The man who studied here went out of his way to trace the inter marriages and marriages and liaisons with adjoining communes. It's a very red commune. My house was identified as a Maison Bourgeoise from the day it was built and certain locals still feel entitled to assume that I must be richer than them because I live in it. I don't have gold under my bed though, and my progeny don't have joined up eyebrows.
When the aluminium factory closed here in 1985 there was so much skullduggery went on, I could only find out about it very carefully over long apéro sessions in the bar. There are still some stories which are omertà
French sociologists actually do have so much dirt on much of the country that they could become stinking rich as a body if they ever spilled the beans. I have never understood why they do not release it all. I was told once that Pierre Bourdieu's collaborators had so much dirt that they could have changed France on the spot. Bourdieu was mainly interested in the dynamics of power in society, particularly the diverse and often subtle ways in which power is transferred so that social order is maintained and kept in check in and across generations. That is the good old maire as village 'boss' whose father and grandfather were maire too and by blood and marriage most of the people who count in a commune are part of his family. They will have cheated, lied, extorted, blackmailed, been bribed and diverted as much money, material, land and business as possible and therewith hold the whole commune to ransom. reading about some of it written anonymised is brilliant stuff but if ever any of it became openly identifiable people would go missing, sociologists mainly, for breaking the omèrta they too have to honour.
Lucky us then. Our local bakery has a delivery service by a nice chirpy gossip messenger. Her husband and daughter as the shop fill in the rest. Their bread is not much cop though. So we use one when we are in town. There are just three (plus supermarkets, but no thanks). The one I like for fabulous rye bread is run by a man who is the friendliest bloke in the world. He has a drink at our friend's bar now and again and since we bumped into each other a couple of times (hic, essshhhhscoossss moi, hic...) he has been trying name malts I have never heard of and see whether I know where they are distilled. I am ahead about six to four on a scale of ten but none of the other customs have a clue what we are on about. Who cares, nice bread and nice man.
The details of the goings on in our village are not for repeating here but will be published after my demise. There was a French researcher who came here incognito in the 80's to do a study of the sociology of the area. When the locals eventually found out he had to make a runner. I eventually found him and he agreed to a secret visit and seminar. It was attended by personal invitees only (knock three times and use the code word).
There are at least six boulangeries in our town of 11000 inhabitants, the Marie has just refused permission for yet another which was hoping to do drinks & the like. A new retail unit was built after permission was granted tho' that permission was retracted following complaints from the other bakers. All the present bakers are far from the cozy vilage bakers ambiance you all speak fondly about. The bakers, despite being excellent establishments professionally are impersonal, nondescript and lifeless which I suppose is one of the drawbacks of living in the Metropolis !
In one Charentais village we lived about 20 years ago the butcher was having an affair with the bakers wife. The baker found out, his wife carried on carrying on so the baker shot himself. The butchers wife left the butcher and the financial consequences of the divorce meant the end of the butcher's shop too. Thanks to a bit of hanky panky the small village found itself without a butchers or bakers ! Sacre bleu ...
More likely they paid off the arsonists, or were family relations of 'em.
Sundays in our boulangerie here is like a railway station, the queue goes out the door and down the street, and while you're waiting there's the handshakes and bises with those going out, and then once you're served, you have the handshakes and bises in the queue behind you ! And then there's the paper shop to run the gauntlet all over again :)
Bushes are like buses. There'll be another one along soon enough! Jeb's getting into position. Hope his management of the English language and knowledge of history is up on George W's. He probably thinks that the Crimea is a rough part of LA.
Difficult to get OUT of our boulangerie with catching up on the gossip, numerous handshakes, bises etc. It's three doors next us and their son was Prince Charmant in the school Spectacle de Noel last evening. On leaving, and after all the bonjours etc an au revoir or bonne journee is the usual as well. It's rather nicer than Corsica sounds. Maybe your boulange was a relation of the little Corsican!
Way way back we used to hire a caravan on Benllech Bay, on a site just below the Glanrafon Hotel, to where my mum & dad used to repair nightly. That's about all you could do there except go riding which I did every day, glorious. Went all the way to Llangefni once, when the railway to Amlwch was still in daily use, and hung around the station for a while (as was my wont, being a ferrovipathe).
I did spend a good few days in Llandudno on a freebie eductour offered by the National Trust, in fact we stayed on a hotel just next to the boundary with Colwyn Bay, so I won't say a word against it. Actually did like studying the Victorian architecture, however the pier was a sad sad sight...
:) Where we were staying near Bastia the boulangerie was the only unit left in a range of concrete square blocks which had all been burnt out. As is usual in boulangeries I gave a hearty "bonjour"...to which there was no reply....and not even eye contact while I bought me bread. Gah.
All extremely appropriate :)
Or Walker (like George W Bush, I think...)
Yep, he really did make a pillock of himself !
Whittaker?
I’m afraid i spend about double that heating my chateau manoir presbytere moulin house and it doesn’t touch the staff wine living expenses. I still have to heat the house in Brittany as while the camelias may be out it’s very damp indeed if you don’t keep the place heated and mould grows on the Louis XV servants hand me down furniture. I wasn’t like Michael Heseltine so I didn’t buy much furniture. As the WFP is being scrapped because we live “in a warm climate” we may be chopping up the heirlooms to keep warm next year. God bless you, Sir! And a Merry Christmas to you Mr Scrooge Duncan-Smith!
I'm sure he has a secret middle name with a W, a K, an E & an R in it.
Anagrams of "Iain Duncan Smith, Tory Leader" include
Military ironhanded nutcase
Enchanted military dinosaur
Darn it, tyrannical hideous male
I think that for the sake of good order I should make it clear that my family came from Colwyn Bay. Any insults will be referred to my solicitors (no win no fee) with instructions to extract punitive damages.....
There's lovely- you do go to all the posh places, isn't it? You take your life in your hands going to a cash machine in N Wales these days. In my childhood it was all donkeys, sand and pierrots, with anti macassars on all the easy chairs. Now it's dangerous breeds, spliffs and noserings, and they sit on the pavement.