Culture clash

You've got to laugh really...

Reading the BBC News page this morning I came across this:

The reality of Paris does not always live up to the dream. A dozen or so Japanese tourists a year have to be repatriated from the French capital, after falling prey to what's become known as "Paris syndrome". That is what some polite Japanese tourists suffer when they discover that Parisians can be rude or the city does not meet their expectations. The experience can apparently be too stressful for some and they suffer a psychiatric breakdown. Around a million Japanese travel to France every year.

Many of the visitors come with a deeply romantic vision of Paris - the cobbled streets, as seen in the film Amelie, the beauty of French women or the high culture and art at the Louvre. The reality can come as a shock. An encounter with a rude taxi driver, or a Parisian waiter who shouts at customers who cannot speak fluent French, might be laughed off by those from other Western cultures. But for the Japanese - used to a more polite and helpful society in which voices are rarely raised in anger - the experience of their dream city turning into a nightmare can simply be too much. This year alone, the Japanese embassy in Paris has had to repatriate four people with a doctor or nurse on board the plane to help them get over the shock. They were suffering from "Paris syndrome".

It was a Japanese psychiatrist working in France, Professor Hiroaki Ota, who first identified the syndrome some 20 years ago. On average, up to 12 Japanese tourists a year fall victim to it, mainly women in their 30s with high expectations of what may be their first trip abroad. The Japanese embassy has a 24-hour hotline for those suffering from severe culture shock, and can help find hospital treatment for anyone in need. However, the only permanent cure is to go back to Japan - never to return to Paris.

Now, the rudeness of the Parisians is legendary - from my experiences in Burgundy I can confirm that a lot of the time my family have been made more welcome than the average Parisian because even the rest of France can't handle their arrogance. It says it all that the recent change in the format of car number plates in France was largely put in place to make Parisian cars less easily indentifiable because they were apparently being vandalised when they ventured out of the capital. So, come the Angevin Revolution, the entire city is going to be sent to an upper-class British Charm School for a thorough lesson in Good Manners (where, hopefully, they will also be taught to clear up the dog-poo littered pavements which is the first thing which comes to mind whenever Paris is mentioned...). BUT... if that makes my gentle readers think I have any sympathy for the Japanese they couldn't be more wrong.

I was at Oxford for my post-grad and I needn't tell anybody with even a passing familiarity with the place what a royal pain in the bum the Japanese tourists are. They are quite happy to bang on about respect when it suits THEM, or indeed when you visit their country, but you don't hear much about it when they're scampering all over the place trying to find the best angles for their interminable souvenir photographs. Summertime was positive torture - air conditioning being virtually unknown in most colleges, to get any sort of relief from the heat you had to open your windows. OK if you're on the first or second floors, but if your room was at ground level this was viewed by the Japanese as a golden opportunity. I can't count the number of times I was minding my own business in the MCR, reading the papers and having a swift coffee, only to discover one of the little pests had shoved their camera in the open window and were merrily snapping away. That wasn't the worst of it - as some of the showers were half-underground at my college, and therefore had small windows at ground-level, I have also been snapped whilst at my ablutions. And yes, as a result I have unbounded sympathy for incarcerated animals in zoos, because that is how it felt. It was absolutely pointless putting up 'No Entry' signs if there was an private area - in fact these almost had the opposite effect, one might as well have erected a 'Come and look at this very special thing with your ten cameras, why don't you?' poster instead, such was the total disregard for the quality of life of anybody actually living in Oxford. Where's the respect there, my little Nipponese pals, huh??

So, in short, I think BOTH the Parisians and the Japanese, for varying reasons, need to have a kick up the jacksi. Unfortunately I can't see that happening any time soon...

OK, this time I really DO have an excuse...

... because things have been a bit busy at Chateau Angevin!

It's a bit of a long story (what isn't with me?!) but, fingers crossed and touching every piece of wood I can find, it looks as though La Famille Angevin will be living pretty much full time in France from this autumn as we are trying to buy this truly brilliant, wonderful and generally fabulous property.

The reasons for this are, in short:

1. Troll is out of the UK for at least 9 months of the year and has been officially resident in France for years, France having a fully reciprocal arrangement with the country where he works most of the time. Despite all this, the thieving monkeys at HM Customs and Excise sent him a nasty letter last year querying his tax status. Troll's accountant sent a strong response back, and they seem to have gone away... but I have a suspicion they will be back...
So... when this property, which is only about 10 miles from our existing house in Burgundy came up, it looked like a message that we should bite the bullet and get out of the UK now, when we can do it OUR way, rather than wait to be pushed.

2. The grasping monkeys at New College, Oxford, who retained the barn immediately opposite the house I have been renovating for the last 13 years when they sold said house to me, are once again making noises that they want to develop said barn into a residential property. Now, in principal, I don't have a problem with this - I don't mind people living there. However, you only get one crack at a project like that and I just KNOW it will be done badly, with the only consideration being to the financial bottom line rather than to a real love of the building. Which will leave me looking at the cocked-up, aesthetically unpleasing result forever.
The fact this happened to the last house I lavished seven or so years of love upon prior to moving here leaves me little short of despair. At least the place we hope to buy in France has literally miles of open land in front of it which cannot be built upon.

3. I am increasingly distressed by the state the UK is in. Not just the economy, which frankly, we've all seen before and sent the T-shirt to Oxfam, but by the general downtrend I see in the PEOPLE. Everybody seems to be running around at breakneck speed for the best part of every day, with no time for very much other than scraping shekels together or being rude and obnoxious to everybody around them. Nobody has any time for anything I consider worthwhile any more.. and I can't see that situation getting better any time soon, frankly. I've come to the somewhat depressing conclusion that the UK I loved and cared about hasn't existed for 40 years or more... and I don't want to be part of what it's become.

So... the fact we are having to do a fair amount of work on the two houses we have in Burgundy already (because we have to sell them to form the deposit on our new place) wade through the 13 years or so of crap which has accumulated at Chateau Angevin and pack up what isn't being skipped, deal with agents in France both regarding the sale and purchase of everything, find a tenant for Chateau Angevin, get the various animals chipped, jabbed and generally certified for removal over the Channel and probably a million other things I can't be bothered to type about means I haven't been able to blog very much - my rant organ has been totally exhausted in Real Life...

I will attempt to keep you all posted, however...!

Tranatlantic Craziness

I hear from a (British) FB buddy of mine that "apparently, the wise lawgivers of Texas are legislating to allow the carrying of guns on campus. Students, professors, tourists, the lot!" As Troll works with Texans and I therefore am treated to endless tales of their outlook on life, this doesn't entirely surprise me, and I may in fact be tempted to open a book on when the first campus massacre is going to take place in the Lone Star State following this latest bit of gun-craziness...

Whenever I try to discuss the subject of guns with American friends you can see their eyes glazing over as they believe they're about to get another lecture from another gun-hating Brit. This isn't entirely fair - I'm broadly in favour of guns if they're used as a means to getting cute fluffy animals or helpless little birdies one step closer to my Aga and therefore my stomach. Being farmers, most of my family had/have guns for precisely this purpose (and of course the odd bout of rat-shooting if the dogs/cats haven't kept up with the growth of the rodent population). What my family DON'T have lying around are automatic weapons, and to be frank I don't really see why ANYBODY needs to keep these items in the normal domestic setting: if you want to use the things, go to a range or gun club which can store them safely. And presumably have procedures in place to prevent your random nutter going on a spree...

The Americans obviously don't agree: for some peculiar reason even the most intelligent of my Yankee pals thinks it's perfectly reasonable to allow people to have any type of gun they fancy lying around the place; even if the said weapon is capable of replicating a scene from Vietnam in one little touch of the trigger. I used to argue the point with them, but time and experience has taught me I'm wasting my breath; these days I merely let them get on with it and indulge in a volley of 'I told you so' emails whenever the latest maniac goes on a rampage with his M1911.

It is true to say we aren't entirely rampage-free in the UK - look at the situation in Cumbria last year when Derrick Bird killed 12 and injured 11 with his shotguns. My response to that would be that the carnage would have been so much greater if he'd had the sort of access to automatic weapons which is 'enjoyed' as a matter of course in the States. In addition I'd draw attention to the fact that whenever incidents of this nature do occur in the UK they are so rare they are remembered for many years afterwards - Dunblane (which resulted in much tighter controls on handguns being put in place) was in 1996 and is still often mentioned whenever discussions on gun law occur. Hungerford in 1987 - coming up to 25 years ago - is still very much in the public mind. Can Americans honestly say the same, when there are so many more gun-related tragedies happening in the US?

It's a mystery to me. Why do otherwise intelligent, thinking, people have such a blind spot on this issue? Because blind spot it is... an earlier post from an American friend of mind on FB in connection with the shooting of the Arizona congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords in January 2011 read thus:
"A friend posted this: "A fitting tribute to Dr. King: 'Last week we saw a white Catholic male Republican judge murdered on his way to greet a Democratic Jewish woman member of Congress, who was his friend. Her life was saved initially by a 20-year-old Mexican-American gay college student, and eventually by a Korean American combat surgeon, and this all was eulogized by our African American President."
I refrained from comment - uncharacteristically - but my actual thoughts were 'This is all very nice and lovely, but does it not occur to you people that the incident probably wouldn't have happened at all if you had effective gun controls and couldn't buy your ammunition from Walmart along with your weekly groceries?'. Not ONE person made anything like that connection in the comments following my friend's posting, rather it was all a load of congratulatory back-slapping on what a jolly-lovely-integrated-harmonious place America is.

I've quoted the film The American President before in this blog, but it bravely (and almost uniquely in my knowledge of film) makes the point that US citizens do not 'connect gun crime with the possession of guns'. And judging by the events in Texas they aren't going to any time soon... anybody care to take a punt on my book regarding the timing of the next Texan campus massacre??

Just a quickie..

... to say I'm back. Ranting has not ceased at Chateau Angevin during my absence from this blog, just the time available to type about it has. Also Facebook is a rather quicker method. Just so I don't disappoint my erstwhile readers, a (mercifully brief) observation on one current topic...

There has been a lot of handwringing and bleeding-heart-bleating about the fact the European Court of Human Rights has told Britain we can't deny our banged-up prisoners the vote. I'll let my gentle readers imagine what I SAY, in person, on that particular topic, but take the expletives and bombast out for the purposes of this blog and the remaining thrust of my argument is simply that it seems the epitome of common sense to state that people who pay scant attention to the rule of law can't reasonably expect to have a say in electing those who formulate those laws. However, much as I can see the attraction in Cameron and Clegg sticking two fingers up at Brussels in a sort of Gieves-suited-rerun of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, I can also see that Euro-politicos have long memories - we'd probably suffer in the long run when there was something WE wanted out of THEM. That's the way the Euro-cookie crumbles, unfortunately, and there are plenty around who still would love to stick the knife in to the UK as a reprisal for Reichsführer Thatcher's antics in the 80's...

So... my suggestion to get Cameron and Clegg out of the Euro-Alamo is that we sit our little miscreants down on their first day in the slammer and ask them to make a straight choice; namely TV or the vote. Let's see how much the francise means to them when it's up against losing Eastenders, X-Factor and Britain's Got Talent (sic) for the duration of their sentence...

This ruse also has a few added-value aspects -
1. We are treating prisoners like adults and asking THEM to make a choice, rather than imposing our naughty paternalistic will on them. Which is a good thing, yes??
2. The magic buzz-word CHOICE is in there. The last 20 years we have been bombarded with this as our legislators keep hitting the 'giving more choice to ordinary people is a fabulous idea' button in a mistaken impression it makes their crazy expensive schemes more attractive. For once, put 'giving people a choice' to GOOD use...
3. It potentially gives the do-gooding-lentil-knitting mob something to occupy themselves - ie. they can develop programmes to attempt to educate prisoners about the franchise and its importance in an (almost certainly vain) attempt to persuade them to resist the siren call of Rupert Murdoch and his evil empire...and thus gets the irritating, smug, sanctimonious buggers off everybody else's backs for a bit.

Finally. Somebody really needs to point out to the Eurocrats that only 65% of the entire UK population bothered to turn out to vote in the 2010 election - and that was UP on the previous two and at a time when arguably more was at stake for the country at any time since WWII. Why on earth they imagine your average convicted villain gives a tinker's cuss about voting is beyond me; but unfortunately now they have pointed out the little darlings' human rights have been infringed I suspect ALL of the latter will spot the opportunity for state-funded compensation. Ta very much, Europe: I hope we'll remember this cock-up the next time we have to listen to all your excuses when it transpires you've waived hordes of economic migrants through your borders so they can turn up at Calais and be OUR problem. Much as I love the idea of Europe generally, it's the same with any club - it only works if ALL the members abide by the rules... and if the rest of Europe want the UK to be good boys and girls it's about time they set us an example...

Head in hands...

... as I realised a huge number of months have flowed under the bridge of time since I last put fingers to keyboard and tormented you all with my rants and observations... Sorry guys.

NO excuses - to quote my grandmother 'Never apologise, never explain' - but merely a promise I'll try to do better. If any of my old teachers are reading this, please try to suspend your disbelief - leopards CAN change their spots, honest.

A load of old...

...rubbish.

Every two weeks on those Thursday nights when Troll is cosily holed up in the AAMC (where, naturally, Real Life does not intrude) a casual observer may be forgiven for thinking Chateau Angevin is the venue for a meeting of the Invent An Original Swear Word Convention. For once, this is not due to my having found something on the BBC News Website to offend my delicate sensibilities but because it is, horror of horrors, Bin Night.

I loathe taking the bins out. I loathe the fact I have to wheel the bins 100 yards down my drive because the idle binmen won't drive up into my yard to collect them (note, however, this does not stop various men in white vans using my yard as a turning circle several times a week - subject for another blog there sometime methinks). I loathe the necessity of removing the full bin bag from my kitchen bin into the large dark grey dumpster type bin the local council so thoughtfully provide. I loathe anything to do with bins in fact - their lack of aesthetic appeal, their smell and even those naff products you can buy which claim to get rid of the latter. BUT most of all I absolutely loathe, detest and revile the fact that the local council imposed a TWO WEEKLY cycle of collections on us.

Yes, gentle non-UK readers, you read that correctly. In this so-called First World civilised country in which I reside my rubbish is now only collected every two weeks, a fact which makes me virtually froth at the mouth. We are told this is because if we organise ourselves correctly, and separate out our rubbish into the correct receptacles helpfully provided by the council we should only NEED our rubbish collecting fortnightly - an outright lie which merely reinforces my belief that outside Chateau Angevin people live off ready meals and junkfood. For example, the little green bin we are given for food waste, which the council assure us will be composted once they collect it, is only about a cubic foot square. WHO ARE THEY KIDDING? I can almost fill that space with vegetable peelings from ONE MEAL, God alone knows what I'd do if I actually used the flipping thing for real rather than flinging my peelings on my own compost heap (oh no, you aren't getting any help from me, District Council in your cunning scheme to collect scraps free from people and then get them to pay you good money for it when it's been composted... I'm not that daft, thank you very much). I could go on about the inappropriate features of the various other receptacles we have been given for the various other forms of waste we produce but you get the picture...

I am angry and resentful NOW about this situation - I will leave you all to imagine just how incandescent I'm going to be if the Council carry out their threat of microchipping the bins to check we are all being good boys and girls and not putting anything we shouldn't in there - and merely make the point this is meant to be BRITAIN in 2009, not East Germany circa 1980 with the Stazi in control of rubbish collection.

I would also make the point that so far nobody at the Council has been able to adequately explain to me why Malta, one of the poorest countries in the EU with a population of half a million or so, manages to have DAILY rubbish collections whereas us Brits can only manage a piss-poor fortnightly one. Answers on a postcard please, readers....

Remind me not to read the BBC News Website!

Because, ONCE AGAIN, I've found something which makes me so cross only the blessed relief of putting fingers to keyboard is going to get it out of my system.

The article today is built around the results of a survey conducted by the Welsh Tourist Board:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/8349935.stm

The report starts off with the phrase "Wales is "slightly old-fashioned" and the Welsh are "not friendly" in the minds of some potential visitors to the country, research has found." Those who know me in real life will probably be able to accurately assess the explosion which that would have generated at Chateau Angevin; suffice it to say it was not a pretty sight. Reading a bit further into the report it seems that - surprise surprise - what's actually caused the problem here is the English characteristically objecting to the use of the Welsh language. (Note, the Irish didn't have a problem with it and actually thought it was a good thing).

To me, that says a whole lot more about English insecurity than it does supposed Welsh unfriendliness. I am sick to the back teeth of hearing tales of visiting a shop where the other shoppers 'spoke in Welsh so I didn't understand them' - what the hell makes these people think the Welsh were speaking English beforehand and changed to Welsh just to be nasty to them? Does it never cross their bigoted little minds the likelihood is, especially in the North or West Wales, the other shoppers were indeed speaking Welsh before the grand entrance of the English Tourist and merely carried on their conversations? Oh, silly me, of course it wouldn't; everybody should speak English, now, shouldn't they? After all, the English have done their best over the past 1,000 years or so to eradicate Welsh culture HOW DARE the naughty Welsh continue to have their own language and use it??

If I am quite honest, in some ways I can understand, if not condone a bit of linguistic exclusion versus the English, after all, it's only the Welsh getting a little of their own back. Welsh was banned as a teaching medium in schools from the C19th onwards and matters got quite humiliating and vicious as such things usually do. My grandfather used to often talk of the times he was hauled up in front of the whole school and a board put round his neck with 'Spoke Welsh' on it after a teacher had caught him speaking in Welsh to his peers; and of the times he was slippered for continuing to do so. His only comfort was that oft as not his brothers and sister were up there too, along with a fair few other children from his village - can you just imagine the outcry now if a teacher took part in institutional humiliation of this nature and made a child wear a board with 'Spoke Urdu' or similar scrawled on it? We are talking about the early years of the C20th here, a time still just about in living memory, and it was only comparatively recently that discrimination against Welsh speakers was halted when the 1993 Welsh Language Act repealed a law, dating back to Henry VIII, which disqualified Welsh speakers from holding administrative office.

As aforementioned, I don't think it's RIGHT the English should be made to feel uncomfortable when they go on holiday to Wales, but on some levels it's understandable. Perhaps we should make as big a fuss about all the Welsh-English back history as the descendants of the slaves have done about the wrongs done to their ancestors (which, note, was considerably further in the past than 1993) - ask Gordon Brown to say 'Sorry' to us, shall we? Oh dear, Gordon Brown's SCOTTISH - and there's a whole other can of worms I'm not about to dive into today ... Anyway the chances of the English apologising are zero because apart from only letting their version of events be told in the first place, the teaching of history in English schools is close to non-existent (see blogs passim) as regards anything meaningful: Wales to them is a backward little place to be exploited for cheap labour, cheap holidays and cheap gags about sheep. Oh, and to be cursed when our little nation of 3m manage to put together a rugby team which can beat the English on a surprisingly frequent basis....

Which brings me to my next point - the other comment in this report which got me spluttering my tea across the kitchen was one person having the cheek to say 'I think Wales is almost like Birmingham's playground in a way, you can go mountain biking, beaches, you've got the walking..'. The words 'patronising', 'arrogant' and 'demeaning' come to mind - HOW DARE that person regard my country as a 'playground'? (My thoughts about Birmingham are pretty unprintable, suffice it to say 'playground' would not feature largely, although 'cesspool' might make an appearance).

And, pray, what is so wrong with being 'old-fashioned'? If that means being Welsh means having greater family ties, showing some respect to society and people around you, and being generally more full of the attributes whose passing is lamented almost daily when the English press comment on 'modern society', then I am more proud than ever of being Welsh. As one American visitor put it "I think the fact that Wales is slightly old-fashioned is one of its most endearing charms. It's a throwback to a simpler life with strong family values. I've been going to Wales every year for 15 years and have always found the Welsh people to be wonderfully warm and welcoming." So stuff that up your oh-so-modern-socially-dysfunctional bottoms, and leave us alone, dissatisfied English contributors to this survey: bugger off to Ayia Napa with your modern values and patronise the indigenous population there. There are 1.5 Americans who claim Welsh ancestry and that's a nice big pool for us to go fishing in with our tourist attractions, and I doubt they'd make so much fuss if they heard somebody speaking Welsh. They probably don't get so bladdered and tolerate their teenage girls having sex with every available local male whilst on holiday either.

Jonathan Jones of Visit Wales is quoted in this report as saying "What we have got to make sure is when tourists come here they are treated properly." True... but it makes no recognition of the fact that tourists should BEHAVE properly when they're in somebody else's country: ie. not call it a 'playground', wander around the mountains in blizzard conditions wearing jeans and trainers (and expecting the Mountain Rescue personnel to endanger themselves to save them) and treat the local people like lesser-evolved beings put on the planet to cater to their needs whatever they may be. Like it or not, the English have got an justifiably appalling reputation around the world for their holiday antics and perhaps some public money should be spent on attempting to put this right rather than wasting it on asking them what they think of Wales?