Le Franco Phoney

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 imagine that trapeze artists don’t really like wind blowing them off course while they’re trying to catch each other and swing around in the air. However, St Jean de Sixt last week put an event involving wind and a trapeze. Let’s start with the exciting stuff — the trapeze. Both children and adults were allowed to have a go at this trapeze. Shoes must come off and a harness applied, but otherwise, off you go. Once up the ladder, someone on another swing would swing back and fourth while you get launched onto a swing, then get instructed to hold on with your legs and dangle your hands down, then the trapeze expert swinging opposite you grabs your waiting hands and you let your legs get loose of your swing, thus completing the trick.

And once you’re done, you can try your hand at one of the many musical instruments set up to capture the wind, or fly some of the kites on offer, or make a little boat and watch it sail with the wind on a big swimming pool. The whole event was staged on top of a hill — the windiest part of St Jean de Sixt, which doubles as a ’ski resort’ (two drag lifts) in winter. I heard about it from a friend. The week-long event was free, which, according to my friend, happens in July when the villages and ski resorts want to attract as many holiday-makers as possible. Freebies help ensure there’s a flow of people in July, while it’s almost guaranteed in August. So, if you want cool freebie events when you visit the mountains, remember to come in July, not August.

Pictured are a few musicians outside the old prison walls of Annecy, smack bang in the centre of town. No, it’s not a prison anymore, but I bet the prisoners would have loved to have heard the music back when it was (and maybe the hot raclette cheese sandwich I was eating while watching the band play). So, why were musicians set up outside this picturesque spot in Annecy? Because Monday was the Fête de la Musique — the annual event throughout France where musicians play to crowds in the streets, parks and anywhere else they fit. Rather than waffle on about it, here are some of this year’s highlights:

• A woman with bagpipes walking around casually as if everyone carries bagpipes.
• A dog totally oblivious to the thrash metal happening on stage because he couldn’t take his eyes off the ball at his owner’s feet.
• A flirty moment between teenagers who were both too shy to do anything more than flirt while a band played on the stage in front of them. He reluctantly left with his friends. She watched him leave, blushing.
• An opportunistic street performer with a diabolo (piece of string with a cylindrical thing to balance on it) who looked like it was his first time trying out the equipment. A small crowd of disbelievers had gathered.
• A reggae band headed by a guy with a #2 head shave (he sounded properly reggae though).
• Bottles of ‘orange juice’ being shared by teenagers who were eager to drink - what good kids!
• A mosh pit/circle that was started by those same teenagers with all that goodness of fresh orange juice in their blood. Lovely to see teenagers working off some of that juice through exercise.

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!

My blog statatistics tell me what some visitors have searched for before they arrived at my site, and they’re mostly on track with the content of this blog. The number one search every day is ‘how to pronounce French words’. I’ve discussed this, but there’s certainly no lessons coming from me, considering I’m still struggling to make the rolling ‘r’ sound!  So, for those visitors, try going to the BBC learn French website or the Indo-European Languages free online tutorials.

Now that I’ve lost half my audience, let me carry on with some other search queries. Someone found my blog by searching for “haloumi cheese in france”. Haloumi cheese is stocked in Paris, apparently, although I don’t know how widely available it is. It is not available at any of the shops in the vicinity of Annecy, Thônes, Moutiers or Bonneville. Yes, I have searched.

Another one: “how is ‘goat’ spelt in French language”. It’s ‘chevre’ and that can also mean goats’ cheese. So, if you order a salade chevre chaud, which translates directly to ‘hot goat salad’, rest assured that it’s actually warmed goats’ cheese salad and not a hot goat.

Another one: “music in Annecy”. The live music scene in Annecy is often limited to Savoyard thigh-slapping bands with big horns and matching outfits, but Annecy does offer some more modern live music too. Head to La Brise Glace (French for ‘ice-breaker’) on almost any night of the week and you’ll get some sort of music act. It varies from death metal to open mic nights and despite its diminutive interior, has often drawn popular international and local acts.

Now, some odder ones. Someone arrived at Le Franco Phoney after searching the net for “guys pee pee”. Mate, off you go to find what you want somewhere else! Other searches include:

• gay snowman
• angry tractor
• monster real life

Is this one person searching on several rather bizarre subjects? I’m afraid I can’t help this person/people or anyone who searches for these topics in the future. You’ve arrived at the wrong site. Is there a right site?

Tractor doing a wheelie at the start line

Today, I went to a tractor-pulling-stuff competition. Conveniently, it was on the way back from Dijon, where I had been to visit friends. Fellow author and now friend, Francesca, alerted me to the competition here, so off I went, expecting, as she did, flabby men pulling tractors. How wrong we both were! It was actually the tractors that were pulling a heavily-weighted trailer that grew more resistant every second it was being pulled. With front wheels hopping off the ground and a lot of smelly tractor fuel smoke (definitely not nitrous oxide), some of the tractors bellowed down the field, covering us all in a lot of dust, on their way to the finish line, while others puffed to a halt after just a few seconds.

It’s actually a very technical sport: there were ground-wetting vehicles (tractors) and ground-flatteners (also tractors) to keep the course in good shape between each go. Contestants were judged on how fast their tractors were, presuming they reached  the ‘full pull’ (the finish line). Each winning contestant did a wave of victory from their tractor as they returned to the start line. I was lucky enough to be standing near the family of the contestant driving the Rêve Rouge (red dream) tractor, which was red. His first and second runs were great! He had a winning time! As he approached the finish line for the third and final time, his tractor coughed and stopped with a bang. The family, who had been waving and clapping, were now upset and questioning what had happened. Swearing and lots of tutting commenced until they realised he was still the winner in his category with the fastest time. The group consensus was a problem with the radiator. No problems; he was towed away (by a tractor), still able to do his victory wave.

Driver of Rêve Rouge does his victory wave before breaking down

Although this event took place in the Swiss village of Tannay, it could well have been right here in La Clusaz, with a raclette cheese stand, beer tents on each side of the course, and very little else apart from some empty truck trailers which were deliberately used as raised viewing platforms. The event was almost anti-Swiss, with officials letting the public break the rules: I  managed to walk inside the non-public tractor parking lot twice to get to where I wanted, and then across the start line when the competition was over, with an official actually lifting the rope for me to exit while some other tractors were still driving on the course. There were no how-to-pee signs (like this one) in the portable toilets either. Cars parked where they pleased rather than in the large, half-empty field for parking, and to top it all off, I heard Lilly Allen’s F*ck you very much between races, with little kids dancing and bigger kids singing along as if it were a nursery rhyme.

I was chatting with some friends the other day who said they were in the supermarket when an English song started playing on the overhead radio. It wasn’t just any song: it was Lilly Allen’s F*ck you very much. French families and teenagers were wandering around the supermarket while Lilly was singing expletives. Nobody batted an eyelid apart from my English friends who chuckled at the situation. I understand from living here that not all French people speak English, but many do — and very well too, and surely someone at the supermarket’s head office — where the songs are, I presume, chosen and approved — must have seen the song title and realised that even though the swearing is not in French, it’s still not something customers would expect to hear when picking up their cheese and bread.

It reminded me of the time I was in the waiting room of a medical centre in La Clusaz. Music was playing and I listened to various French singers crooning on the radio about l’amour and les oiseaux (because the French always sing about birds). Then a Nirvana song came on. There I was, sitting with little French kids, listening to “Rape Me”. I shouldn’t be surprised, as this seems to be the most popular Nirvana song on that particular radio station and it was inevitable that it came on, but I when I thought about hearing that song in a waiting room in England or Australia, I also imagined the station quickly being switched by the receptionist. Meanwhile, here in La Clusaz, the song was only interrupted by a doctor calling my name.

Yes, this is France and French is the national language. No wonder nobody changed the radio station! But when I try to speak the language, I’m often greeted with frowns or shrugs from those who don’t have any tolerance for my bad French. When I visited the local vet the other day and tried to describe a tube of liquid that my itchy-eared cat, Bruno, needs, the receptionist frowned upon hearing my accent and my inability to remember the name of the product. I guess she figured this was going to be hard work. Her expression seemed to say (in French, of course): “Find another vet.” But before I’d said more than ten words, a kitten ran over her desk and I found myself gushing at how cute it was. She too started gushing like a proud mum, explaining that the cat had been dumped in a bag at the front door and that she thought he colleague would adopt the kitten when she came back from holidays. We had a ten minute chat about the kitten before I finally explained Bruno’s needs. She came back with the right medication and we wished each other a good afternoon before I left.

So, it seems that kittens build bridges between locals and strangers. Thanks Herisson (the kitten’s name — Hedgehog because his fur was spiky). I’m not sure Bruno is all that grateful when he feels the gush of yellow liquid in his ears, but I am at least.

That’s not a spelling mistake. The other night, I went to a meuhriage. Pictured are the bride and groom. Notice anything odd? Yes, that’s a man dressed up as a bride, with black fishnet stockings on, marrying a man in pink glasses. They’re both actually straight.

So what was this all about? I wish I could give you a satisfactory answer to this question, but I’m at a bit of a loss myself, apart from having a great time on the night. I received an invitation to the event, which required us to dress up for a real marriage, from the lovely people at Radio Meuh — a local radio station that plays funky music and is played in shops in La Clusaz and beyond thanks to the wonders of the internet.

The bride is Tedeo. Ted used to DJ at a local club here before hanging out with the Radio Meuh crew. The groom is Arnauld. I’m not actually sure what Arnauld does. Tedeo’s “dad” for the day, Philippe, is the brainchild behind Radio Meuh (no photo I’m afraid — sorry Philppe). I probably should have asked him what the meuhriage was all about, but he was busy DJing while the bride and groom did their thing.

Without hearing it from the horse’s mouth, I can only presume that the Radio Meuh crew figured this would be a good marketing campaign. It worked: a photo of the happy couple made it into Le Dauphine newspaper the following day. However, it wasn’t a real wedding: there were no embarrassing, long-winded speeches by drunk family members, the bride did not fall over, spill food down the white dress or cry at any point of the day, and the music was far too good despite their attempts to cheese it up with typical wedding numbers.

Take a good look at this image below:

What do you see? Let me explain what’s happening. The 14th of July is Bastille Day in France, except it’s only the non-French who call it that. The French call it Fête Nationale, and it normally involves fireworks after dark and some form of entertainment before darkness. Also, the celebrations shown above actually happened on 13th July. Why? I’m not entirely sure, but it seemed appropriate, given that lots of workers were given a four-day weekend. So here we have some locals and some tourists in a little village called Chinaillon, which is just up the road (and part of) le Grand Bornand ski resort, neighbouring La Clusaz. The firemen are dressed in their old outfits and they’re using an old pump to show how firemen used to put out fires. As you can see from the photo, the firemen are actually more intent on spraying the crowd with water, and although they did so countless times, the crowd always replied with a thrill and a cheer. After watching the fire ‘fighters’ and some traditional dancing—including a local dance that showed good men (who knelt to their partners) and bad men (who turned their backs on their partners) to show that people, good and bad, can come together to dance—I headed back towards La Clusaz, and stopped in St. Jean de Sixt to watch some fireworks with some more friends.

Not satisfied with ending the night with a bang, the locals put on a ‘bal’ which traditionally, would have been a ball, but on today’s standards, it was two blokes playing instruments and singing songs such as Macarena and I Will Survive. The advantage of speaking English meant that I knew all the lyrics to these songs, while a French friend asked me about the lyrics to YMCA:

French friend: “What’s that bit say?”

Me: “Young man…”

French friend: “Oh, I’ve always sung ‘Yoplait’.”

Now, who would have thought a dairy product would ever make it into a Village People song? However, she had the last laugh when a song called le Madison came on. Supposedly an American line dancing-style dance, it’s certainly something that never caught on in Australia or the UK while I was there. While my French friend busted the moves at all the right times, the English-speaking crew were left bumping into people and turning in the wrong direction.

Of course, this all happened on Monday night, which meant we did it all over again last night in Annecy—a town that celebrated on the public holiday rather than the night before. Two nights of entertainment for one public holiday. You’ve gotta love the French!

Okay, okay, so it might offend some people to put a drug-wrecked singer, who has probably hacked off his fellow/ex- band members from both Stone Temple Pilots and Velvet Revolver more than most singers, in the same category as someone as creative, innovative and talented as David Bowie. But to be honest, I think Scott Weiland has those same qualities and could be so much greater if he just laid off the drugs. And Bowie certainly has had his fair share in the past anyway. Weiland has sneak-previewed two of tracks from his up-coming second solo album and I just can’t help thinking of David Bowie when I listen to these two songs. I think it’s the combination of melody, chords and production, together with Weiland’s singing style in Paralysis more than in Missing Cleveland, that reminds me of Bowie.

Anyway, I know it’s completely off my usual topics, but it had to be said. Maybe the lovely people at RadioMeuh here in La Clusaz will start playing his stuff…