Le Franco Phoney

Le Bélier (the name of a local goat-like sheep whose head forms the logo for La Clusaz) is a 27km course around the five peaks of La Clusaz (click here for the map if you want to see the route), which was held today. Participants can run or walk, and the goodies on offer on the way around differ for both. Walkers are offered local sausages and Reblochon cheese while the ’serious’ runners get water and energy drinks. Walkers can choose to do just half the course (called “L’Agneau”, which means “lamb”), and many of my brave friends did one or the other today (well done to Dave, Alex, James, Paul, Jess, Richard, Samantha, Janelle, Steve, Max, Josh, Elliot and anyone else I’ve missed), with wobbly legs, a torn muscle and bloody toes just some of the outcomes from their efforts. Their reward, apart from the achievement itself, is a free massage and a meal involving more local sausage and some chocolate on bread, amongst other things.

I watched those doing the full Bélier course cross the finish line, and noticed this man who had an innovative take on the cow bell that’s so often heard at ski races in Europe and around the world. He’s stuck a cow bell on an old ski. If you’ve ever held a cow bell, you know how heavy cow bells are. Jingling them takes a fair amount of effort — and space. Carrying them to an event is dedication in itself! This man has all the answers: he can sling the ski over his shoulder while walking to his destination, then let the ski take the weight of the bell and simply wobble the ski to make the bell jingle. Congratulations again to everyone who took part in Le Bélier/L’Agneau today, but most of all, congratulations to this guy for coming up with such a great idea.

Are you ready for a rant? I am. Here’s a money-making idea for someone living in rural France: sell fly-wire screens. There’s an apparent shortage of the things in the Aravis valley and beyond, despite the poo from farm animals such as this cow in La Clusaz ensuring an ample supplies of flies all summer long. I’m prompted to write about this because of the huge influx in flies in the last week with the return of the warm weather. Coming from Australia, I’m used to flies, but I’m also used to fly-wire screens. These screens, made of mesh that’s small enough to prevent flies and other insects from passing through it, allow the air through on hot summer days and nights when flies and mosquitoes are plentiful. During the hot weather, the occasional fly would get in the house, but it was mostly a fly-free environment.

Since moving to France, none of the seven houses I’ve lived in have had any sort of fly wire screens. I’ve looked all around and I don’t see any houses or businesses (and yes, the flies love cheese shops) that make use of this simple approach to keeping flies out. The lady next door comes closest with her door-length fringing. I think it’s actually one of those modern indoor string curtains that has gained popularity in France recently. Perhaps it works, but it still looks like a curtain on the wrong side of the door to me. Fly-wire screens may not be the most attractive adornment either, but they’re guaranteed to be effective against flies.

In May, my trusty old fly swat of two years was broken. It’s my own fault: I’d left it propped up against a wall instead of hanging it by the hole in its arm. A curly swat is not much use. In my desperation to kill the flies, I bought the first fly swat I found — the blue one pictured here. It’s from the supermarket, and it lasted an entire day before it broke. I continued to use it despite bits of blue plastic breaking off every now and again, making the skill level involved in the killing process just that bit higher each time. The other fly swat was a gift (who says romance is dead?): I love the extra detail of the fly on the swat area. But can you see anything wrong with this swat? You can see from the black plastic mesh that it, like my old trusty one, is not flat. It’s not bent a lot, but the reduction in surface area gives some flies a few moments longer to live and requires a few more swats from me. I could buy some sticky fly paper, but I feel sorry for the flies who stick to it alive and have to await their death. At least the swat is fast.

But I can’t help thinking that if fly-wire screens were more common on houses in the Alps, flies wouldn’t make it indoors in the first place. It was some Aussies who live down the road who found me through this blog and suggested someone could earn some money by introducing the French to fly-wire screens. I suspect the French love the appearance of their beautiful chalets a bit too much to ugly them up with the screens I’m so used to seeing in Australia. But with so many non-French around, i can’t help but wonder if they’re onto something. Can someone sell me some screens please?

I wrote a little while ago about the demise of the St Jean roundabout, with the shed removed and no more mannequins on display. So what’s that you see pictured above? Yes, the mannequins are back! There’s a couple sitting at a table with a bottle, and behind them is a policeman with binoculars. I have absolutely no idea what all this means, as usually the mannequins depict a holiday or event happening locally. Is this a warning that the police will be checking for drunk drivers tonight or something?

Who knows. And frankly, who cares! My faith in France flouting ridiculous health and safety rules has once again been restored (although this was helped along with the monster truck display a few weeks ago too. Happy days.

Broccoli is one of those staple vegies that’s available no matter what season it is, right? Well, kind of. I always thought it was, but this week, there was a major broccoli shortage in the Aravis valley. In fact, my local Carrefour was a bit short of everything. I needed to cook a dinner the other night: dips, followed by broccoli and cheese pie and stuffed mushrooms, then chocolate fondue with strawberries and bananas.

Supermarkets here often run out of stock before the end of the day, so I went down in the morning. I started with dips. One dip was out of stock, and for the guacamole, all the avocados were as hard as rocks. Onto the main course: No broccoli, and only button mushrooms. How do you stuff mushrooms the size of a badge? Dessert: there were no strawberries and the bananas were all too green. The chocolate went back on the shelf and I guessed the recipe of an alternative dessert.

Lidl and Shopi, two smaller supermarket chains in France, were also out of broccoli. Intermarché was on my way home so I popped in and found one last piece of broccoli and I’m sure the guy who watched my desperate search thought that I was playing Johnny Depp’s Mad Hatter character in Alice in Wonderland when he sees Alice for the first time and says “Alice” with a big mad smile on his face, except replace her name with: “Broccoli”. He also watched as I caressed the broccoli after snatching it to prevent anyone else from taking it.

My half-hour shopping trip turned into three hours thanks to a lack of broccoli, fruit and dips. The latest lesson about living in France? Have a shopping list for the preferred meal, then another for the alternative. And plan ahead for broccoli. I’m now growing my own.

No, you are not imagining things. This really is a photo of a cow in a car — a Renault 5 to be exact. This is a car with only three doors, so there’s not that much space between the driver and the cow. My friend Penny snapped this photo on the way back from Annecy last week. At first, she presumed the brown and white thing was a boxer dog. She then realised it was a cow.

I guess this particular farmer found it more cost effective than getting out the cow transport truck, but I’m not sure how the cow feels about it. Is that a line of wee coming from the cow? And if so, is it really that cost effective? The farmer has to clean up the the mess left behind by the cow.

I reckon this one beats the dog on a bike and the snowman on a car hands down.

July and August are the peak months for tourists flocking to Annecy to spend all their tourist money on ice creams, live entertainment, paddle-boats and admission fees. Ponies and bouncy castles will always get the attention of kids whose parents are nagged into submission. A couple of Euros here, and a couple more there. Holidays for families in Annecy can be expensive.

It looks like Santa is getting in on the act too, with his abode being open to tourists from 3rd July to 29th August. I found this sign in Annecy last week. It says: “This summer, discover the hamlet of father christmas” and then says “Unique in France”. Well, yeah, I imagine it is, given it’s summer and Santa is meant to live a bit further North than the French Alps. A friend of mine, Lilly, worked at this very tourist attraction a few years ago, tossing crepes as the French do, for hungry kids during November in the lead-up to Christmas. When I visited her at work, I had to race through the rooms of Santa’s house, which were very glittery, to get to where she was at the café — appropriately placed at the end of the tour for parched and hungry kids and parents. The kids all seemed to be pretty happy, but that was in winter. Right now, it’s summer. Are families really interested in starting the Christmas hassles this early in the year? Surely this just starts the nagging for Christmas presents and those awkward questions from older kids about Santa himself.

Don’t get me wrong: I’m all for the Christmas spirit, but it’s not Christmas. However, I must thank Santa for Lilly’s great crepe-making ability, which I’ve benefitted from on more than one occasion.

I love shopping when the sales are on, and I love that the new stock sits expensively beside the cut-price old stock so that I can prove to myself that I’m getting a bonafide bargain. Sometimes, I stray to the new stock and end up spending way more than I intended. That’s the trick, isn’t it? Shopkeepers lure you in with the promise of amazing bargains in the hope that you will rid them of old stock and buy some of this shiny new stuff, suggestively placed right next to the bargain bins, while you’re at it.

Apparently, not all shops do this. I came across this sign in a shop in Annecy having a ‘total stocktake sale’ yesterday. The sign says: “Don’t touch the new collection. Thanks.” If you’re good at French, you might notice there’s a missing letter in “novelle” which should be “nouvelle”. Racks of old clothes formed a horseshoe shape around this central rack of new clothes, and two bins of mixed accessories right in front of it. You could say it was the centrepiece, drawing the attention of every shopper, from bargain-hunters to aimless browsers. Are they not cutting off their nose to spite their face in this shop? Why put the new stock on the shop floor if you don’t want people to touch it? Will jeans break if someone touches them? I touched them and the woman adding more sale prices a few racks away didn’t say a thing. No alarms went off and the world carried on.

August is the month of things happening in Annecy. This weekend signals the annual Fete du lac which I wrote about a few years ago, and barely a day goes by when there’s not some sort of activity going on. However, July 2010 was also fun-packed. I accidentally stumbled on this band playing on a canal just before August kicked in. Yes, I stumbled on a band playing on a canal. It was part of some four-day festival I had no idea about which involved wandering minstrels, some bizarre karaoke action, and this band playing on a canal.

They weren’t the best band in the world, but how could they be when they have to concentrate on standing still to prevent the whole floaty thing from tilting, possibly causing seasickness, as well as playing their instruments and singing. In fact, I’d say they were quite impressive because they kept a large crowd of people entertained amongst all this. Actually, were they entertained or bemused by the site of these three guys struggling to stay upright and perform at the same time? That, I’ll never know.

I’m sorry about yelling that, but last week, St Jean de Sixt was covered in posters advertising a monster truck extravaganza, and we all know that a monster truck means a crushed car or two. Brilliant! Bring it on. Some friends and I meandered across the road and paid the €12 for a standing spot (it was €3 more to sit on some raised planks of wood which we decided wasn’t necessary).

After stalling for about ten minutes (probably so they could tell late-comers that they hadn’t missed anything yet and get a few more people in), the show commenced. But before we saw the crushing of cars, we had to watch a pre-teen kid on a quad bike, a relative of his do handbrake turns too many times, and a variety of dangerous-looking things involving kids and audience members that would have health and safety officials in shock in some other countries. Here’s a quick photo gallery.

Did we come here for the kid on a quad bike (they start young in this family)? NO.

Did we come to see the kid’s brother hold on to a car while another family member (dad/brother? who can tell) did handbrake turns? NO.

Did we come here to stick our kids in a truck that raises off the ground, with no seat belts on and the window low enough for them to fall out? NO! (But well done to those kids for performing the most dangerous stunt of the day.)

Did we come here to watch fellow audience members sit in the passenger seat of a Renault Twingo, unseatbelted, while the driver does yet more handbrake turns? NO. (I did that as a teenager in my brother’s car, and again in his mates’ cars, and more recently in a car owned by that passenger pictured in various snow-covered car parks.)

Each year, La Clusaz hosts a moonlit walk through town (la balade au clair du lune in French) when the moon is full and bright in the sky. All the street lights are turned off, but the town is still lit by more than the moon. Candles flicker on the ground, in trees, and on window sills along the main streets which are blocked to cars and full of pedestrians and entertainers.

This year’s theme was light. I guess it would be a bit boring without any additional lighting to view the entertainment by, so the entertainment itself was illuminated. Pictured above is one of the acts that got friendly with the tourists. I love the smile on the drummer’s face as he tries to get a member of the public dancing. Their light came from the giant illuminated cones around them. This was the extremely upbeat band compared with the one I’d seen marching down the street ten minutes earlier: they sounded like a funeral procession from New Orleans.

Meanwhile, pictured on the right are two illuminated angel people on stilts, along with a juggler and a non-stilted illuminated angel person to keep them company. They were really magical to watch as they floated and wobbled carefully along the roads, sometimes backwards. The juggler had green illuminated pins which was probably a good thing, or nobody would have noticed him juggling. All the kids were fixated on the white lights.

The kids were also fixated on the big screen that took temporary silhouette photos of anyone standing in front of it. My friends and I tried to get in there to do YMCA with our arms, but the kids kept us back. When I finally muscled my way to the screen, strangers joined me before my friends could (reluctantly) make it, so I did a C by myself while the kids around me smiled as part of their poses, which was as pointless as my C without the Y, M and A since silhouettes don’t show smiles.

The giant inflatable angel, pictured, floated silently over people’s heads through town. It risked being popped as the two blokes driving it tried to get it under an arch of decorative street lights (unlit) and got it wedged between the arch and a neighbouring street light (turned off as well — no wonder they ran into it). Moments earlier, it had been floating up and down ‘watching’ a two-piece band playing something folky. By the time it made it under the street lights, everybody watching the band had turned their attention to the floating angel, breaking out in applause, mid-song, when the angel made it under the lights without popping. The band seemed less than impressed and I reckon they would have popped the inflatable angel with one of their instruments had it been close enough to try.