Le Franco Phoney

My pre-Christmas shopping included a visit to a small indoor shopping centre, complete with Santa and his photographer. Most of the times I’ve seen Santa in a shopping centre, he has a lovely big chair which he looks as out of place sitting on as he does in his acrylic beard, and the kids flock in wonderment and oblivion to have a photo with the big man in red.

This particular Santa wasn’t all that different, but he had a lavish black velvet couch instead. He’d lure the kids over with a wave and sure enough, the kids would beg their parents for a photo and out comes the cash. But then I noticed something a bit different. Santa was out of the picture altogether! The photographer had asked a little girl to remove her big outdoor coat, then daintily arranged her scarf and told her how to pose on the ornate black velvet couch. Santa was busy luring the kids while the photographer snapped away. The photographer clearly knows his market: the parents were loving these photos of their kids posing happily on the couch and buying them on the spot from what they could see on the photographer’s view finder.

Where I am in France often reminds me of my childhood in Australia: everyone seems a bit more relaxed and the pace is a bit slower. But my childhood photos with Santa usually involved a Santa who looked younger than my mum, sweating in the summer heat with all that padding, a sibling with closed eyes or a tongue poked out, and a very bored photographer using a tripod to take the same photo angle over and over again. In fact, I hassled my mum to dig up this old photo of me with my brothers and Santa to illustrate just how bored the photographer (and Santa) must be. Time with Santa was limited and there was never an option of more than one photo. So here’s a tip to Santa’s photographers worldwide: get that camera off the tripod and work it! Parents will love you for it and you’ll make a load more cash. Not that Christmas has anything to do with commercialism, obviously.

Reputations. England has the reputation of simply closing down when snow settles on the roads. France somehow manages to keep on going. Certainly, here in the Alps, a typical local driver tackles snow as just another winter obstacle on the roads filled with the slow cars of tourists (why not overtake on a corner?), speed humps (who bothers slowing down?), late-night drunks (what alcohol limit?) and iced up windows (why drive with a fully defrosted windscreen when you can have the novelty of a peephole instead?). However, the Alps are equipped for snow: local council tractors and trucks scrape the snow off the road regularly; cars are required by law to be equipped with snow tyres and/or chains in many areas; the locals have lots of experience in driving in the snow, and the tow trucks are on standby for any accidents.

Meanwhile, in England, train networks, major roads and airports have closed for days because they can’t deal with the snow. Actually, the snow seems to turn to ice faster and for longer in England. Tragically, a bus hit some ice in the South of England and at least two people died and many more were injured. When the first emergency services car arrived, it too hit the ice and crashed into the overturned bus. While the European Alps benefit from all those services mentioned above, the average Brit is left skating on thin ice, literally. And even with all these services, I’ve seen some extremely bad driving in the past few days. I’ve lost count of the cars with snow chains on even though the roads are now totally clear of snow. A day earlier when the roads were snowy, a man shook his fist at me (leaving me bemused and amused rather than angry) after I didn’t just stop my car while he and his family walked up my side of the road (I drove beside them while no cars came from the other direction). Hello: when you’re driving up a hill on slippery snow and you stop, chances are you might not get going again. It’s a road: walk on the side of it and not in the middle, especially when the roads are slippery. I should have shaken my fist back at him. That same day, I drove along a road and there was a tow-truck winching up a smashed car. It had smashed into the side of the road. Three hours later,  the tow-truck was still there — winching a different car which had smashed into another car which was waiting for a tow truck.

After seeing all this, I can’t help but wonder if England has the right idea.

Johnny even features on Zippo lighters.

Well, not really, at least, not offensive to me, but apparently offensive to at least some French people. Time to rewind. Do you know who Johnny Hallyday is? In France, he’s touted as the French Elvis and indeed, he’s loved as much — if not more — than The King. Johnny’s getting on a bit now, but the post office proudly displays the Johnny stamps you can buy for your Christmas cards, or indeed as part of your stamp collection. Each year, a new Johnny DVD is released just in time for Christmas. In fact, as I walked through a supermarket the other day, I saw a man grinning and shaking his head at a television which was screening Johnny live in concert. I could just tell this guy was thinking “bah oui, he izz just too gooood.”

You may also be aware that Johnny had to cancel last-ever tour after some back surgery in France last month resulted in further surgery in the US (where he spends lots of time, apparently, because he’s not recognised). He was in so much pain that he was placed in an artificial coma for several days. French TV was all over it. Copenhagen climate summit? It barely got a mention, with Johnny being the first headline on every news programme. The latest news, now that Johnny is back from coma-land, is that he will be suing his French surgeon who allegedly bodged the initial operation. Fans in France were so upset about Johnny’s pain that the very same surgeon was attacked and beaten. That also made the news, but only because it had something to do with Johnny.

So, where’s the joke in all this? I overheard a French couple talking the other day when Johnny was put into the coma. The man, with a playful grin, said to his wife: “So, did you hear? Johnny Hallyday is dead.” She glared at him, paused, then said: “There are some things you just don’t joke about.” That was the end of the discussion. She was, of course, right. Nobody in their right mind would joke about Johnny being dead unless they want the same lynching that his surgeon received. Indeed, I was too scared to even publish this before Johnny came out of his coma just in case. Long live the king!

Long-term readers may remember the postcard I blogged about which was addressed to my friend with the wrong address, the wrong post code, the correct village and the wrong surname. More recently, there was the realisation that mail does not get into a letterbox unless it has the recipient’s name on it. And last weekend, I discovered that in France, oversized envelopes, bubble wrap, padded envelopes and basic brown paper are not available at the post office or the typical outlets you’d expect. That sounds ridiculous, right? Well, they’re kind of avaialble, but not really. Let me explain.

I know some post offices around the world (like in England, for example) demand that you buy your padded envelope — from the large selection — from the separate retail purchases counter. You can then take your envelope home to pack, dance with it, do what you like with it, or you can add some goodies to it right there in the post office, then head to the official postal service counter and pay for postage. Other countries (like Australia) provide post offices where you can buy packaging to suit your needs at the same counter, then quickly bundle up your items while chatting to the staff if there’s no queue.

France, however, doesn’t seem to stock packaging products at any of the places you’d expect. I needed to send two parcels last weekend. At 10 in the morning, I tried the post office, but the only packaging there were postage-pre-paid boxes and tough-bags and one pre-paid padded envelope, and all these options were expensive because the postage (to Europe only) was already included. Why on earth would I pay €30+ for an envelope which I then have to pay for postage to Australia on top of that?

So, I left the crowded post office and hit the supermarket. There were some standard A4 envelopes, but no padded envelopes and no rolls of brown paper. I then tried two news agents, but they didn’t even have a standard letter envelope for sale! Where do people go to buy padded envelopes here? I need to know.

With the pressure of the post office closing at midday, I desperately needed to get these gifts sent so they would arrive before Christmas and a birthday. Finally, at another supermarket, I found two metres of brown paper covered in cartoon santas and other festive images. No worries: inside out and it became normal brown paper. I used the whole lot. A friend has since told me about a shop which may stock padded envelopes. If they do stock them, I’m going to buy up big and consider opening a stand outside the post office.

UPDATE: I wrote this entry before I went shopping this morning. By this afternoon, I had discovered that rolls of brown paper can be found at Ikea in Switzerland, and supermarkets in Annecy stock very small padded envelopes. I guess the local supermarkets here stock containers of grass for cats and stuff instead. Yes, I bought a container of grass for my cat.

For four nights each year, Lyon lights up big time. Le Fête des Lumières (the Festival of Lights) is a chance for creative people who like bright things to impress us all with their imagination. Below are just a few of the light shows I snapped when walking around town.

Apart from the typical annoyances of overcrowded streets, street sellers shouting about their tacky illuminated santa hats and a taxi trying to reverse in a pedestrianised area, the fete was a bit confusing. I should have printed out the maps from the website and I should have researched the attractions a bit more, but I didn’t. There were some maps dotted around the streets, but the numbered dots to for attractions were not accompanied with a list of what the numbers were for. We eventually found the outlet providing paper maps with the numbers listed too, but by then, we had walked like cattle for hours and were ready to go home. And actually, it was the walk back to the car that I really enjoyed. The car was parked in the Croix Rousse part of Lyon, which is up a hill, made easier to climb with wide stairs up the long street. Along these stairs, people were selling soup, hot wine, fairy floss (called ‘Dad’s beard’ in France), hot dogs and all sorts of other foods, with some stands providing live music (everything from drum troupes to violins), giving the street a real atmosphere. At the top of the street is a garden, and in it were a whole lot of giant colourful neon flowers (pictured in the last photo, above). “Not subtle,” according to my friend, but that’s fine by me: flowers and lights are best that way in my books. Yes, the other displays were innovative and complicated, but the simplicity of the flowers really struck a chord with me. Every town should have them.

Part of ski resort Le Grand Bornand opened last weekend and included a free ski test area, where you could choose any ski from scores of manufacturers and see how they go on, and off, the piste. I’m up with the lingo: it’s all about rocker systems, reverse camber and wide waists this year. But how on earth do I explain to the ski rep that I want to try a combo of any of those things? The result:

April (in slow French): “What’s that ski?”

Ski rep: “C’est blah de blah de blah blah blah blah blah blah blah. D’accord?”

April: “Okay.”

This resulted in me trying out K2 Misdemeanors even though I used to own their brother, the Public Enemy ski. What a waste of time: I know exactly what it’s like to ski on and it was a pointless test. But I took them out anyway as I was too embarrassed to explain in slow French that I hadn’t understood what he said and that I’d changed my mind.

Another instance was the Rossignol S7 ski. Now, two friends of mine have just got these skis and I was keen to try them out. Sadly, I learnt through my French friend who also wanted to try them out, Rossignol staff were very unhappy that three snowboards had come back within the first few hours totally wrecked from the rocky off-piste which has yet to form a decent snow base, and they had decided to take all off-piste skis away from the public too. So, no chance of trying the S7 I though. But then the Rossignol rep pointed to a pair of Roxy skis (picture) and said they were basically the same. Here we go again:

April (in slow French): “I’d like to try the …ummmm… Roxy ski.”

Ski rep (in fast French): “They’re all Roxy skis…”

April’s French friend:  “The Mumbo Jumbos.”

Saved by my French friend! Apparently, the Rossignol guy had actually named the ski, but my French is still so lacking that I didn’t catch the completely non-French-sounding “mumbo jumbo” in his sentence.

No worries. I have some great skis to try out and I’ll regain the confidence I just lost with my French language skills by ripping these babies up on the hill. Alternatively, they could feel like planks of concrete stuck to my feet that do float off-piste (don’t tell the Roxy rep I took them off piste - I promised I wouldn’t), but are more like two tethered elephants on piste. The Roxy ski rep asked me what I thought of them, and I bet she regretted that. She had to patiently listen to some idiot talking about “more muscle I need” and “not good on piste” without any further explanation as to why. Had she asked me in English, I could have told her about the elephants.

It doesn't matter how fancy it is, make sure your name is on it

Okay, I promise this is the last thing I write about moving house, but it might be valuable to someone out there. In France, or at least in this region, you absolutely must must MUST write your name on your letterbox. When I first moved to France, I thought it was a quaint remnant of the past to let the postie know who you are, if they didn’t already guess from the names on your mail. I was so, so wrong.

If you do not put your name on your letterbox, even if you’ve gone into the post office and filled out the change of address forms and introduced yourself to your new postal staff, you will not receive any mail. Nothing. Nada. Rien. Game over.

I didn’t know this two weeks ago, so when I put my name on the letterbox three days after moving in, the postie then informed me that she had seen mail from the electricity company and the phone company and something else that looked personal. Did she not see the moving boxes stacked inside the door? Had she not seen cars full of boxes being lugged inside just days earlier? Was she not aware that she hadn’t delivered mail to this particular house for more than a year, and that it had a new name anyway (there are no street names or numbers where I live: just house names)? Did she not put two and two together when she saw bills from utility companies arrive that would indicate services being activated for the new people who have just moved in? Did she not? No, she bloody didn’t.

So, quite possibly, there’s now a housewarming card winging its way back to the person who sent it to me, along with some black mark against my name on some utility company database. Let this be a lesson to anyone moving to France: write your name on that letterbox as soon as you possibly can!