Laurette Long

The Palace of Love

‘I think this calls for something really special.’ Edward had a gleam in his eye. ‘Maybe ‘special’ like lunch at the Grand Palais?’
Caroline shrieked, stood on tiptoe and gave him a kiss. Jill, who had got as far as the bottom of the stairs, gave another whoop.
‘The Grand Palais? Is that that pink thingy on the cliff with the fifty-foot gates? Will we get in? Do you have to bribe the chef? Caro, what are you going to wear?’
Extract from ‘Hot Basque’
In the ‘French Summer Novels’ the Hôtel du Palais*, sometimes referred to as ‘le Grand Palais’, makes a star appearance. This amazing building is the perfect romantic symbol. The original construction, the Villa Eugénie, was commissioned in 1854 by Napoléon III, Emperor of France, as a love token for his Spanish-born bride, Eugénie. From the windows of this summer residence, built in the shape of an E, she could look out towards the Pyrenees and her native country. The yearly visits of the royal couple and their entourage would shape the destiny of Biarritz, transforming it from a little-known fishing village to the ‘The Queen of Resorts and the Resort of Kings.’ **

Plage du Phare. The Villa Eugénie was built overlooking this beach

María Eugenia Ignacia Agustina de Palafox-Portocarrero de Guzmán y Kirkpatrick was born in Spain in 1826. Did she ever dream that that her romantic destiny was to become Empress of France? That one day she would be introduced to Louis Napoléon Bonaparte, that he would be struck by a coup de foudre, and that, after a two-year courtship involving some fancy footwork on the part of the heroine, she would finally get her man?
But the royal couple’s life together was not without its ups and downs. Napoléon was an unabashed Don Juan with an impressive list of mistresses. ‘L’empereur était volage…un incorrigible séducteur’, according to his biographers. Flighty, an inveterate seducer with an insatiable appetite for his ‘little distractions’, he reportedly said “It is usually the man who attacks. Personally, I defend myself, and I often capitulate.’
When Eugénie first appeared on the scene the beau monde was divided. Her detractors called her a ‘jumped up Spaniard’, ‘an ambitious adventuress’, while her supporters praised her ‘graciousness’ her ‘Spanish vivacity’ and striking beauty. What she thought about her poor husband having to beat off hordes of lovestruck women has gone on record when, at a famous soirée, he disappeared with a certain Mme de Castiglione. Seeing him return looking somewhat rumpled, Eugénie is said to have flown into a rage and heaped coals of wrath upon his head before the assembled guests. ***
No wonder he had to shower her with love tokens.

The imposing entrace to the Hôtel du Palais

‘As the barrier swung upwards, Jill clutched Caroline’s hand
‘Omigod…’
The taxi dropped them in front of the imposing entrance.
Caroline smiled at the look on Jill’s face as they stepped inside the foyer. She bet she’d looked exactly the same one year ago, when they first came for cocktails.
Le Grand Palais. Its interior breathed luxury, elegance and refinery. The opulent belle époque decor was so packed with tiny details, carvings, mouldings, delicate traceries of goldleaf that it could have been overwhelming. But the romantic history of the palace made everything seem quite fitting. A gift from an Emperor to his beloved, it was perfect. Marble pillars, magnificent teardrop chandeliers suspended from lofty ceilings, glittering fractals of light reflected from dozens of mirrors, all transported the beholder back to a vanished world.
‘I’m in a Renoir painting,’ said Jill. ‘Really. Do you know that one, Caro…’Dance in the City’, there’s this woman in a beautiful white satin ballgown and long white gloves, dancing with this bloke…a dark handsome stranger, a bit like Antoine now I think of it…’
Caroline nodded. It was easy to imagine a sea of dancers waltzing through the magnificent salons, across the shining floors, past the painted frescoes, pausing to chat among the palm trees and flowers. Easy to succumb to the magic, and dream.’

Empress Eugénie wearing a gown designed by Charles Frederic Worth Wikimedia Commons

Empress Eugénie wearing a gown designed by Charles Frederic Worth
Wikimedia Commons

In the portrait on the left Eugénie is wearing a gown by the father of haute couture, Charles Worth. She became his most famous client, launching a new vogue in fashion. Seeing her dresses, fashionistas in Europe and America would order la tournure, or bustle, when visiting their dressmaker: the era of the crinoline was over.
And modern fashionistas? For their chic lunch date, Caroline wears a dress of ‘vivid scarlet’. It was ‘fitted, emphasising her small round breasts and tiny waist. High-necked, and plain except for ruched cap sleeves.’ Jill wears ‘a dress in black and white georgette, the sleeves and low neckline picked out in satin which threw Jill’s velvety skin into relief. It fell semi-fitted to a slightly flared hemline, just above the knee. The bold black and white vertical stripes drew attention to her voluptuous bosom and flat stomach.’
Will hot Basque Antoine be impressed?
‘Ah, Irish. You are more beautiful zan last night. And last night you were very very beautiful.’
Aaah. Some men know just what to say to women.
Of course there’s no way our fictional heroines could have rivalled Eugénie in terms of jewelry. The Empress had a stupendous collection which included the famous Pelegrina pearl, another gift from Napoléon (what had he done?), reputed to be the most perfect pearl in the world. As part of its legend, it became famous once more in 1969, playing a role in a love story that thrilled fans everywhere when Richard Burton bought it for Elizabeth Taylor as a Valentine’s Day gift. (Actually, she lost it, and only after searching the room frantically for the priceless bauble did she recover it–from the mouth of one her Pekingese dogs…)
‘Shaded from the sun by a vast awning, the terrace seemed to overhang the sea, so close that you could almost dive in…. below, in a panoramic sweep, the Atlantic spread before them, filling the graceful curve of the bay as far as the opposite promontory.
On their visit last summer they had chosen the house cocktails, the Emperor and the Empress. Caroline remembered sharing complicit looks with Edward, their relationship was just starting to blossom, she had been filled with unbearable happiness.

‘Good,’ said Antoine, ‘Emperors and Empresses for one day. Let us dream.’

He may not have the Peregrina pearl up his sleeve, but he’s got the sexiest French accent, not to mention other assets, as Jill soon finds out…

To raise a toast to all romantic dreamers, ‘Hot Basque’ is on special offer at $ 0.99, £0.79 and €0.99 (from 26th May, limited time only)

* http://www.hotel-du-palais.com/
**for more about Biarritz see my blog post February 2015, ‘Biarritz’.
***‘Les Couples Royaux dans l’Histoire’ Jean-François Solnon, Broché.

What’s in a Name?

This month sees the bicentenary of the birth of one of the world’s greatest novelists, Charlotte Brontë, April 21st 1816-March 31^st 1855. Her remains lie in the family vault in the church of Saint Michael and All Angels, Haworth.

The Brontës have been much on my mind in recent months. Not just because of the bicentenary but because I was born in Halifax, in Yorkshire’s West Riding, where the Brontë legend is part of the air breathed in by every newborn. Also, Haworth is the setting for my new novella ‘The Passage of Desire’.

I grew up in a small industrial town not far from the moors. There were still some dark satanic mills about in which my forefathers (and mothers) had toiled, but there was the open countryside nearby, the heather and the skylarks. An ideal place to mooch with your best friend and share the delicious angst of being a fourteen-year-old misunderstood aesthete in a world of philistines.

Obscurely we felt there must be something, some mystical bond, linking us to those three great sisters who revolutionised English literature. Maybe a long-lost relative who—if we could only find the birth certificates in a musty old box in Grandma’s back bedroom—would turn out to be an actual member of the Brontë family, hitherto undiscovered, plunging us instantly into literary fame-by-association?

My family had lots of stories to tell about our ancestors. The legends were usually dusted off for Christmas and brought out with the turkey and the sherry. They caused the usual eye-rolling among the younger generation, hunched in their chairs, waiting for the dreaded moment they’d be called upon to start off the charades or strum ‘Little Donkey’ on the guitar. Most stories involved scandal, at least one bend sinister, and acquired extra bells and whistles over the years. They were long, involved and accompanied by raised voices and dramatic action which sometimes resulted in chairs getting knocked over. A song might be thrown in, a capella, or with piano accompaniment.

But in the 1840s (here, breath would be held) there was one brush with literary fame. Great Great Aunt Mary (or Martha or Phoebe) got a job as a housekeeper in Haworth. Yes, Haworth! Did she ever bump into those famous sisters as she hurried down the cobbled streets, shawl tight against the wind? Maybe even dropped by the Parsonage to give Emily a hint on plot development? Again, history was disappointingly vague on this subject. However, it seems her path did cross that of their brother, as, somehow or another, our family acquired a silver-mounted walking stick belonging to Branwell Brontë himself. (One version of the story had Branwell leaving it behind after too many drinks at The Black Bull Inn. But that was later expurgated.)

The missing link remained missing, alas. But the Brontë influence remained. And so, in this third book in the French Summer Novels series, I wanted to try something different. My thoughts kept returning to the brooding moors and wild storms of ‘Wuthering Heights’, that mythic story of doomed love and violent passion that has seized the imagination of readers since it was published in 1847. When Cathy says: ‘Nelly, I am Heathcliff!’ she is uttering, according to Simone De Beauvoir, ‘the cry of every woman in love.’

Nelly, I am Heathcliff! He's always, always in my mind...not as a pleasure...but as my own being. — Nelly, I am Heathcliff! He’s always, always in my mind…not as a pleasure…but as my own being.

The problem was, how to relate a Yorkshire family to the characters of the two preceding romantic novels?

The answer came in the form of Alexandra, the mother of Caroline and Annabel, killed in a car crash when her daughters were little. What was her story? In ‘The Passage of Desire’, we take a step into the past and meet Alexandra in her mid-thirties, on her way north to spend a holiday with her best friend Juliet. What happens during that summer will have dramatic repercussions on the lives of both the women and their families.

Path across the moors — The end of the road

Now that it’s almost time to say goodbye to the characters, the anxieties have come rushing in. The usual suspects—is the book a load of rubbish? Will anybody like it? Is it too much of a departure from the first two? ‘Maybe I should just scrap it’—along with other minor wobbles. Context for example. Have I got the details right? We’re back in the early nineties, people didn’t have mobile phones or Skype, the Internet was in its infancy. What did people wear in those days? What did they drive? This is always a tricky one for me. ‘What sort of car do your neighbours have?’ Answer: ‘A grey one’. In ‘Hot Basque’ I had my hero behind the wheel of a Renault Picasso. It was only thanks to eagle-eyed best friend and beta reader Elizabeth that I changed ‘Renault’ to ‘Citroen’, thus escaping scorn and ridicule from autophile Amazon reviewers. Then there was the time I decided to change a character’s name after the entire manuscript was finished and ready to upload. No panic, easy peasy, click the command on Word and tell it what to do. Find ‘Mark’ and replace with ‘Liam’. Go! It went. Fortunately I did yet another read-through before clicking the Publish button:

Chapter 15

‘What beautiful weather,’ Margaret reliamed.’

Huh?

‘They decided to take a trip to the liamet town of Liamet Harborough.’

Oh no! Oh yes. Hundreds of them.

Why did I decide to change Mark to Liam? Names have always been a problem for me. Faced with a myriad of possibilities, my imagination freezes. The heroine. Her name is pretty damn important. Charlotte, Emily, Anne, Catherine, Jane, Emma, Elizabeth, Scarlett. Been there done that cross them all off. Peaches, Brooklyn, Hilton, one day they’ll be stuck in a time warp, like padded shoulders and big hair. Sigh. How about…Eleanor? That sounds promising. I like Eleanor. Wait, there was that woman at work, years ago, the one who used to chew with her mouth open, you can’t give your heroine the same name as someone whose back molars you were once intimately acquainted with. Gwendoline? Hang on, didn’t you just see a Gwendoline in a book you read a few weeks ago on the Kindle? Or was that Gwenllian ? Anyway too risky, plagiarism, quelle horreur. Films! Not the big Hollywood stars at the beginning, fast-forward to that endless list of names that rolls up when the DVD is finished and you’re just putting your slippers back on and brushing the biscuit crumbs off the sofa. The Clapper Loader, the Gaffer, the Best Boy, all those five zillion special effects people…That’s handy, the Maître de Maison has left a disc inside the machine…just a minute, why are all these names Hungarian? What’s he been watching now? Oh. ‘The Martian’.

Inspiration strikes. The bookcase! Elementary cher Watson, millions of names on those shelves…no, not ‘Beowulf’, move along, how about ‘Moll Flanders’, hello, this must be my student copy, did I really write those cringe-worthy notes in the margin? ‘Moral sense, ‘uncertainty,’ ‘resigned acceptance of hard truth’? That can go back for a start.

Dickens! There’s my man! A thousand and one unforgettable characters! Names galore! Mr Snawley, Master Wackford, Sir Mulberry Hawk, Lord Verisopht, Miss LaCreevy, Miss Knagg, Miss Snevellici (was he on something, our Charles?) Smike…oh poor tragic Smike! It’s the bit where he’s just leaving Miss LaCreevy’s house and heading off to Bow….oh no, he’s been caught again by the loathsome sadist Mr Squeers who’s going to haul him back to Dotheboys Hall! He’s boxing his ears and slapping his face!

‘Poor Smike ‘warded off the blows as well as he could’…‘stunned and stupefied’ with ‘no friend to speak to or advise with.’

Don’t you just love Dickens? In fact maybe I’ll take a wee break and read what happens next. In fact maybe I’ll just leave the name-search till later. Tomorrow is another day.

And that’s another story.

For the importance of stories in our personal and professional lives check out ‘Story for Leaders,’ written by writer, actor, singer and business innovator extraordinaire , David Pearl. All proceeds go to the non-profit making social business ‘Street Wisdom’:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Story-Leaders-David-Pearl/dp/0993501109

http://www.streetwisdom.org/

PS I have a beautiful new cover for ‘Hot Basque’ (on the left). Thank you GX and Caroline at:

http://graphiczxdesigns.zenfolio.com/

Hate Story. Brussels 22 March 2016

Tintin weeps for Brussels. Image courtesy of Sylvain Gran'maison http://fono.ca/about/ — Tintin weeps for Brussels. Image courtesy of Sylvain Grand’Maison
http://fono.ca/about/

Last month’s blog, ‘Love Story’, related the story of a dog and how she was rescued by compassionate friends. Pace all sceptics of anthropomorphism, I am sure she understands what happened to her and now returns the same affection to those who transformed her life.

Last week, a little over a month after posting ‘Love Story’, live images from Brussels began to appear on our TV sets. At first it was hard to believe that what we were seeing was real; then came the realization that the scenes of suffering on the screen were not due to some terrible accident, but the result of acts of gratuitous hatred and cruelty. They were a flashback to what we had also seen, and at first been unable to believe, in November 2015 in Paris. As news came in of the explosions at the airport and metro, dazed survivors stumbled on screen, repeating the same words: ‘scènes d’horreur’, ‘l’enfer’, ‘le chaos’ ‘un cauchemare’. Scenes of horror, Hell, chaos and nightmare. Stunned passengers picked their way through dark tunnels, children sobbed and screamed, a paramedic stood, immobile, head in hands.

When it became impossible to watch I turned for answers to the words of one of France’s greatest writers.

The chateau de Montaigne in the Périgord region of France became home to the Montaigne family in 1477. Today, visitors can still see the tower which housed the library of the great Renaissance humanist, Michel De Montaigne and in which he worked, surrounded by paintings and books:

“I look out on my garden and farmyard, my courtyard and most of the house. I leaf through one book, then another, in no particular order and with no specific aim, sometimes I dream, sometimes I take notes and, wandering about, I dictate my reveries which are here set down for you.’

Montaigne (1533-1592) led a high-profile public life. He was a magistrate, served as the mayor of Bordeaux, played an active part in negotiations during the devastating wars of religion during which he lived, and travelled extensively in Europe. But the world remembers him as the author of the famous ‘Essais’, written over the last twenty years of his life, and which would impress generations to come by their profound insights into the human condition.

In attempting to understand who we are, Montaigne first applied his astonishing erudition by examining different topics from the standpoint of previous writers and philosophers. He then added to the mix his own personal experiences, giving the essays their unique and fascinating flavour: ‘Others form man, I only report him’, ‘I myself am the subject of my book’, and, he adds, had circumstances been otherwise, he would willingly have painted himself ‘in the fullest nudity.’*

Inspired by those who came before him and an inspiration to those who followed, Montaigne’s contemplative, meandering prose, studded with examples from daily life like the illuminations in a book of hours, is a true pleasure to read. It is also full of compassion and tolerance, and, like the works of Shakespeare, writing just after him, astonishingly modern in its relevance. He moves with ease from lofty, abstract subjects such as death, solitude, education and friendship, to the engagingly down-to-earth, discoursing on drunkenness or the intractability of the male organ, rising when it shouldn’t and refusing to rise when it should: (Car je vous donne à penser , s’il y a une seule des parties de notre corps qui ne refuse à notre volonté souvent son opération et qui souvent ne l’exerce contre notre volonté.’(Book I Ch 21)

Of particular relevance to the events of last Tuesday are his reflections on the subject of cruelty (Book II). For Montaigne, cruelty is the worst of all vices. ‘Je hay entre autres vices, cruellement, la cruauté…’ And not just cruelty between human beings, but also cruelty to animals. He cannot bear to see ‘a chicken have its throat cut’ nor hear the whimpers of ‘a hare in my dog’s teeth’. In the following chapter ‘An Apology for Raymond Sebond’ he returns to the subject of animals again, starting by attacking man’s arrogant presumptuousness, his ‘natural and original illness’. In our ‘divine’ presumption, he writes, we consider ourselves superior to animals who are ‘our fellows and companions’. Yet it is often such ‘morally superior’ beings who show themselves to be capable of terrible cruelty. Citing the example of the Romans who, starting with spectacles showing the slaughter of animals then progressed to the slaughter of men, he expresses the fear that nature has ‘attached’ to man some ‘instinct toward inhumanity’. No one, he says, takes pleasure in watching animals play together while everyone enjoys seeing them “s’entredéchirer et desmembrer“, dismember and tear each other to pieces.

Many people remarked on this aspect of the Paris attacks, where the terrorists specifically targeted people who were out to enjoy themselves-an evening with friends, a football match, a concert-people who were there to ‘s’entrejouer’ and who finished by being torn to pieces and dismembered.

One hundred and thirty people died in those attacks. This weekend the world has been remembering the latest victims of man’s ‘instinct toward inhumanity’, the 35 dead and 340 injured, their grieving families and friends, all those who suffered and died at the hands of other, ‘morally superior’, beings: the cruel authors of ‘Hate Story’, written in Brussels.

‘I have the tenderest compassion for others’ afflictions…Nothing tempts my tears but tears.’ Michel de Montaigne

A special thanks to Sylvain Grand’Maison for permission to use his striking illustration:

https://twitter.com/sgrandmaison

*Montaigne’s writing is accessible on the internet from a multitude of sources, varying according to the different editions/translations of his works. I’ve used the following sources to check the accuracy (or not) of French and English versions, with most of the latter being freely (and possibly incorrectly) translated by myself.

http://www.gutenberg.org/author/Montaigne,+Michel+de

This excellent free site offers several versions of Montaigne’s works in French and English.

www.livrefrance.com

Offers editions of various authors for a small fee.

https://wordscene.wordpress.com/2013/10/18/looking-at-the-world-from-the-tower-visiting-montaigne/

Visit this lovely site to read more about Montaigne’s tower and see some beautiful photos.

Love Story, or: the big doggy poopoo

Look into those melting eyes. The look of love?

This tender-hearted beauty is our neighbour’s dog Indie, also known as Indiq, Q being the Breton diminutive for ‘little’ Indie. And, in a Valentine weekend special, this is her story. (Warning to softies, have the Kleenex handy.)

It was a bitter winter’s night. The snow was coming down in huge white whirling gusts, the wind wuthering like a wild creature around an isolated farmhouse in the Tarn.

Indoors, Monsieur and Mme Dupont were sitting in the kitchen, toasty warm in front of a crackling log fire. Suddenly Mme D. heard a sound, like a child whimpering. She cocked her head to one side, listened. There it was again! She looked at her husband, threw a shawl hurriedly round her shoulders and drew back the bolts on the ancient creaking wooden door.

‘Oh là là! Gustave !’ she cried.

Peering over her shoulder, Monsieur Dupont gave an exclamation of pity mingled with horror. (Probably something like ‘Nom d’une pipe!’) Bending down he scooped the tiny bundle into his strong farmer’s arms and cradled it close to his broad, farmer-like chest.

‘Where can he have come from?’ said Mme D, heating warm milk for the tiny waif.

‘I do not know. But look at these pose.’

‘Pose?

‘Yes, pose, four of them on the end of its feet.’

(Film buffs will have cottoned on that M. Dupont speaks English with the same accent as Inspector Clouseau. Why he was suddenly speaking English to his French wife is irrelevant to the narrative.)

Mme D. pressed her hands to her mouth and tears of pity filled her eyes.

‘But they are covered with blisters! ‘

‘Yes. This little deug has walked for miles. And it’s a she, by the way.’

Here I am obliged to confess (in case the neighbours read this blog) that most of the above is somewhat exaggerated, not to say a pack of downright lies. However the most important bit is true. Our neighbours did, really, truly, discover a puppy at their gate, her paws worn out, panting with exhaustion. They already had two dogs, two horses and a cat so after scratching their heads they put her in the car and drove round the local farms to try to find out where she’d come from. Finally they found the right place and this is what they discovered.

The puppy’s mother had died shortly after giving birth. Fortunately one of the other farm dogs had a litter of her own and seemed to accept the idea of suckling the orphan. However the cruel laws of nature being what they are, when Step-Mum decided she’d done her bit for social services, she informed all her offspring (via some kind of canine communication system) that it was time to stand on their own four paws and go off and herd a few sheep.

The kids got the message, all apart from Puppy, who was turning out to be a big soppy softie, a bit of a clinger. Sterner measures were called for. Step-Mum opted for some tough love and took to disappearing at high speed into the woods, trying to shake off her adoring step-child. The farmer noticed she would return alone, a satisfied gleam in her eye, but then, hours later, a bedraggled Puppy would stumble back and flop at her side with an adoring look. This continued up until the day that Step-Mum finally succeeded, and Puppy found herself lost and abandoned in front of our neighbour’s gate.
What to do? The bottle of pastis came out and there was a pow-wow. Our neighbours had a soft-hearted niece (who incidentally lives next door to us), maybe if she saw Puppy…?

Honestly now, who could have resisted that two-month-old Disney version of cute doghood, with its silky black and caramel coat, little white bib, rose-petal-pink tongue, and chocolate eyes?

The waif was taken in and named Indie, in honour of the famous cinematic adventurer.

Boy, Indie had really fallen on her paws. All these people to make a fuss, play with her, give her puppy chews, tickle her tummy, it was doggy paradise! Better still Maman and Papa didn’t have any other dogs, just human children, who, she quickly learnt, were in fact her very own adoring Aunties and Uncles, otherwise known as the Slaves. Overnight she switched from being the runt outsider to the worshipped only child. She fell in lerv. Deep lerv.

And there were fringe benefits. Her doggy brain had registered the existence of two other houses nearby, no dogs there either. Perhaps she could acquire these as sort of second and third residences, places she could drop into for a mid-afternoon snack of juicy ham bone or saucisse de Toulouse? And these neighbours, sitting outside on summer evenings, had nothing to do except throw sticks! It was so exciting that she forgot what Step-Mum had taught her about walking properly, one foot in front of another and just bounced round on all four paws at a time, boing! boing! boing!

The months passed. Cute little Indie grew bigger. And bigger. In fact she began to bear an alarming resemblance to the Hound of The Baskervilles. But, in spite of her habit of sneaking up behind you as you were pruning the lavender and nearly giving you a heart attack, we all agreed that this growth spurt was a good thing, a great burglar deterrent. Unfortunately, in spite of her impressive musculature, even more impressive fangs, and the way she powered through the fields chasing rabbits like a rampaging rhino, her personality remained unchanged. Burglars? Did they have a beef chew in their pockets perhaps? Would they rub her tummy if she rolled on her back? Would they like a lick or a nudge from her wet doggy nose? Would they love her like maman et papa? Our neighbours should have called her Valentine.

But Indie is not just a dog who wants to be loved. She’s a sharer. Obviously Maman and Papa are top of her list, Aunties and Uncles next, but she’s anxious not to leave anyone out. This is why, in the last few weeks, she has intensified her ‘be nice to the neighbours’ campaign. How do I love thee, let me count the ways, let me shower you with gifts…

Now you may remember, if you read the last blog, that I am currently engaged in a literary tussle with the Muse, Divine Eureka, and the leading lady of my current oeuvre, the ghost of Alexandra. Concentration is essential. Which is why, a couple of weeks ago, I was not happy to be startled out of my trance by a demented howl from below.

‘Oh non! Merrrrde!’

A flood? A lighting bolt? An escaped bull?

I raced downstairs to find the Maître de Maison standing in the garden with a face like thunder.

‘What? What?’

His Maitreship merely pointed, finger quivering with accusation.

I went to inspect. Nestling coyly behind a large bush was a gift from Indie. A large gift from Indie. The first. But not the last.

We were on the list. Maman and Papa had already received numerous love-tokens, the most impressive being a half-digested rabbit regurgitated at the feet of Auntie, who suddenly came over all faint. Over the following days faithful Indie got into the habit of dropping off early morning gift packages chez nous. Now, not to boast, but we obviously possess the gift of dog-whispering. Had we not trained Indie in a matter of seconds how to sit and count to three before leaping into the air to catch her doggy treats? Surely it was just a matter of more whispering into her floppy ear. Kind of menacing growling whispers.

‘Come here! Look! Bad girl! Bad girl! Nasty poopoo. Grrr.’

But this time it didn’t seem to be working. Indie acquired a permanently mournful look as she tried to work out what was wrong. Maybe what was needed were extra morning deliveries, closer to the doorstep?

Finally we caved in and ratted her out to a horrified Papa and Maman. Would it get as far as an ASBO? Indie would sit with her head on one side as a frowning Papa pointed with his shovel at the lavender bush. Then she would slope off at his heels, throwing a last reproachful glance at the two snitches hiding behind the curtains.

This week, as Valentine ’s Day approaches, we have noticed an improvement. The gifts are diminishing both in frequency and size. For the last couple of days, the lavender bush has held no murky secrets.

Clever girl, that Indie. In fact I can see her now, from the window, giving the lavender a wide berth. Wait a minute, why is she sniffing round that tree? Indie! Indie!

Merrrde…

A very Happy Valentine’s weekend to all!

I have not forgotten you, Biarritz Passion is FREE for 2 days, 13th and 14th Feb! Forget the rainy weather and enjoy romance in France….

http://www.amazon.com/Biarritz-Passion-French-Summer-Novel- ebook/dp/B00J2ERSSM

http://www.amazon.fr/Biarritz-Passion-French-English-Edition-ebook/dp/B00J2ERSSM

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Biarritz-Passion-French-Summer-Novel-ebook/product-reviews/B00J2ERSSM

Finally a very big thank you, merci beaucoup, to Bernard Arini at

http://www.bernieshoot.fr/2016/02/

who kindly invited me to appear on his blog. Check it out!

Despatches and Hatches. Omens and Portents.

Au revoir 2015. Bonjour 2016.

Living in France sometimes has unexpected benefits. Like, for example, having the whole of January in which to express your New Year greetings. Yes, you can dally along, whistling, until January 30^th then leap to the phone and cry: ‘Bonne Année! Bonne santé! Meilleurs voeux!’ to all those friends poised to cross you off their dinner invitation list.

So, in the time-honoured tradition of my adoptive country, and well within the deadline, let me begin this blog by wishing a very sincere Bonne Année to one and all. And another wish: may 2016 be a happier year than 2015. Foolishly optimistic? Perhaps. But looking out of the window on January 2^nd this is what I saw:

Omen 1. Somewhere... — Omen 1. Somewhere…

There are other advantages to this tradition of month-long well-wishing. One is that it gives you a chance to get over the turkey fatigue, another is that by the time you’ve got to the last name on your Bonne Année list, one of the most depressing months of the year is drawing to a close. The garden may look bare and bleak, but there are invisible stirrings, you just know the worms and beetles are at it underground, Tolkien-like creatures tilling the soil and helping those elvishly ethereal snowdrops and crocuses to spring forth. No sign of green shoots as yet, but last week, a neighbour brought round a few sprigs of winter daphne, and the whole house was suddenly redolent of spring.

Omen 2. Daphne Odora. O Wind, if winter comes, can Spring be far behind?

So, January, it’s not all bad. In fact it has often been surprisingly productive for me in terms of writing, character and plot-hatching, and so forth. Of course there could be other reasons for this surge of activity aside from an atavistic urge to emulate worms and snowdrops. In January you can’t loll on the patio sipping pina coladas and waiting for the steaks to grill. Not in the Tarn anyway, where a lot of time is spent sitting by the fire, staring into the flames and letting your thoughts wander. But whatever the reason, the nouvelle année has nudged me into trying something new.

I should have been writing up the notes for Book 3 in the “French Summer Novel” series. But something was holding me back (no, this is not a feeble excuse about bionic hips and stoic suffering). That ‘something’ had been tugging at the curtains of my mind since finishing “Hot Basque”, a sort of Hamlet’s ghost moaning plaintively off-stage. It definitely moaned louder after the September anaesthetic wore off and in November the phantom finally stepped forth from the wings holding a lantern. The face was familiar. The apparition grew brighter and started to wave and suddenly I recognised Alexandra, mother of Caroline and Annabel, despatched well before the beginning of Book 1 in a fatal car accident.

‘Remember me!’ she quavered. ‘Tell my story! Time those skeletons came out of the family cupboard!’

I pointed out that I was busy planning a wedding for Caroline and skeletons were inappropriate guests but sometimes characters have a mind of their own.

And so the idea of a backstory gradually emerged. The ideas kept coming, Alexandra kept quavering, and I kept waving my lucky rabbit’s foot in the air and invoking Divine Eureka, she of the inspirational hot flashes. ‘Please Your Divineness let the light-bulbs keep popping on the cakewalk of the imagination! Thanks to your mercy I am now 20,000 words into “When Your Heart’s On Fire”, my…my…’ My what?

The backstory was more of a sketch than a portrait. Was it a short story? No, too long. A novel then? No. Too short. Maybe a novella? Er…what exactly is a novella?

A thousand light-bulbs pop on the Cakewalk, Ste Marie Pyrenées Orientales

Here dear readers permit me a fascinating digression. When we settle down with a book we know straight off whether it’s a novel or a short story. “War and Peace” is a novel. “The Snows of Kilimanjaro” is a short story. But what about those things in between, novellas/nouvelles/short novels/novelettes, that inhabit what Stephen King described as ‘a really terrible place, an anarchy-ridden literary banana republic’?

https://mmunovellaaward.wordpress.com/2014/03/15/stephen-king-on-novellas/

If you look on the internet, you’ll discover an amazing amount of disagreement about what constitutes a novella, which is handy if you think you’ve written one and other people don’t. Artistic considerations aside (plot and character development, style, tone etc, a discussion which would run to several pages), one of the main problems concerns the length, particularly if you’re offering it to a publisher. Publishers measure in words, and publishers, writers and literary critics all have different ideas about how many words constitute a novella.

As I was musing on this in relation to Alexandra’s story the following link popped up:

http://www.wcusd15.org/morrissey/greatliterature.htm

This is a paper with suggestions about what might go into a high-school literature curriculum. The author, Ted Morrissey, looks at the length of various works, then, using definitions by writers and critics, establishes what he calls ‘some benchmarks’:

-short story: 500 to 15,000 words.

-novella: 30,000 to 50,000*

-novel: 50,000 words upwards.

So what does this mean in concrete terms? He lists some commonly taught novels: “To Kill a Mockingbird” (104,250 words), “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” (108,575 words), “Jane Eyre” (191,500); then two short stories: “Bartleby, the Scrivener” (13,692 words), and “The Fall of the House of Usher” (6,710 words), finishing with two novellas: “Heart of Darkness” (37,746 words) and “Wide Sargasso Sea” (45,499 words).

But what about the following?

“Death in Venice”. I had always remembered this as a novel. In fact it’s 28,770 words. OK, well it felt as long as a novel. A long novel. Next: “The Old Man and the Sea”. Hmm. Difficult, long time since I read it. Was it one of Hemingway’s short stories? No. Longer. 24,191 words. “Breakfast at Tiffany’s”, easy, that’s the novel they turned into THAT film, with Audrey Hepburn. Wrong. Only 26,433 words. Mathematically-inclined readers will already have their hands up, having spotted the numerical gap. These three works, ‘odd-ducks’ Morrissey calls them, fall between the 15,000 word limit for short stories and the 30,000 kick off for a novella. They are denizens of a ‘literary no man’s land’.

But time to leave all those fascinating internet discussions and go back to the question that started everything off.

Will Alexandra’s story turn out to be a novella? According to the above criteria it needs at least another 10,000 words before becoming a citizen of King’s ‘anarchy-ridden literary banana republic’. Or will it be an odd-duck, waddling through the mud of a literary no-man’s land?

Something tells me I’m not really going to get a say in this. The final decision about when the story ends is going to be made by Alexandra’s ghost, shouting ‘Au diable with wordcounts, that’s it, curtain!’

And just how important are these literary labels anyway?

In a wonderful interview on the Southbank show (June 2015), George R.R. Martin talks about ‘genres’. For him, ‘a genre is a matter of furniture’ ; whether the setting is a castle with dragons or a spaceship in the future is not important; what really matters is the central notion of ‘the human heart in conflict with itself’.

http://winteriscoming.net/2015/11/24/george-r-r-martins-interview-on-the-south-bank-show/

Better write that quote on a piece of paper and pin it up over the desk. Labels, schmabels. Time to breathe a sigh of relief and get back to writing. Except…

Alexandra is not the only one involved in the new project, is she? What about Divine Eureka? It’s like the plumber having to work with the electrician to get the new bathroom finished. What if the Goddess gets into an Olympian sulk and throws the switch on all the light-bulbs? What if the cakewalk is plunged into blackness?

Help, where did I put the rabbit’s foot? ‘Oh, your Divineness, I was just going to sacrifice a goat but all I can see in the garden are bluetits, maybe the neighbour can …’

Just a minute…what does it say at the end of Morrissey’s paper? Something about the publisher…there it is…No! Yes! Read it for yourselves…

‘This article first appeared in…. ‘Eureka Studies in Teaching Short Fiction’… 😉

*Morrissey uses John Gardner’s definition, “The Art of Fiction, Notes on a craft for young writers” (Vintage 1991)

P.S. “Hot Basque”, in case you were wondering, is 104,700 words long, and all of them are FREE for download between 25 and 29 January! Talk about a pot of gold…

http://www.amazon.com/Hot-Basque-French-Summer-Novel-ebook/dp/B00XK2II3G

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Hot-Basque-French-Summer-Novel-ebook/dp/B00XK2II3G

http://www.amazon.fr/Hot-Basque-French-English-Edition-ebook/dp/B00XK2II3G

P.P.S. Trending! Trending! There’s a new picture relating to December’s blog! It’s a photo of the infamously famous Spot Bar, haunt of Dev Haskell, and was kindly contributed by one of the habitués of the neighbourhood in a rare moment of sobriety….

The Spot Bar aka Dev's office — The Spot Bar aka Dev’s office

Dear Santa, I’ll have mine black, hardboiled, with a yellow iris please.

Today’s blog gets passionate about three great 21st century Private Eyes to add to your holiday reading list.

In the beginning there was Sam Spade. The blond, yellow-eyed Satan. Then Philip Marlowe, the solitary knight pursing his own brand of justice. Hammet and Chandler begat the private investigator of the 1930s and 40s and the model for the hard-boiled noir post-pulp PI was stamped out in silhouette, wearing a trench coat and hat, smoking a cigarette in front of a pebbled glass door. The door led to the office, a desk with ashtray and a bottle-shaped drawer. Often the clients were pouty-lipped and misty-eyed, wearing silk stockings and tiny hats, clutching tinier handkerchiefs. Sometimes there was a secretary, sweet, feminine, loyal. When the chips were down and the tough guy got walloped by an angst-attack, she provided the back rub. She was the one who saw through the veils on the tiny hats, and knew that the lace-edged hankies were wet with crocodile tears.
We were hooked.

Other famous investigators followed, heirs to the originals, each with his own style: Lew Archer, Mike Hammer, Spenser, Travis McGee, Elvis Cole.

Now, in the second decade of the 21^st century, here are my three favourite newbies. Stick the ice cubes in the whisky, drop the needle on a scratched Billie Holiday LP and take a nibble at the following goodies…

http://www.amazon.com/Everyone-Burns-Time-Blood-Karma-ebook/dp/B008I6GXM2

In 2014 John Dolan created David Braddock. Ex-pat PI sans licence, therapist sans diploma, student of Buddhist philosophy and ‘marginal manic depressive’.

We meet him in the Mosquito Bar.

‘Oh, bugger. I had been hoping for a quiet evening.’
But trouble has a way of finding Braddock and his quiet evening turns into a bar brawl. There’s the familiar whiff of cheap booze, sweat, cigarette smoke, the usual fight over some dame in a red dress, the usual broken billiard cues and flying bottles. But this is noir à la Thailandaise. The dame in the dress is a guy; we are on Koh Samui, in the Gulf of Thailand. Here, in Chaweng, the narrow crowded streets ‘overflow with the invisible and innumerable longings of the human heart’, keeping our investigator busy following unfaithful spouses. Events take a nasty turn when he is called in by the police to help investigate a series of horrific burnt bodies; he will soon discover, as the opening quotation from Lord Buddha warns us, that ‘the whole world is burning’, including himself.
Aided by a supply of Bell’s, the collected works of Sherlock Holmes, the adventures of Alice in Wonderland and the cryptic utterances of his mentor, a cigarette-smoking Buddhist monk prone to speaking in riddles, Braddock struggles to connect the clues and ‘pierce the veil of reality’ in a world in which reality is fast unravelling. His different cases collide and rebound like billiard balls against a background of smoke, flames and tropical steam; he is haunted by erotic fantasies of his Balinese housekeeper, his flame-haired wife and his enigmatic married mistress, Kat; he becomes increasingly paranoid with the appearance of anonymous letters threatening to expose the affair to Kat’s husband.
“Kat and I are both such good liars, we really should be married. Either that or in politics.”
Things reach hysteria point when he is summoned before sinister Police Chief Charoenkul, the island’s Papa Doc. The Chief is worried; he suspects his wife is having an affair–will Braddock investigate? And so, shaken and guilty, Braddock embarks on his strangest case yet-‘the unreal experience of following Kat to Bangkok to try and catch myself sleeping with her’.
As with Hammett and Chandler, there’s all the action, suspense, sex and violence to make Everyone Burns a page-turner. But the main attraction is the characterisation. Standing out among a cast of compelling secondary characters is the lonely, Marlowesque figure of Braddock himself, peering into the fiery abyss of the human soul, fighting off karmic demons and keeping reality at bay with the help of various masks, his favourite being that of the smart-mouthed cynic. But occasionally the mask slips. Wandering the deserted beach he reflects on how much he loves Samui ‘in the wee small hours’, when ‘the broom of sleep has swept the revellers to their beds’. Then, he tells us, when ‘the moon-dusted sea murmurs in some long-forgotten tongue of the divine…my mind’s cynical crust cracks open a little…’
But reality kicks in.‘Fortunately I catch myself just in time before I dissolve completely into this schmaltz.’ There are cases to work, murders to solve, and justice to dispense, Braddock-style, as the story reaches its dramatic climax.
From Koh Samui to futuristic Gold Coast City, home to cognitives, repellers, snoops and telekenetics. Forget the flip-flopped inhabitants of Chaweng, the creatures walking these mean streets have cybernetic noses, red eyes and icicles sticking out of their bodies.

http://www.amazon.com/Dane-Curse-Black-Cape-Files-ebook/dp/B00THOWT0O
Helping to render justice unto the unjust is Matt Abraham’s PI, hard-boiled, soft-centred Dane Curse, who sprang into being in February 2015, tipping his hat to Hammet and Spillane, leaping off the pages with enough Ka-pows! Pops! and Whams! to make a tree sloth spring to attention. Dane has the hat, the coat and the bottle of whisky plus 21st C add-ons such as Special Powers that allow him to be thrown from tall buildings and bounce to his feet without a scratch, a shape-shifting car called Jane and a four-armed secretary with an unbeatable WPM rate. He’s been in the game for years, his clients the shadowy beings who can’t ask the cops for help, the dreaded Black Capes. Because Dane (a reformed Black Cape) believes that they’re people too, with mothers who love them and children who’ll miss them.
As in Playback, the story begins with an early-morning phone call and an unwelcome summons for our PI. In Dane’s case, it’s about a murder. But not just any old murder. The victim is Pinnacle, head of the City’s good guys, Leader of Team Supreme, Protector of the city, and Hero di Tutti SuperHeroes. Never again will Pinnacle worshippers admire his heavenly body shooting through the skies in its red and silver Wonderweave suit looking for wrongs to right and people to save.
And who’s the lucky guy chosen to solve the most difficult case of the century? You’ve got it.
Lined up against Dane is a team of formidable baddies: Apex predator Lynchpin, head of the Black Cape mafia, and his team of Super-Gorillas, crazy Director Humphries dreaming of paramilitary expansion, and new White Cape leader Glory Anna, out for..well, more glory.
In this race against the clock where the rhythm is thumpingly fast and classic retro meets sci-fi high tech we zoom through a city full of evocative echoes. Henchman’s, where ‘there are peanuts on the bar, hot tunes on the juke and somebody getting walloped every time the big hand hits twelve;’ swanky mansions where the guests wear tuxedos ‘as precise as Hong Kong math,’ places where ‘the smell of warm wood rot hung in the air thick like an old whore’s perfume’. When the saxo starts up and the femme fatale sashays in, she’s wearing ‘a long, tight black dress that pushed her fun parts up like a vanilla soufflé.’
We’re reminded of other places-‘the hallway had the same dirty spittoon and frayed mat, the same mustard walls, the same memories of low tide…’, and other dolls and dames-‘she was in oyster-white lounging pyjamas trimmed with white fur, cut as flowingly as a summer sea frothing on the beach of some small and exclusive island.’ (The Big Sleep)
But the ultimate question is–will Dane be able to solve a case with more twists and turns than a spiral staircase? This exhilarating, white-knuckle ride keeps readers guessing till the end. We find Dane in his office, indulging in a little morose philosophising and polishing off a bottle of whisky.
‘Outside my window the city, my city, was waking up.”
Once again his phone rings. And the staircase takes its final twist…

A wise gardener once advised me to plant one yellow iris in a bed of deep purple blooms. ‘That will make them all stand out’ he said. Maybe he was a former Buddhist monk.

http://www.amazon.com/Russian-Roulette-Dev-Haskell-Investigator-ebook/dp/B004V4AHYU
Meet the yellow iris. Mike Faricy’s PI Dev Haskell is the oldest kid on the block, first on the scene in 2011. He’s a rule breaker. A Kandy-Kolored Tangerine-Flake Streamline Baby with psychedelic highlights. The soundtrack to his life is jarring heavy metal, gunshots, screeching tyres and orgasmic moans. He inspires the nail-biting reader with the same panicked impulse learnt as a kid yelling fruitless warning to Batman and Co: ‘Don’t do it! Look behind you!! Run!!! Noooo!’ He’s the one-man answer to the multiple neuroses of Everywoman. Mum wants to take him home, bathe him and feed him chicken soup. Minxy Mistress wants him to rip off her micro-thong and beat her on the bottom with a copy of Hustler. Feminatrix wants to plant her Birkenstocks between his shoulder blades and beat him on the bottom with a copy of Sisters Unite.
We meet him in Russian Roulette, striking a familiar note:
‘I was sitting in the Spot bar minding my own damn business.’
Delete ‘the Spot bar,’ replace it with ‘my office’ and you get the picture: the Spot is where you can usually find Dev and somebody usually does.
‘I saw her come in the side door. Her perfume wafted over me like a plastic dry-cleaning bag.’
This particular 38DD bombshell is called Kerri, but it could be Nikki Kiki Patti Heidi or Lola depending on what page of what book you’re on. Poor Dev never stands a chance. These dames sink their teeth into him like Russians weightlifters biting into a Beluga caviar buttie. If he’s not in the Spot, the bedroom’s another option, his or somebody else’s, a fair number of the action scenes taking place on or around a mattress and involving two or more players, though he is sometimes found in solitary recumbence:
‘I was awake, but in lounging mode.’
When not in a bar or bed, Dev is somewhere in TwinCity, St Pauls, wearing a Saints cap. Frequently he’s at the police station, wearing handcuffs, or at the hospital wearing bandages and splints. He also investigates, an activity which sees him wandering around razor-wire enclosed car lots, graffiti-covered offices and desolate car parks, getting ‘up to (his) ass in alligators’ and tripping over mangled corpses that breed and decompose exponentially as the plot thickens. And thicken it does. Dev gets stood up, locked up, beaten up, chewed up, tied up, banged up, stitched up, set up, held up and blown up. This often results in a self-pitying whine: ‘What’s new? How about I’ve been shot, chased, arrested, poisoned and still got whisker burn on my inner thighs?’
Cheer up Dev. Nothing a glass of Jameson’s won’t cure. Remember Phil Marlowe when Captain Gregory asks him how he feels?
‘Swell,’ I said. ‘I was standing on various pieces of carpet most of the night, being bawled out. Before that I got soaked to the skin and beaten up. I’m in perfect condition.’
But that doesn’t prevent him-or Dev, or Dave, or Dane-from ultimately getting his man. Or woman.
Phil sums it up:‘I needed a drink…life insurance…a vacation. What I had was a coat a hat and a gun.’ (Farewell My Lovely) and Sam, a liver-coloured bruise on his head, tells it like it is:‘I know what I’m talking about…This is my city and my game…I’m in business here.’(The Maltese Falcon)

Discover the new cities, the new games and the new guys with the coat, the hat and the gun:
Dave, Dane and Dev. Simply unmissable.

Joyeux Noël to one and all!

PS Just put Biarritz Passion and Hot Basque on special Xmas offer – 99 cents/centimes/pence each! Forget the turkey, kick off your stilettos and escape to the wild Atlantic surf of the pays basque….

Resist

French Flag Photo courtesy of François Schnell, Flickr.

In July I wrote a blog about Paris. It began:

“Just back from two weeks in Paris, the most beautiful and evocative city on earth…City of Light, City of Love… the Seine and its bridges.”

I then went on to talk about a poem:

“…the melancholic poem about love and time by Guillaume Apollinaire that every student of the French Baccalauréat knows by heart, ‘Le Pont Mirabeau’.

On November 13 in Paris a gang of murdering cowards hiding behind Kalashnikovs turned their weapons on families and children enjoying an evening at the restaurant, on football fans enjoying a friendly game, on excited music fans enjoying a rock concert. Their aim was to turn the City of Light into the City of Darkness, the City of Love into the City of Hate and Fear.

It’s doubtful that these brutal, ignorant murderers had ever read Apollinaire’s poem, or indeed any other work of literature. They had surely never thrilled to the verses of Shakespeare, wept at the poetry of Homer; never shared the sufferings of Jean Valjean or Edmond Dantès.

And others like them, lashed to the ideology of terrorism and tyranny, will never, ever, understand why Allied planes, flying over occupied France in World War 2, dropped not just weapons to the maquis: fluttering down from the sky came thousands of copies of a poem, which would continue to inspire and uplift those men and women risking their lives in the fight against Nazi tyranny.

Its title was ‘Liberté, j’écris ton nom’ , Freedom, I write your name.

Written by poet and Resistance member Paul Eluard in 1942, its celebratory stanzas end with the following lines:

Et par le pouvoir d’un mot

Je recommence ma vie

Je suis né pour te connaître

Pour te nommer:

Liberté.

And through the power of one word

I begin my life again

I was born to know you

To name you:

Freedom.

This weekend the Eiffel Tower was cloaked in darkness as the world mourned the victims of November 13^th. But the darkness was temporary.

Last night the lights came on again as the Lady put on the colours of the tricolor demonstrating once again the regenerative power of one word:

Liberté.

In memory of the victims of the terrorist attack of November 13^th, 2015.

A complete version of Eluard’s poem can be read at:

http://www.poetica.fr/poeme-279/liberte-paul-eluard/

The Hippy Hippy Shakes

Last week Britain’s oldest woman, 112-year-old Mrs Gladys Hooper, got a new hip.

I read the news with interest having recently gone bionic myself.

How, I wondered, had Mrs Hooper reacted to the idea of being admitted to hospital, undergoing an anaesthetic, and having a new spare part fitted involving the use of drills, saws and files?

Naturally I had gleaned this information from Professor Google well before my own operation and was now a bit of an expert. Acetabular cups, femoral stems, greater trochanter, lesser trochanter-the vocabulary was down pat, I just needed to figure out how to put it into sentences. Hip surgery has apparently been carried out since the 19th century, but the man who revolutionised the technique 52 years ago was John Charnley, a surgeon with an engineering bent. His interest was piqued when a patient came to him with an unusual problem. He’d got a new hip, but each time he reached for the salt at meal times, his implant emitted an unpleasant squeak which quite put his wife off her dinner. Working at the Wrighton hospital in Lancashire, Charnley designed a new type of implant along with a surgical procedure that revolutionised the procedure and presumably saved a few marriages.

So there I was at my first hospital appointment armed with ten pages of incomprehensible notes. The surgeon gave a detailed explanation of what would happen (‘lots of blood’ ‘risk of embolism’ ‘staple up the wound’) while waving a model of a large ball and socket.

‘Any questions?’ he asked.

Hmm. Remember the opening scenes of Annie Hall? There’s Alvy Singer saying ‘I have a hyperactive imagination…my mind tends to jump around a little and have some trouble between fantasy and reality…’ It’s just after the bit where the young Alvy is taken to the doctor’s suffering from depression. The good doctor wants to know why. ‘Go on, tell him,’ says Mrs Singer.

“Alvy: The universe is expanding.”

The scene flashed through my mind, along with images from all those DVDs my nephew helpfully keeps me supplied with: The Towering Inferno, Earthquake, The Day After Tomorrow, Twister, Independence Day.

Any questions?

I had questions.

So, Doc, let’s see if I have it right. You’re gonna cut a big hole in my side, saw out my faithful old buddy of a hip and replace it with a cotyle insert fixed to the inner wall of the cotyle thereby forming one of the prothesis’s two articular surfaces in order to accommodate the femur head?

OK, Doc, let’s just suppose, as a matter of purely speculative interest, a fire were to break out in the middle of the op, just after you’d got the old hip out? So, the old hip’s in the rubbish bin covered in germs, you’re in the middle of chiselling down my lesser trochanter to a size four, and suddenly you’re engulfed in flames? And then I wake up hipless in the operating theatre and all there are all these firemen running around and a bunch of surgeons lying on the floor in singed gowns and an abandoned drill and a size four stem and ceramic head on the table just to my left?

Alright, so the inferno scenario’s unlikely, and I checked, there are no volcanoes in the vicinity, also the Med is 150 km away and I don’t think they have tsunamis down there, as for the little green men with antennae they seem to prefer New Mexico to the south of France, but, but–what about The Airport?? That would be Toulouse International airport with 70, 000 passengers and 8,500 take offs and landings per month? The one with the really big planes? Was it a good idea to build a new hospital just below the flight path? I’m just asking. I mean I was looking out of the waiting room window and boy, those close-ups of the A 380 undercarriage are pretty impressive, you can see every strut….

The surgeon was waiting.

‘No questions,’ I squeaked.

I may suffer from Singer Syndrome, but I’m also from Yorkshire, not Brooklyn. There are stereotypes to be upheld. Le flegme britannique, ‘If you can keep your head…’ etc. My hip was rigid, but so was my upper lip.

And so on September 23rd I awoke to find I had a new hip. There were no signs of men in brass helmets or A380 debris. All had gone well. I was just one more happy statistic in a huge industry.*

Just over three weeks later, as was widely reported in the British press, another statistic was added in St Mary’s Hospital in Newport UK. But this one went down in the history books, with Mrs Hooper beating 102-year-old John Randall by 10 years. Her 84-year-old son reported that, following the operation, ‘the patient was ‘listening to music and chatting away’ while a BBC reporter added ‘Mrs Hooper said she felt ‘somewhere near 80’ in age.’

http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-hampshire-34547263

Hats off, Gladys, you’re an inspiration to closet disaster neurotics worldwide. All best wishes for a brilliant recovery.

Un grand merci to the Man with the Saw, Dr J.M. Combes, the Man with the Needle, Dr N. Hernandez, and the medical team at the Clinique Médipole Garonne, Toulouse, especially Fiona, Stefan and Sébastien, working 12-hour shifts with a smile and a joke (most of them about England’s performance in the Rugby World Cup, ouch, now that really hurt.) And another grand merci to physiotherapist extraordinaire, Adéline, at the CMRF, Albi, and my three companions in rehab, Hubert, Laurent, and Bruno, who proved that laughter is indeed the best medicine. A speedy recovery to you all. Last, but certainly not least, to all family and friends who kept my spirits up, you’re the tops. (Elizabeth, the trendy Desigual rucksack (see top photo) is a must-have for all hobbling hospital patients!)

*According to figures on the UK National Joint Registry site, approximately 160 000 total hip and knee replacements are carried out every year: http://www.njrcentre.org.uk/njrcentre/Patients/Jointreplacementstatistics/tabid/99/Default.aspx

The Curious Case of the Missing Letter Boxes

Having recently found myself in the UK with a dodgy Internet connection and e-mails on strike in the Outbox I finally decided to resort to that Old Faithful, The Royal Mail.

I was in Manchester city centre. Looking round for those iconic British symbols, those big shiny can’t-miss-it red cylinders beloved of photo-snapping tourists, I had a strange sense that something was amiss. Not a red cylinder in sight. Where had they all gone?

Come to think of it, there weren’t any red double-deckers either. There were red, white and orange ones. And blue, white and orange ones. What about red phone boxes?

Well, I did spot one, in between a red, white and orange bus and a blue, white and orange bus, but you had to climb over a barrier to get to it. The barrier was red.

In fact the Council was big on colourful barriers. Roads were being dug up everywhere and turned into mazes built of giant bits of red Lego.

There were also numerous litter-bins. These were a shiny black with pretty gold bees on them.

At the end of Day 1, the letter was at the bottom of my handbag, creased, with something sticky on it. I didn’t investigate too closely, but chances are it was a bit of drizzle from a Marks and Spencers lemon drizzle cake.

Day 2, having de-stickied the envelope and flattened it under a book–it was to the bank, mustn’t give a bad impression–I set out to find the elusive scarlet cylinder. Ah! Just round that corner. No, it was a wheelie bin. A red wheelie bin. By lunchtime I’d bumped into several people–me head up scanning the horizon, them head down scanning text messages–and narrowly missed being sliced into salami by a fearsome Manchester tram. It was time for refreshment.

Over another piece of lemon drizzle cake in Marks and Spencers tearoom (when in Rome) I pondered the problem. What did Holmes say? When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.

Impossible to imagine that no-one posts letters any more. A covert inspection of my fellow cake-munchers was enough to convince me that there were those among them who were definitely not sending e-cards to wish Great Grand Son Dwayne a Happy Birthday.

Ergo, a) the government, in a devious plot to make the UK a paperless society, had gone in for a campaign of subtle dissuasion, painting all the letter boxes grey to blend in with the sky while sowing confusion by painting barriers and wheelie bins letter-box- red or b) somebody had stolen them all.

Back outdoors, changing tactics, I tackled a lady with a shopping bag and an air of local knowledge.

‘Excuse me, do you happen to know if there’s a letter box near here?’

‘A letter box?’

Her reply was on a par with the great Edith Evans riposte ‘A haaaandbaaag??’

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oyuoUwxCLMs

OK, I’ve been out of England for a while, but surely the language hasn’t changed that much? Were they now calling them something else? I was beginning to think I’d been abducted by aliens and was now on Planet Letterboxless.

Whipping the grubby envelope out of my bag I waved it in front of her.

Her face lit up.

‘Ee, she’s broken a record today, she has.’

‘She’s…’

We both gazed at the stamp, bearing the regal profile of our beloved monarch. It was September 9^th.

‘Ay. Beaten Queen Victoria, longest reigning monarch. She’s in Scotland today, opening a railway, saw her on the news. Looking right smart she was. She’s a hard worker, I’ll give her that.’

We enjoyed a pleasant discussion about the stabilising role of the monarchy. I omitted to tell her I lived in a country where they’d beheaded their lot. Just when I was wondering if I’d have to show my credentials and join in a rousing chorus of God Save the Queen my interlocutor noticed the time and said a hasty farewell.

I like Manchester. I might have said that before.

Oh, and I did find my letter box in the end.

It was hidden inside the Post Office, behind a machine that takes photographs.

“Is there any point to which you would wish to draw my attention?”

“To the curious incident of the letter boxes in Manchester.”

“There are no letter boxes in Manchester.”

“That is the curious incident.”

Not an exchange between Sherlock Holmes and Inspector Gregory in “Silver Blaze”.

Merci! Beaucoup! Perfick!

Just back from a trip to the North, in particular Manchester, a city I have a soft spot for, as may have been mentioned before. True, it has the disadvantage of finding itself on the wrong side of the Pennines, but I suspect one of those tectonic shift things could be at the root of that obvious geographical error. We’ll probably know more in years to come when archaeologists stumble upon prehistoric skulls of Yorkshire hominids in ancient burial chambers at the back of the Manchester United locker room.

http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/science/article4553758.ece

But enough of that. My visit provided a fascinating subject for my next blog piece. I shall not however reveal what that will be, except to ask (or sing): ‘where have all the letter- boxes gone?’ Watch this space.

Today’s blog is in fact a ‘Thank You’ card. Two, actually.

Thank You Card No 1: To The Dentist.

Yes I know, not usually top of your ‘thank you’ card list. But this is not just any dentist…

September 10^th:

As I was waiting for my regular check-up, chatting to Helen, the ever-cheerful super-cool receptionist, I happened to notice lots of cards on display.

‘Aha!’ I said. ‘Someone’s birthday?’

‘Oh no, those are just thank you cards from patients. Some of them have been there for ages, they probably need a dust.’

O shame on me. How many years have I been a patient at Kissdental, Manchester, the Nirvana of Dentistry, the Eden of Enamel, the Shangri-La of All That Is Teeth? Answer: many. And how many cards have I sent to convey my undying gratitude to all who serve there? Answer: none. So, a huge thank you to Kailesh, Fabergé of Dentists, Transformer of Smiles; to Vicci, Queen of Hygiene and Goddess of Gums, to Helen, afore-mentioned, keeping it all in order, and to all those other members of the team who help to make a visit here as enjoyable as a Champney spa break.

And to anyone reading this who is suddenly turning pale and getting flashing images from ‘Marathon Man’ and ‘The Little Shop of Horrors’, I have the answer. Put yourself in the capable hands of all at Kissdental, lie back, relax and before you leave don’t forget to pop into the bathroom to admire your gleaming gnashers in the mirror.

http://www.kissdental.co.uk/

http://www.messengernewspapers.co.uk/news/13218991.New_smile_for_Altrincham_woman_who_superglued_her_teeth_back_in_for_10_years/

Thank you Card Number 2: To The Magic Elves.

Having been severely Wi-Fi challenged on my recent travels I was unable to get a good look at the review of ‘Hot Basque’ that appeared on ‘Areadersreviewblog’ on September 3rd.

http://areadersreviewblog.com/tag/hot-basque/

The articles and book reviews on this site are written by two Magic Elves called Caroline and Tina. I know they are Magic Elves because they both have partners and children, and are able to juggle washing, ironing, cleaning, school runs, spaghetti-hoop management and candle-lit dinners whilst also devouring huge numbers of books and then writing about them. What I’d like to know is–what are they on? Ginseng? High-dose Vit C? Royal Jelly? Or my very own favourite, a double G and T? Back in Wi-Fi land I’ve been looking more closely at some of their amazing output and I’m not talking three-line-copy-and-paste stuff. Every post is engagingly written, bursting with enthusiasm, and just what readers are looking for when choosing a book.

So, booklovers, sign up, read their reviews and select your next purchase to take with you, for example, when you go for your spa-day at Kissdental. (NB This tip is not for Magic Elf Caroline, who in her 11 amazing facts about herself notes that she has never had a filling…not fair.)

Up to now I have never written a blog piece without some literary reference or other. There is one in here. Clue: look at the title! Think of a ‘darling’ (clue!) character in a wonderful series of books that were turned into a wonderful TV series and featured a ‘budding’ (clue!) new actress who went on to become a Hollywood star.

And, as a prize to anyone guessing the title and author, you can get a free copy of ‘Hot Basque!’ Yes! That’s right, free!

(Actually… it’s free to anybody who wants to download it, starting Friday September 18^th until Sunday September 20^th. 😉 Just what you need to transport you to a sunny beach next weekend without the hassle of having to put your sun cream and toothpaste into those little plastic self-seal bags that won’t.)

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Hot-Basque-French-Summer-Novel-ebook/dp/B00XK2II3G/

http://www.amazon.com/Hot-Basque-French-Summer-Novel-ebook/dp/B00XK2II3G