the foot of young horn beam hedge. After a while, and many trips, you walk bent like an old retainer. O/H was doing the wilder areas, comfortably sitting on the big one.

Then the lady gardener came (Gisèle) and she approved, she liked the garden, we were very relieved. She likes to visit gardens but doesn't like to have to pay. We learnt that she is hors concours (?) in the garden competition in the village otherwise she would always get first prize. And she is also out of the competition at the département level. She is that good. She brought roses and a lettuce and she got a pot of young basil. We will take her to the garden festival in Chaumont. It is a provilege to meet people like this.

Then back to Paris with O/H this time to drink champagne with my sister who is now the proud owner of a squalid bedsit next to her own little flat and is excitedly planning an extension... She was so happy to be able to buy it (la peau des fesses) and as the seller had inherited it from his mother, it was not overpriced since it would have gone to the taxman anyway. No real estate agencies, no intermediary. Perfect transaction (apart from the price). Her O/H is a genius at decorating and he's already at work.

But do papers grade themselves? They do not. Midnight oil again. Thundery showers today.

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(2 replies, Latest reply: Jun 8, 2005)

FWT: "Il est vraiment chiant" (Jun 4, 2005)
Meaning: he is really annoying.
No literal translation; "chier" comes from the Latin cacare = to sh*t.
Various uses, not in polite company, as it is vulgar, but frequent in all classes of society. I would never have used it in front of my parents. Actually I had never used such words until I met my husband. As usually happens, he learnt slang first and gradually my defences fell and it became part of my usual vocabulary

Examples:

"Il me fait chier ce mec"= this guy is getting on my wick

"Tu ne peux pas savoir comme ça me fait chier d'aller à ce dîner"
= You can't imagine how I loathe the idea of accepting this dinner invitation

"Shula est toujours aussi chiante?" = Is Shula as irritating as usual?
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(2 replies, Latest reply: Jun 9, 2005)

R, June 4, 2005 (Jun 4, 2005)
A typical beginning to the week end. Friday night means frantic preparations, check-list of documents needed, papers to mark (last batch till September alleluia), urgent messages to be sent to colleagues for preparation of oral exams, masses of papers and magazines to find suitable material, pens, address book, e-mail of students' e-mails. In short anyone would think that the whole weekend will be spent working at my desk or at the computer. Priorities sorted.

And then when I get here, the first set of priorities immmediately disappears and another, much more demanding, descends : mowing, bindweed, roses, weeds, nettles, unsighlinesses all around. So it's good bye to the briefcase (still untouched) and into nondescript trousers old tee-shirt and cap.

The result is terrible backache. But we have to make a good impression tomorrow as a keen lady gardenrer is coming for l'apéritif. We met her by chance last Sunday, when I went with B. to drop leaflets about the forthcoming choir concert into the letter boxes of various notabilities(?). He vaguely remembered from last time stumbling on a rose garden. And we found it. She happened to be outside when we stopped (her house is in a small hamlet off the village) and she invited us in (I think she was flattered by my shrieks of delight):it was magical. A magnificent English garden with roses roses everywhere, up in the trees, down on the ground, and a pond and water lilies and a rose walk and a pergola, opening on to an orchard. Worthy of a magazine cover and she does it all herself.

I don't know her name but we have met her sister (whose name we don't know either)in the village. Anyway she is coming tomorrow and though spick and span is out of the question, I would like some sort of order...

Meanwhile, on the urban front, news from my special beat (public transport), I have to relate that Friday morning I asked someone to put out his cigarette (platform) and he complied immediately. Quite a spring in my step after that. Then I got on the train and sat down opposite one of those women who think it is quite acceptable to do their nails in the tube. So she pared and she filed and I was thinking 'Really, what next?'. Well next, I spilled the contents of my bag and she dashed down to the floor and gathered it all most kindly. So I swallowed my value judgment until next time...
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(10 replies, Latest reply: Jun 5, 2005)

FWT: "coûter la peau des fesses"" (Jun 1, 2005)
Literal meaning: to cost the skin of your bottom. Meaning: be very expensive.

Example :
"J'ai trouvé un ensemble Sonia Rykiel adorable. mais il coûte la peau des fesses, évidemment."
= I found a ravishing Sonia Rykiel outfit but it costs an arm and a leg, of course.

Sonia Rykiel being a name to conjure with this household.
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(3 replies, Latest reply: Jun 2, 2005)

FWT: "purée!" (May 31, 2005)
Literal meaning: mashed potatoes.

Two uses.
One: "être dans la purée" (also "dans le pétrin"= in the kneading-trough) = in a difficutl situation. It is a euphemism for a more scatological substance.

The second use can bemuse listeners who are not au fait with French as she is spoke in the South of France ("le Midi"). There, the word "purée" becomes a verbal punctuation mark (see "putain" / "con" entries), a mannerism usually combined with the southern accent ("'accent du Midi"). Thus:

"Purée!, si j'avais su." = Gosh, if I had known.

On the whole France is sadly in the mashed potatoes today...
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(3 replies, Latest reply: May 31, 2005)


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