Following a trial at the Gare Montparnasse in Paris, which proved a big success, the State owned railway company has decided to put pianos in place at a dozen more stations around the country, so that passengers with a musical bent can get to work on the keyboards. The simple slogan they’re using is “vous de jouer” - it’s yours to play. Train passengers will now be able to tinkle the ivories at such stations as Austerlitz and St-Lazaire in Paris, Bordeaux, Strasbourg and Tours, among others. The last time we were in the main railway station at Strasbourg, we enjoyed a really delightful meal in the station restaurant and helped by some of the local wine, we were soon chatting away merrily with the waitress, who was full of fun. Now, it’s nice to know that if we return to Strasbourg, we can now have a musical accompaniment with a meal in the station!
Talking about trains, it was exactly 20 years ago this week that the Queen and the then French president Francois Mitterand opened the Channel Tunnel. It has certainly proved its worth since then and I must admit it’s about the best reason I can think of for living in London, the mere fact that Paris is a mere couple of hours down the line. It’s also great that so many people can commute between the two countries, living in north-eastern France and working in south-east England, which seems a very sensible arrangement to me.
While I’m on the subject of positive news, I felt slightly envious of everyone living in France because they have three public holidays this month. May 1st has come and gone and the traditional present of lilies of the valley has lived up to all expectations this year. Most of the crops for the Fete de Muguet are grown in the Loire-Atlantique region and this year, there’s been a bumper crop, because the weather earlier in the year was so mild. The second French public holiday this month is on May 8th, to celebrate the end of the second world war in Europe. Then at the end of the month, there’s Ascension Day on May 29th.,also a public holiday. Lots of workers in France are taking three days extra leave this month so that they can tack an extra free day onto each public holiday weekend and get no less than three x four day weekends. Brillant! All this reminds me of the late US president Ronald Reagan, who once said that hard work never killed anyone, but that he had no intention of finding out if that was true or not. And despite his seemingly indolent way of doing things, he achieved much and turned out to be one of the best American presidents in recent decades.
Talk of growing crops reminds me of an interesting piece on the BBC the other day. Poplar trees are not just an iconic symbol the French landscape, but their wood has lots of uses, including, essentially, for making cheese boxes. Cardboard, it seems, is no substitute. But poplar wood is in increasing short supply, so a timber growers’ association in France is now giving people modest grants to encourage them to plant the quick growing poplars, provided that they can be chopped down in 20 years’ time to put to work in the cheese industry.
Another positive news that got to me this week came from Geneva, where the annual Palexpo book festival took place last weekend. The turnout this year great, 95,000 visitors, 1,000 more than last year, and both publishers and readers seemed happy. I was looking at some of the photos taken at the show and I must admit it was great to see so many people of all ages engrossed in whatever book offerings took their fancy.
We can all drink to that and we can also drink to the fact that Costa Coffee is planning a big expansion in France. It already has a modest four outlets in Paris but plans five more outlets outside Paris later next year. That seems a rather modest expansion plan, but at least it’s a step in the right direction and a counter to the dozens of Starbucks that already exist across France.
Even President Hollande is getting in on the act-he’s claiming this week that France is starting to turn the economic corner. Coincidentally, there’s the big European parliament elections coming up very shortly, so of course, all the sceptics are lining up to disprove Hollande’s latest theory. However, Hollande’s latest TV interview has proved to be a total damp squib with viewers.
I’m also glad to report more positive news, this time about the Picasso museum in the 3rd arrondissement, where renovations have been going on for an interminable four years. It seems that the work is virtually finished, but that the management can’t get enough security guards. After one of Picasso’s sons kicked up publicly about the interminable delays, an official statement from the government assured everyone that yes, the Picasso museum will definitely reopen this September. The old one was great, with lots of Picasso works on show, as well as lots of memorabilia, right down to a few shopping and laundry lists. Hopefully, the new look museum will look even better.
Meanwhile, the earth continues to shake in France-two tremors were felt in the Lourdes area on April 29th and the biggest shaker measured 4.9 on the Richter scale. A message from above, perhaps?
Perhaps the almighty has been hearing the latest news about DSK, renowned not just for being a one time managing director of the IMF, but even more so for having an unstopable urge to have sex at every possible opportunity. The new film about him, Welcome to New York, with Gérard Depardieu playing DSK and Jacqueline Bisset taking the part of Anne Sinclair, DSK’s former wife, sounds as if it might be fun. However, the film isn’t being released to cinemas in France; instead, it’s going straight to video and the download charge will be a mere €7. It’s coming out at the right time, of course, just in time for the upcoming Cannes film festival.
But in the meantime, DSK is threatening to take the owner of a new sex club at Blaton in Belgium - and just across the border from France - to court for using the letters DSK in the title of his new venture! The DSK club has just opened, with the letters of its name very prominent indeed above the front door.
Others continue to be in hot water for entirely different reasons. The Swiss defence minister is in trouble with the feminist lobby in Switzerland for making a comparison between kitchen equipment in the home and women working in the home. Not the most sensible remark! There’s more stupidity on the government front here in Ireland. The latest mad scheme the government has concerns public utilities, such as libraries, buying book stocks. The system at the moment is that local libraries buy their book stocks locally, from locally based booksellers. Now the government wants to abolish this way of doing business, which would mean the loss of about 100 bookselling jobs, and get one big agency to handle the country’s entire public book buying budget.
The only snag is that Ireland doesn’t have a book buying agency big enough to handle all this work, so all the business would have to go to a suitable agency in England. The book trade is up in arms at this latest folly and quite rightly so, but no doubt if and when the government has got this cock-up sorted out, it will then come out with a whole plethora of further hare-brained schemes.