Is There Life On Mars?

4th November
I feel peculiarly isolated out here in my feverish anticipation of the US election results. My French neighbours are not interested in events happening beyond their borders, in some cases this means their garden gate, for the more cosmopolitan the border can be as far as the departmental edge.  The newspapers here have blurry photos on the front page: a car stuck in a car park or some schoolchildren in fancy dress. For most of the population Europe is a fuzzy blur and the US is a sort of gaudy magazine someone's told them about.

I think this might be the case all over France, I was working in Provence on 9/11 when the Twin Towers were hit, I heard the news on my car radio and stopped to ask a few passersby if the news I was hearing was correct, no-one had any idea what I was talking about. I finally managed to find a bar with a telly tuned into a news channel, I was the only person watching the images of planes hitting buildings. That evening I spoke to the man who ran the local taxi company, he hadn’t heard about the events yet. I looked in the national papers the following day, significant coverage only appeared in Le Monde a couple of days later.

I’d got used to all this woolly introspection - then a couple of weeks ago I went to work for some Americans with access to digital tv, commentary on the US election was constant. It jolted me into a world I used to inhabit - it’s very strange coming back to this bunker.

Party Invites

20th September
It looks as though weather will be good for the weekend so we've decided to have a barbeque party at the Lovely House tomorrow. Since the local elections earlier this year the village has been divided, into at least three factions, everyone seems to be mortal enemies with each other. When I went round inviting people, I noticed a look of panic frozen on the faces of my invitees and then some muttering about having to ask the husband. They don't want to be rude but neither do they want to risk a 'difficult' situation. Either that or word has spread about my previous soirées.

I went into town to load up on food and beer and, fired up by my game of pétanque on Wednesday, I decided to go and buy some boules from a proper sports equipment shop. In these places a serious-looking man measures your hand and asks if you’re a tireur (throw the balls hard) or a pointeur (genty roll them). After my first game I haven’t quite found my style yet, so I said ‘both’ – I've been sold the most expensive set of boules in the world. I've also bought a carrying case for them but have stopped short of buying the little duster and piece of measuring string.

Dirty tricks

24th August
Old Landlord (see Fish Pomade)stories are getting darker, I have now understood that he was a scrap merchant. Buying and selling anything that could turn a profit: including textiles, scrap iron, old bathroom fittings … Animals too but applying the same ruthless business sense. One year he decided to keep geese for the Christmas market - as did everybody else, so the market price dropped. Old Landlord burned his barn down with the geese inside.

When the women in the village mention Old Landlord they shudder - and I’ve picked up some good vocabulary here too. At village dinners one of his party tricks was to put stuff he didn’t want on his neighbour’s plate (gristley bits of chewed fat, gnawed bones etc.).

I’m also starting to get a picture of the social rifts in the village. Grievances with roots so far back that no one can remember why they fell out in the first place. Elections are the earthquake zones where new faultlines are created and old ones deepen. The Salle des Fetes was built some years ago amid bitter controversy, half the village didn’t want their taxes used this way and when it opened the Young Turks of the village set up rival events at the bar as a spoiler to anything going on at the new place. The incumbent Maire was ousted at the next election because of his support for the building. Earlier this year when two groups put themselves up for the local elections (a list of about 12 people is put forward to support whoever wants to be Maire), it became apparent that there were more than one set of fathers and sons opposing each other.

The village has less than 100 souls in residence, the elected council has the power to tidy up the graveyard, plant flowers, put up a road sign – and that’s about it. In the face of not needing to have policies the candidates indulge in personal mudslinging, rumours of torrid affairs mostly, but the main slogan against the Bontettes was: THEY HATE OLD PEOPLE. Elections are won on the basis of who is considered less evil by more people - thus it has always been the case that one half of the village will have nothing to do with the other half.