Definitive proof ...the French are just as eccentric as the Brits

I don't know if the popular image is of an eccentric Brit or an eccentric Englishman, but I was never much of a pedant nor nationalistic in any way, so it's hardly relevant to me.


What I do find so very amusant aujourd-hui, is that I have just watched absoloute definitive final proof that the French are equally as mad as cheese as the Brits, who are all as mad as a box of frogs. Or should that be the other way around?


My preamble should introduce Globalmag, where I lifted the photos from and from where I've derived my early evening's pleasure. It is a French half-hour TV magazine, airing weekdays at 19.30pm on Arte, channel 7, French freeview.


It's a handy slice of quite a wide variety of eco-news, from food and farming, up-cycling and ethical investments, to features on the best green cities and villages in France and how the most polluted places are making an effort.


I find the format easy to follow and fairly relevant to my life here with plenty of footage and clear speaking. Rather like a slower, less government-controlled version of the TF1Journal, with a green slant. The added appeal is that it's a good way of learning better French.


Occassionally it's a tad bland and not quite as hard-edged as I would prefer and sort of aimed towards people with much more money than I could ever hope to earn. But that's not hard seeing as how I'm earning virtually nothing.


Anyway, here's the hard evidence: A rare treat. Tonight it features, seemingly without a tiny hint of mirth or mild pee-pee-taking of any sort, "Les Chevaliers du Camembert".


They are a real group (is anyone surprised?) and they are there, filmed in all their adorned glory around their regular alter to cheese, working their ancient cheesy magic. It's part of a feature about the campaign to keep real camembert being manufactured from unpasturised milk ("lait cru"..is that correct?) rather than the highly manufactured fast-production of export camembert being exported and sold cheaply in supermarkets.


Personally I hate the smell, taste and foul rubbery coating surrounding these tiny wheels of mouldy baby cows food. But I can ignore this because I do so love the obsession that the French have about anything to do with cheese or anything French. Camembert seems to sum it all up for me and the Chevaliers du Camembert are my fresh cream on top of the sherry trifle with red ripe peaches, picked from a French garden.


Here they are, then, ladies and gentlemen, for your dining pleasure, in their all serious glory....


Love 'em. Bless 'em. Those real life french characters, morphed straight out of the actual pages of a live Terry Pratchett novel..


Say Cheese!![](upload://jApwVipHMMjbNQwfwXcTHiZOcMU.jpg)

Don’t you just want to take that old lady home and give her tea and biscuits?


Does anyone else have definitive proof?

The cat lady could be great friends with the cheese lady!

I've got no proof, but there is an old cat-lady lving up the road. it's like she never leaves the house, nobody sees her in a shop, bar, butcher, boulangerie, but once, when I called round to introduce myself, (knowing she was old, and hearing the locals treat her as a bit of an outcast), I found she had a fine array of meats, cheeses, charcut, bread, home baked bread, and a great log stove.

And people say she slept all day. Turns out she bakes, and makes spirits from oranges/sloes/anything growing. She asked for honey, so mead/Hydromel is on the way.