Journal Entries
My Day at the Paris Book Fair, An Adventure Story.
Posted Mar 22, 2015
Yes, it's that time of year again ! 
It all started the way it does every year. Around the beginning of March, I bought my train and entry tickets.
Then, in the week before, I painstakingly researched which writers would be there on the day I went, to try and decide who I absolutely needed to see, who I would like to see, and who I wanted to avoid.
Their search engine is not very good, so that took a while.
I also saw that the website for the event specified that visitors would not be alloweed to enter the venue with their own books.
That was not the case in the previous years.
That clause meant that whoever had been given a book for Christmas could not bring it along to get it signed by the author.
Several of us emailed the organisers, who answered that yes, they knew it wasn't ideal, but that was the only solution to avoid theft.
Oh.
So the previous years' solution that consisted in putting a sticker on the books that people had when they arrived and putting stickers on the books they paid for at each stand, that wasn't good enough.
Ok.
So much for having people give you books, then. 
and 
The day itself started before 7, as my train to Paris was leaving at 7:43. I managed to catch it, and settled for the 45-minute trip.
If you've been paying attention, you'll understand that I didn't have a book with me, so I looked out the window.
It was foggy.
When I got Paris, I still had 45 minutes on the metro to get to the actual venue.
The bad point was that there was a pollution peak thingy.
The good point was that the metro was free because of the pollution.
I got there around 9:20, but the fair opened at 10, so I had a little while to breathe and relax before all the running.
10 o'clock.
The doors open.
The people rush forward.
The security people metal-check everyone, as well as checking inside every bag.
They also refused entry to anyone with a bag that was "too big".
Those people had to go to the cloakroom, leave their big bag or trolley there, and queue back in.
Just obeying orders here, not my fault, it's security, Vigipirate, blah blah.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vigipirate
Because I spent all of last night making sure the bomb I was bringing would look exactly like an empty trolley.
That makes perfect sense.
There was an old lady before me who had a folding stool in a big plastic bag.
She had to leave the bag and carry her stool around.
But it was ok, you see, it was for her *security*. 
and 
So when I finally managed to get inside, it was already almost 11.
And I had a lot of work to do.
I then spent the next 9 hours running around and queueing and getting my books signed.
And running back to the cloakroom to get rid of a load of books, ready for the next.
In the afternoon, I met up with my friend V. from my book club, who was there with her three teenagers.
And we ran around together for a while.
At 8pm, the fair was closing for the night, and we were pushed out.
That's when I realised my train home was leaving half an hour later 
So I hitched a ride back with V., who (lucky for me!) had one empty seat in her car.
And I got home around 11, one hour later than the train would have been, but the ride was much more fun. 
Famous people I saw this year :
Yves Coppens, co-discoverer of Lucy and patron saint of my library.
Anne Perry, writer of Victorian detective stories.
Joseph Joffo, mostly known for "A Bagful of Marbles", his autobiographical book about his childhood as a French Jew in World War 2.
François Hollande, President.
He wasn't signing books, though, just visiting.
Well, I say I saw him.
I saw a swarm of bodyguards and cameras and microphones, and after jumping up and down several times, I saw his left eyebrow or something.
Still, that's probably the closest I'll ever get to a French President, so...
The Sunday was a time to relax, rest, and take stock.
Pay day is still a whole week away, so I shall mostly be eating pasta, but it was worth every single euro cent.
And this only happens once a year, so if I divide the fortune I've spent by 365, I think I can (safely?) say I've been quite reasonable ! 
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Latest reply: Mar 22, 2015
March in January
Posted Jan 11, 2015
There has been an issue with rendering this post, please contact the editors.
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Latest reply: Jan 11, 2015
SF's NaJoPoMo 30th November - Mayors and MPs
Posted Nov 30, 2014
(continued from the previous JoPos).
As well as registering into the database all births, deaths and weddings taking place in France, we also keep an eye on voting lists.
Each town, city and village has its own voting list, but we make sure they're accurate.
Every year, we send letters to every town city and village where we know there are 18-year-olds, to tell them to add the youngsters to their list. (we know they live there because every 18-year-old has to attend a "citizens' day", which is organised and overseen by the Home Office, and they then give us the lists of names with the address they have declared).
Also, when someone moves, they need to register on the voting list of their new residence; when the town's office sends us their regitration, we send a letter to the previous town they were voting in, asking them to erase the people from their list.
Otherwise, they could potentially vote twice (which is illegal, by the way).
And when someone dies, we cut their voting rights too.
Sometimes, a town sends us a form telling us they have struck someone off because they're dead, but we haven't been told they were, so we need to investigate, find out whether they really are dead (most of the time, they are indeed), and make sure the town where it happened gives us all the details we need to enter the event into the database.
I really like my job, it's pretty varied, there's some investigation, some contact with people, and it's always fun to see the names people give their kids!
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Latest reply: Nov 30, 2014
SF's NaJoPoMo 29th November - Mairie-ly we go...
Posted Nov 29, 2014
Continued from the two previous JoPos.
Now, calling the little towns' offices can be fun. (*)
The big ones have teams of full-time workers and they have a lot of events every year, so they know their job pretty well.
Small towns and villages, a lot of the time, have a part-time worker doing the job, sometimes for several villages.
Most of them are really nice and helpful, but sometimes they're really not quite sure what their job is as far as we're concerned. With one death and two weddings a year, though, who could blame them?
Here are a few real conversations that have happened to me in the 3 months I've been working here :
"Oh, I sent you the death forms for the two we had in the last trimester. That's how it's done, yes? No? Really? Ah. You need them within seven days. I see. Mmmmh. (...) Yes, yes, we've had weddings in the village, indeed. Do you need those too? Oh, I'll see if I can find them, then".
"You're missing wedding number 3? Ah, yes. My colleague was supposed to send it to you. Oh well, I'm sending it right now, then."
Two weeks later, wedding number 3 is still missing...
"We've had a baby born in the village. Hadn't happened in 40 years! Could you send me a form? Never even seen one!"
Well, if you have internet access, you can download it from our website, that would be best, because you know, deadlines and all that.
"Oh of course, would you mind guiding me through that?"
(...)
"Oh, it's pink! That's really cute! But, my printer is only black and white... Will that be alright?"
Yes, absolutely fine, don't worry. 
(*) "You are ringing the Town Hall of City-Village. We're open from 10:42 to 10:48 on Saturday nights, but only if it's a full moon. You cannot leave a message after the beep, you cannot send us an email or a fax. You can try to send us a letter, but if it gets to us on a day when the birds have flown west, we will burn it and curse you with a most painful death".
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Latest reply: Nov 29, 2014
SF's NaJoPoMo 28th November - Mini-Mairies
Posted Nov 28, 2014
Continued from November 27th Journal.
So, big towns and cities send their events through the mighty internet.
Smaller towns and villages, though, still use paper forms.
We have specific time frames to enter them into the database.
The births are the most urgent, as the baby doesn't have a social security number until we've created it. 
Deaths are a little less of an emergency, but as long as the person is still alive in our computers, their pension and other such rights are still valid, so it's a bit of a problem if social services have to ask money back from a widow because we weren't fast enough... 
Weddings are not urgent at all, but the sooner the better.
We get very few paper forms concerning births, because most of them happen in hospitals, and those are in big towns that have computerized their systems.
But we do have a few every month, home births, that we type up into the software ourselves so they are taken into account as early as possible.
I once had a case where we were missing a birth from several months before, because the baby was born in the ambulance 
on the road between two villages, and noone was quite sure which village had to declare it. We did finally manage to get the baby's identity created, but it was a bit of an adventure...
Most of the paper we get is death forms.
If the time frame is good (which it is, most of the time), we send them to a firm that does automated reading : magical computers read the forms and enter them into the database, and they then return the forms to us for archiving.
And for checking too, because, as with the computerised files from the big towns, the machine doesn't always find the relevant person in the database. Maybe the name's spelt wrong, or the automated reader thingy couldn't decypher the birthdate.
So we check. That usually involves calling the city's civil status offices and asking for precisions or proofs.
90% of them go through just fine, though. *wipes brow*
When the deadline for integrating the death is too close we enter it manually the same way as births.
Weddings are treated the same, except there's no time frame for them, so whatever the date of the wedding, we send them in for automated reading.
Phone calls to the towns' offices is a whole story in itself, and shall be dealt with tomorrow.
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Latest reply: Nov 28, 2014
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