VICTORY AND THE FRENCH

After a brave defeat in Dublin, and a very unconvincing home victory against the Scots, France has at last produced a display more in line with their ambitions, and my hopes. On Friday night, the first time ever that a VI Nations match was played on that day, they beat the Welsh, the reigning champions whom every pundit was expecting to win a second grand slam in a row. Not only that, but France outplayed them, and if anything, the final score of 21-16 is flattering for the title holders.

A good result then, and since France's two remaining matches are with England and Italy, two teams struggling to get back in their game, they should beat those quite easily, and maybe win the tournament should Ireland lose in Cardiff. Well, you would think that, wouldn't you? That is, if you are not familiar with the ups and downs of French teams in just about any sport. But supporting France is full of surprises, and not for the faint-hearted. While their game is usually very entertaining and they can on their day beat any team (the All Blacks will certainly agree), they have an irritating knack for snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. You will rarely see a French team beating another major team by a wide margin. No, the French like to give their audience their money's worth in drama, and they'll make sure that any confortable lead melts away, so that the last minutes of a match are a breathless, edge-of-your-seat, swear-at-the-TV affair. Then, depending on their mood, they'll amaze you with a fantastic display of skills that will save the match, or they'll give victory away in a fit of abysmal stupidity. And it could be the same player! English journalists, who tend to admire a consistent, dogged, if slightly uninspiring game, like to call the French mercurial, and some French players' name has become a byword for that: I understand that in some quarters, the former french fly-half Frédéric Michalak is dubbed "Freddy Mercurial"...

So, although the French back row was for once dominant, although the whole team showed a hunger that seems to evade them usually, we have no guarantee their next match in Twickenham will see a repeat of that performance. In fact, one gets the impression that coach Marc Lièvremont stumbled upon the winning formula rather than reached it through a rigourous approach. Anyway, if in a fortnight, this blog remains conspicuously silent about the tournament, you'll know it didn't happen. Or of course, you could read the papers.

NATIONAL FOOD

Can I take back everything nice I said about British food? Marks and Spencer launched a few weeks ago a range of snacks and sandwiches dubbed Nation's favourites, and as you can see, they went a bit crazy with the Union Jack. Now, there is nothing wrong with being proud of your country's food. But wrapping yourself - or your products in that instance - in the national flag, just to sell a few extra sandwiches, is just ridiculous. And seriously, what is so quintessentially British in a small bottle of apple juice? Are the Brits going to claim they invented the apple? Clearly, it is just a way to re-package their most boring sandwiches and give them, apparently, a new appeal. Well, not to this particular customer. I think I'll have a quiche lorraine...

On the subject of British food again, I was doing my shopping this evening, in a different supermarket (Marks and Spencer are probably reeling from my boycott...), and I noticed the unusual content of the caddy that the man in front of me at the checkout was unloading: 8 family-size bottles of salad cream, 3 double-size haggis (each feeding about 4-6 people), and an impressive quantity of alcool. Either he lost a bet, or he has a very strange recipe and a huge appetite. Or maybe there are tonight in West London a bunch of Scottish rabbits holding a belated Burns Night celebration...

MY NEW BEST FRIEND

I have to apologise for not posting last week. Oh, come on! Tell me at least that you've noticed it! Better still, tell me that you have been coming every day, your little heart beating fast as the page was loading, hoping to see some new words of wisdom, and then unable to hold back a sigh of disappointment when the same Valentine post was immuably displayed. Of course, it was a very good post, but you must have started to worry, wondering if some disaster had not occured. Maybe I had finally decided to have a date on Valentine's day, and one week later, we were still at it like little bunnies? (Wait, that one is hardly a disaster...) Or maybe some irate representative of the card or velvet chocolate box industry decided to get rid of a trouble-maker before his message reached too wide an audience. Or maybe the poor performance of France in the VI nations tournament finally got to me, and I had decided to leave this valley of tears before they embarrass themselves irredeemably (by far the most likely scenario; as it happens however, France did beat Scotland last week-end - but only just).

Well, it is my sad duty to announce that disaster did indeed strike, a disaster much more terrible than any of these scenarios could foresee. Last Sunday, I lost my closest companion, my confident, my constant support, my friend of every moment, prematurely taken from me in the midst of a blissful relationship. In short, I have lost my PDA-phone. You may scoff, but that just shows you are not the proud owner of one of these jewels of modern technology. Otherwise, you would measure how life-changing such gadgets are; in fact, they are about as much of an improvement over a regular mobile phone, as the mobile phone itself was over the fixed version.

Indeed, not only did I have there all my contacts (not just their phone number, but their address, their spouse's name, and even in some case their photo, should I forget what they look like...), my appointments, my notes, my to-do list, my messages, but that phone was doubling up as an MP3 player; a video player for those long plane trips; a notepad (an actual one, where you can scribble handwritten notes, or even sketches); a wallet with photos of loved ones as well as all my passwords and confidential information; a dictaphone; a calculator; a converter (not just currency: seriously, who can be deranged enough to measure weight in stones and pounds?); loads of dictionnaries and other books, including the complete works of Jane Austen and a searchable King James Bible (I actually had to use the latter recently...); plenty of games, most of them coming with a willing and gifted playmate; a GPS navigation system usable in-car or on foot anywhere in Western Europe, a camera/camcorder, a backup remote for my TV, and of course an Internet access should I get bored. Now, if I had to carry all of that in my pocket, my slim and elegant figure may somewhat suffer, not to mention my back.

Can you see now why I have been in mourning for the past week? I am inconsolable. Or I would be if I hadn't found already a worthy replacement for my departed friend. That one has all of the above, or will when I transfer all the documents back from my PC, and it is slimmer, more elegant, has a larger screen and an integrated FM radio. Call me fickle, but I think I am in love again...

WILL YOU (NOT) BE MY VALENTINE?

Here comes again the dreaded day when single people are made to feel bad for not having someone in their life, or worse still, to scramble madly for a date so that people don't know they feel bad. And they are the lucky ones. If you are in a relationship, chances are you will receive a box of poor-quality chocolates in a red heart-shaped box, as well as an awful soppy card or worse, an allegedly humourous one (British cards can be incredibly gross: how on earth do they manage to work "fart" into a Valentine's day card?). In any case, expect to be sick by this time tomorrow: if the box doesn't induce nausea, the chocolates will do the trick, and the card will finish you off. Of course, you can always hope not to get presents, but then, you'll spend the whole day wondering if your loved one still cares for you...

Don't get me wrong. I am actually quite a romantic person. I have even been known to celebrate Valentine's day, although no heart-shaped box and no fart-related card has ever gone through my hands. I also recognise that it can be actually a good thing for a couple, especially one living together and at risk of being swallowed by the demands of daily life, to stand back and re-discover why they wanted to be together in the first place. But why does this have to take place on some universal pre-ordered day, and why should it materialise in a shower of tacky gifts and confectionery, and a reward for those tasteless enough to manufacture them?

My advice to you, dear reader, is to ignore the calendar, or even thumb your nose at it. Be nice to your loved one, by all means, but do it tonight, or Sunday. And by all that is holy and sacred, please stay clear of red velvet boxes! As for those who don't have a special somebody to spoil on that day, you have my blessing to treat yourself. Why should we have to wait for someone to do it anyway?

WORK HARD, PLAY HARD

© Sports Supplements Unlimited

Going to the gym would be a tedious affair if they did not provide some entertainment to keep your mind off the repetitiveness of exercises. In mine, there are half a dozen big screens so you can watch TV (some machines even have their own small screen with more channels), and you can always make a pause and read the papers or surf the internet in the lounge. Having said that, those who have had the misfortune to experience daytime TV, especially around noon, will know that it is more likely to send you asleep than to give you the energy boost you so dearly need.

So, you often have to switch to a slightly more engaging spectacle, like watching the other gym members. Purely from a sociological standpoint, of course. Far be it from me to ogle the aforementioned obscenely athletic ones while they perform lunges in impossibly close-fitting shorts... Actually, you might not believe me but I genuinely try to avoid watching them, as it is only too clear that being watched is their main goal when coming to the gym (of course, getting a superbly sculpted body has now been crossed from their to-do list). It just makes me cringe to see them looking around after each series of exercises to make sure of the impression they made, or strut in gym gear specifically designed to show strategic parts of their body: shoulders and pecs for men, abs and legs for women.

They are also the ones who like to parade in the dressing-room in their birthday suit (well, I can only vouch for the men, because I am not welcome in the women's changing rooms). But I wish they were the only ones! There is a grossly overweight, very hairy and quite ugly man who comes regularly and seems to enjoy walking around naked while other people are getting dressed. In fact, I'm starting to have a suspicion that's the only reason he comes: I have never seen him on any of the machines or in the swimming-pool and he certainly doesn't seem to lose any weight. Yet I swear he drops all his clothes as soon as he passes the door, and is still there contemplating his flabby behind when I leave the gym. Maybe he only comes for the foggy mirror?

And there are more, of course, in fact, a range of personalities that Big Brother would be proud of. There is the grunter, who makes all kinds of noise when he's lifting iron, some closer to a yelp, some remarkably close to articulate speech. There's the disciple of Charlie Chaplin who tries to catch his falling towel on the treadmill, loses his steps, seems to go into bionic mode in order to restore his balance, manages to do it and looks around as if to say: "how did you like that one?". There's the machine hog who comes to you as you sit down to do your crunches, asks you how much time it's going to take, stays standing next to you the whole time, and as you give up your place, tunes leisurely his iPod for 10 minutes before starting his exercises. And of course, there's the aspiring writer who stares blankly at people, trying to imagine what he's going to write about them in his blog... A psychologist's paradise, I am telling you!

HAPPY TIMES ARE HERE AGAIN

© rbs6nations.com

If you read carefully my profile - maybe not your favourite activity ever, but you need something to do for those days you are snowed in - you will have noticed that although it is strangely silent about quilting, it includes among my centres of interest the noble sport of rugby. I know, those of you who have seen rugby fans or rugby players celebrating a victory, or indeed trying to forget a defeat, might take exception to the word "noble". It is true that alcohol usually flows quite freely on such occasions, and that those who live in the vicinity might legitimately wish their neighbours were a quilting club instead. But for all their boisterousness, rugby players are much better behaved, on and off the field, than say, football players. And those who have seen a few matches can testify to the truth of the famous saying: football is a gentleman’s game played by hooligans, and rugby is a hooligan's game played by gentlemen.

In any case, we are coming now to a very special time for anybody interested in rugby: the beginning of the VI Nations tournament. In fact, today heralds for me an almost magical time, as it throws me back to those Saturdays in February and March, when I was still too young to truly understand the rules, but certainly old enough to feel the passion, the excitement generated by the thirty warriors - or so they looked, covered in mud, sweat and sometimes blood - on the field. Every Saturday for more than a month, I would nestle on the sofa next to my father, and eagerly watch our team battle against those from the British Isles in what was then the V Nations. Being an astute psychologist, or maybe just a realist, my father did not rely on the results of France (who am I kidding? If you haven't guessed it by now, you never will!) to keep me interested: at half-time, we would get from the fridge an ice-cream bought that very morning at the farmers' market. To this day though, I wonder what my sister, who did not watch rugby, and could certainly not be hoarse from encouraging a team - or castigating it, as the case might be - had done to deserve the same treat. Well, it must have served some purpose, because today, if she is still not a great rugby fan, she does have a soft spot for the Dieux du Stade calendar, a collection of photos of the Stade Français players dressed in, err, not much more than baby oil...

So, dear reader, I'm afraid you shouldn't expect many posts during the next few week-ends. I will update you on the results if they go the right way, but other than that, I won't be straying much from my TV set. Or one of the stadiums if I'm very lucky. Allez la France!

THE BLOGOSPHERE IS A MANY-SPLENDOURED THING

When I came to Blogger, my impression was that every other blog was created by supremely gifted writers, designers, raconteurs, whose only goal when they sat in front of their computer was to make us measure the inadequacy of our desperately uninspiring life. At least, dear reader, this is not a risk that you're running here...

However, after having browsed through a larger sample of those blogs, I can see now that the reality is more diverse. Yes, there are some who appear to be written by a domestic god/goddess, or by people who aspire to such deity status. Did you know that on Blogger, more than 43,000 people have listed knitting as one of their interest? 21,000 are interested in crocheting, 57,000 in scrapbooking, and at least one person sums up her interests as "quilting, quilting and I guess..." Well, you can probably guess too. She even writes no fewer than 3 blogs on that worthy subject. And I thought inspiration was sometimes hard to come by...

There are those of course who don't seem to have any attraction to domestic godhood whatsoever. Some of them are more concerned about actual godhood. I guess it shouldn't come as a surprise that more than 120,000 people on Blogger list The Holy Bible as one of their favourite book, or indeed centre of interest (sometimes the only one). After all it is, as the marketing cliché goes, an "international number one bestseller". We shouldn't be surprised either at the few thousands interested in paganism, or even the couple of hundred people who are into satanism: the world of blogging is apparently as diverse as the real world. And like in the real world, most of the weirdoes come from the United States... (so far, I have insulted: the Germans, the Scots and the Americans. Anyone keeping track? If I suddenly vanish from the blogosphere, I need someone to tell the police!)

But should we be concerned that only one person has listed "Loving (my beloved) the one God has for me even though God hasn't brought us together yet"? It does sound like a fun pastime, not too demanding, and it definitely beats traipsing around supermarkets with foldable boxes, be they ever so German...

I wonder what this pious colleague would think of the many blogs apparently written by people who are "horny", "crazy about sex" and apparently "well-endowed" (no, I'm not giving out the urls!). For those who would still be in doubt about the intent of the authors, they have been kind enough to clarify it even further by having as their profile photo a close shot of a certain part of their anatomy, whose size sometimes brings me back to those feelings of inadequacy mentioned above. Photoshop has a lot to answer for. Or so I choose to believe.

These meagre examples don't begin to do justice to the variety of interests, and indeed of personalities, displayed in the blog world. Whatever you are looking for, you will find it: whether it is scrabble tile jewelry (apparently, jewelry made of Scrabble tiles. I assume those made with Q, X, or Z are more expensive...), a horse farmer writing erotica (hopefully, there is no link between the two activities) or a fat bald satanist lesbian (don't laugh. I have seen her page!). So, if the time comes, Heaven forbid, when you grow tired of my prose, you can rest easy knowing that there will be someone, somewhere, who can cater to your specific tastes.

LET IT SNOW

Since Sunday night, a wave of snowy weather has swept across the UK, and we woke up yesterday morning to find everything covered in a pristine powdery blanket, the one that you see in books and films (although I understand in the latter case it can be made of paper, plastic foam, soap or even potato flakes) but not usually on your doorstep, at least not in London.

Don't you just love snow? I love the way it changes our perception of the world around, softening a sharp edge into a gentle curve, transforming a garish facade into a subtle harmony in black and white, muffling most sounds while conferring an eerie crispness to each of our steps. I also love the way it intrudes in the sometimes all too organised rituals of city life, and how it can disrupt them.

Although Britain is not renowned for its particularly clement weather, something as naturally occurring as snow can still wreak havoc on its transport system. We have all heard of trains delayed or cancelled because “the wrong kind of snow” had fallen on the tracks. Well, when you have a layer of snow 10-cm thick, whatever its kind, transport in Britain grinds to a screeching halt. There were no buses at all in London yesterday, very few trains coming in or out, three tube lines were not operating, and thousands of schools in the area were closed. In addition, an estimated one in five employees did not turn up for work.

Business associations may bemoan the impact on British economy, I just smile. Maybe I am just a lazy person who enjoys staying at home and watching the snowflakes dance. But also, what would life be without a bit of unpredictability? Beyond the transformation it performs on our once familiar surroundings, snow brings about lots of unusual, sometimes amusing scenes: cars still covered in a thick layer of snow driving along the street like floating snowdrifts, trees suddenly shedding their load on an unsuspecting passer-by, snowmen lined up on the pavement like so many misshapen and rather unlucky hitchhikers, some slightly immature adult engaged in a snowball battle with a couple of kids (okay, I started it, but it was a tiny snowball, not much bigger than a snowflake, and then they ganged up on me. And how could I have known they had such mastery of military tactics?)

So while the rest of Britain braces itself for yet more snow in the coming days, I say "Bring it on!": I have a new coat, a thick scarf, and a good reserve of snowballs.

BRITISH CUISINE: A CELEBRATION

I hope you are feeling hungry tonight, because I am going to talk about food again. I'm starting to think the title of this blog is just a misspelling...

Looking back on my post from last Monday, it sounds a bit disparaging for the noble institution that is haggis. I never even mentioned that I actually do like that dish, and as it happens, I had some on Burns Night. But beyond haggis, I would like to come to the rescue of British cooking in general. When I moved to the UK, many people commiserated on the misfortune, for someone who likes his food, of having to live in England. In fact, even German friends, whose own national cuisine leaves somewhat to be desired, were commenting on the notoriously poor reputation suffered by England in the domain.

It is true that I had myself some slight apprehension, fuelled by a couple of earlier stays in the country as a teenager. Memories of limp vegetables totally devoid of taste, of overly filling ready-made custard, and of the trembling chemical mess that is jelly, were making me doubt whether I had made the right decision. But I had to dismiss those fears after a few days. Granted, the quality of native cuisine is nowhere near that of France or Italy, for instance. Yes, jelly is still selling pretty well, as are other monstrosities like Marmite, spam, or sausages made of a nominal amount of meat mixed with something resembling sawdust. But having no strong culinary tradition, Britain has had no reason to be protectionist about food, and has been able to accommodate, in some cases even integrate, some of the best cooking traditions from all over the world: France, India, China, to name but a few. More strikingly, maybe as a reaction to past indifference for food, the last couple of decades has seen an explosion of interest in the field: I don't think any other country has as many programs about cooking and food on TV, and I am pretty sure none has elevated TV chefs to the semi-godhood status they enjoy there.

So, you can eat very well in Britain, that is, provided you are willing to pay the price. There are several three-Michelin-starred restaurants in and around London, one of which has been voted a couple of years ago the best restaurant in the world (would it surprise you very much if I told you it was by a panel of British food critics?...) In the best supermarkets, you will find delicacies from all over the world, good quality ingredients and ready meals that sometimes taste better than what you would be served in an average restaurant. And the emergence of the gastro-pubs means that having a quick lunch in a pub is no longer a game of russian roulette, but can actually be quite a pleasant experience. There are even a couple of local fast-food chains where you can have a meal that is both healthy and tasty.

As for the native dishes, well, Brits have been wise enough to preserve those that were worth it, and there are a few. I think I don't need to sing the praise of the English breakfast, one of the most satisfying ways to start the day when cooked properly. Or of the fish and chips, which can be can be a truly heavenly fare, if you know how to prepare it. I have to mention also pies (a turkey and ham pie made with the leftovers of the traditional Christmas meal can be to die for); bread and butter pudding; apple, or better, rhubarb crumble; stilton and port; pim's (not food as such, but there is a lot of fruit in it!); or, last but not least, scones with jam and clotted cream. Not only is that last one delicious, but the whole ritual of high tea as you can still experience it in some British hotels just sends you back to another world. One where no matter what the food in your plate tasted like, you were never going to allow the outside world to disturb your enjoyment of it. Admirable principles!

God, I am feeling quite hungry now. Do you mind if I go for an evening snack?