The space devoted to grape growing in Montmartre is so small - 1,556 square metres, enough for 2,000 vines - that you could be forgiven for missing it, but it's there all the same, a respectable
little plot full of vines, almost in the heart of Paris, a heart-warming sight indeed. At harvest time, the grapes are pressed in the basement of the mairie in the 18th and then the 1,000 or so bottles are sold at auction. It's a timely reminder that the Romans began cultivating grapes for wine in the Paris region all of 2,000 years ago.
Now that this year's admittedly poor grape harvest is being celebrated at fetes des vendanges in wine regions in many parts of France, Montmartre joins in the fun. It seems no time at all since last year's vendage but that's just the result of getting older! But the celebrations on the hill are as lively as
ever and as always, Montmartre is putting on a good show. There's a great display of the work of artists working in the district, which is on until this coming Sunday, while this Friday evening at 20h30, there's a big ball in the Halle Pajol, which promises much lively music and loads of
foot-tapping fun until the small hours.
France being France, of course, there are plenty of other festivals on all around the country. In
Brittany, until October 19, the accordeon festival that's being staged in Rennes and the surrounding Ille-et-Vilaine will bring in star accordion players from all over the world, as well as presenting all
kinds of other music, such as jazz, rock and electro.
Meanwhile, life continues as usual and so too do the high profile robberies. The Cote d'Azur has been plagued with them this past summer, but now Paris has had one as well. The luxurious jewellery shop, Vacheron Constantin in the place Vendome was raided the other day by a gang of about a dozen men armed with axes and sledgehammers, who created mayhem inside the shop and got away with 20 watches worth in total €1 million.
Two of the raiders were caught minutes later; they were from eastern Europe. Ironically, the shop that was raided is very close to the Justice Ministry.
There was more of the usual in the Cote d'Azur over the weekend - rain. On Saturday afternoon, I cast a quick look at a webcam on the Promenade des Anglais in Nice, only to find that the skies were
leaden, the sea looked the same colour and the rain was lashing down. It was only mid-afternoon, but the cars and buses were driving along with all their headlights on. This year has seen much more rain than usual in many parts of France, one of the reasons why the grape harvest this year is the worst for
40 years. While I was looking at that Provencal webcam, I was enjoying the weather here in Dublin. It was a beautiful sunny day, just perfect weather, and the sun was almost splitting the stones, rather unusual for early October.
Something else I noticed during the week that isn't good news for any employees of Air France and SNCF; both organisations are planning to abolish the free ticket regime that gives employees considerable scope for getting free tickets to the destination of their choice. Meanwhile, Air France
is currently celebrating its 80th anniversary and a French news website, planet.fr, created an interesting feature showing the uniforms worn by cabin crew over the years. In the old days, of course, these were the air hostesses, but these days, such as phrase is almost legally passé. So too
is the age of glamorous flying, when going on a great adventure in the sky meant dressing up for it.
Talking about airlines, KLM has just celebrated its anniversary; it was founded on October 7, 1919, and today, its the oldest airline in the world still flying under its founding name.
There have also been strange things going on in the museum and art world. The north-eastern town of Douai, not far from Lille, has a renowned museum called the Musée de la Chartreuse. During World War 1, German soldiers removed about 250 paintings from the museum and took them to
Brussels. About 250 paintings vanished and were never recovered. These weren't just works by the great and the good, but many paintings by lesser-known local artists. Now, Anne Labourdette, the energetic young director of the museum, is about to publish a complete list of the museum's collection as it stood in 1914. Whether this will help in unearthing any of those missing paintings is
anyone's guess. During World War 1, the museum was largely destroyed and a photograph of it taken in October, 1918, it's thought by a British soldier, showed just one painting hanging forlornly in place. During World War 11, the museum was completely destroyed, complete with that one
surviving painting.
An even stranger museum story comes from the museum in Rochefort in Charente-Maritime in western France. The other day, a case containing three African funerary statuettes exploded without
warning. Various scientific tests were carried out to try and find out the reason for the explosion, without coming to conclusion, and now many people suspect that there must have been something supernatural at work.
At least, this week, we were given some hopefully good news by L'Express, which ran a feature on why there are 10 reasons for hope in France in 2014. It concluded that among the contributory factors will be a renewed dynamism in exports, improving business confidence, more consumer spending
power and a stabilisation of unemployment. Lets hope they are right - la belle France could do with a whole lot of boosters right now. If France could have the Glastonbury effect, it would do the world of good. The other day, tickets went on sale for next year's Glastonbury Festival and they were sold out in less than 90 minutes, which was rather amazing!
Another good news story from France was the victory in the legal battle by the 3,000 independent booksellers in France over the likes of Amazon, huge online retailers. They have been discounting their book sales by a perfectly legal five per cent and throwing in free postage, but now they have to stop that little game, which has been so injurious to smaller booksellers. There was more good news for consumers, too, the other day when it was announced that petrol and diesel prices in France have fallen to their lowest level during the past nine months. A little surprisingly, diesel now accounts for 80 per cent of the fuel market in France.
Another sign of changing times came from the film industry, which is still vibrant in France, turning out about 300 films a year. But the number of moviegoers in France going to see French-made films has fallen by a third since the 1980s. The big winners in French cinemas are US-made films. Mind
you, I'm not surprised. Up until about 10 years ago, there used to be a steady stream of new French releases that were worth going to see, very creative, often provocative and usually featuring big stars of the French cinema. But since then, the release of interesting French films has dwindled to almost
nothing, at least here in Dublin.
Trying to look into the future is always fascinating and hazardous, to try and see what trends are going to take hold. The other day, I heard a recording of Harold Macmillan, once an enlightened British prime minister, who also used to run the Macmillan publishing empire. It was amazing to hear him say, in the early 1960s, when he was talking about how people would read books in the future, that many people would simply press a button and read book onscreen. How prophetic he was!
It's little wonder, that given people have so little confidence in the present government and president in France, that the Front National seems to be doing so well. A cantonal election the other day in Brignoles, in the Var department in the south of France, showed the Front National candidate
taking slightly over 40 per cent of the vote, almost double what the candidate from the conservative UMP party got. A candidate from a breakaway faction of the Front National got almost 10 per cent of the vote, so in total, the far right got very nearly 50 per cent of the vote. It is taken in France as an
indication of just how well the Front National is likely to do in local and European elections next year. Now, Marine Le Pen, the leader of the party, is saying that the Front National is the first party in
France. Since one of its pledges if it comes to power is to take France out of the eurozone, we could
be in for some choppy times ahead!
But it would be but a tiny blip compared with what's likely to happen if the US debt default goes ahead at the end of next week. With extreme Republicans in the US acting like a lot of spoiled children ready to throw all their toys out of the playpen, any kind of compromise between them and
the Democrats in power seems rather remote. And if the US does default, it's going to be a huge
shock to the world financial system. Many people in France always think the worst of the US and reckon that bad trends in the world often start in the US, so once again, it looks like for them, this point will be proven yet again. Talking about the US, there's currently a lot of speculation that the
Clintons are going to get divorced and no-one would be entirely surprised if Hilary got married again - to a woman. She's still in the frame to run as a Democratic party presidential candidate in 2016, but I'd be rather surprised if that actually happens.
I heard a wonderful story of longevity the other day that beats all the emphemera from the political world. A solicitor in Bandon, Co Cork, here in Ireland, Edward O'Driscoll, has just decided to
retire, at the age of 86. He's been working in the family law firm, that was founded by his father in
1898, after a staggering 65 years of service. Still very bright eyes and bushy tailed, the energetic Edward has decided that he now wants to devote himself to charitable work.
Another interesting news item is also about to emerge in Ireland. The Ryanair calendar always
creates lots of media attention. Cabin crew volunteer to be photographed in either their lingerie or their swimwear - what there is of it - and the photos always create a great stir. All the proceeds go to
charity, so at least, what some people might regard as a dubious event, does help good causes. But now a group of righteous minded consumers in Spain are taking the airline to court because they consider the calendar has too much nudity and is too sexist. However, the law being the law, the court in Spain won't be delivering its verdict until next April, long after the 2014 calendar has been published.
All of which reminds me of a trip to Brussels we did some time ago. My wife and I strolled along one of the streets in central Brussels where the ladies of the night (and the day) are seated in windows, displaying their wares. They were all so nonchalant about what they were doing and some were cheeky to boot but it was all something of a novelty for these two innocents from Dublin. The only thing that surprises me about the whole carry - on is that the bureacrats from Brussels haven't decided to impose VAT on the transactions!
Still it makes a change from the usual boring stuff from Brussels - I always connect the place now with endlessly boring committee meetings on behalf of some obscure EU obsession, surely the
ultimate in boredom. The EU has become one vast bureaucracy, the ultimate in boredom. Just imagine if one had to spend each and every working day in one of those committee meetings!
And to end, just to reflect on the looming crisis day in US national finances next week, it's interesting to see how many of the world's crises through the course of history have often hinged on a mere chance, a sudden fateful happening that seemed so insignificant at the time. When the Austrian Archduke was assassinated with his wife in Sarajevo in 1914, the event that precipitated the First World War, it nearly didn't happen. His chauffeur took a wrong turning in the centre of Sarajevo
and had difficulty getting the huge car back to the main street. This presented the assassin with the
perfect moment for his fateful shots. Just imagine, if the car hadn't taken that wrong turn, the First World War might never have happened!
As a result of that war, Germany ended up with Hitler in charge. I was reading some history of the early 1930s the other day when I discovered that one day in Munich, a car driven by an young Englishman ran over a man in a main street. The man fell under the car; luckily for him, but not for the world, the car driver was taking it slowly because he was unsure of driving the car and of his route.If he had been driving any faster, the history of the world could have been very different!