Author: merocet

Look monsters!

Quick, Hide!

Why is it all the good ones are getting sick and dying while the bad ones go from strength to strength?

The Cook,
the Thief,
his Wife,
and her Lover

While I’m still in my hate-Bush-Cheney-it’s-their-fault-i-can’t-have-cigarettes-or-go-to-America mood, I thought I’d share this picture with you.

In other news Chaton (French for Kitten and more accurately descriptive of his behaviour if said out loud) has opened his eyes this morning, and so is seeing everything around him for the first time ever which has set me thinking. Whirr… Whirr..

First Click Here…

The US must change the Visa Waiver scheme because the London bombers would have been allowed into the US using it, and if they change it so that everyone has to be interviewed, the bombers would still get in because unless they answer “Yes I am” to the question “Are you going to let off a bomb in America” they’re just the same as everyone else. So they must change the Visa Waiver scheme for why?

We’re all clear?

I am a Russian spy, Tony. That’s what I am….

God this stuff makes me mad. Once upon a time a bunch of geriatric loons that couldn’t get over their impending redundancy at the end of the cold war, and the tumbling share price of their war profiteering company Halliburton, took over the most powerful country in the world, completely hijacked it, persuaded the poor news starved, ill educated people there that they were in danger, and proceeded to live in a Fox News masturbatory fantasy, turning the entire world into a millitaristic theme park full of imaginary enemies… I’ll go back to bed…

Bet this fella doesn’t want a cigarette as much as I do…

“Smoking is for poor people…You never see rich people smoking. Truly rich people. Ever.” – Douglas Coupland.

Yes today I’m trying to become healthy again. You know that thing when you go through periods of wellbeing, generally brought on by being better to yourself; kicking the fags, cutting back on the sauce, having an early night, getting your arse off the sofa, eating a segment of an orange, going outdoors once in a while, inviting a vegetable on to your plate, that sort of thing? Well for some reason that feeling of wellbeing makes me want to smoke more, drink more, eat less veget… you get the idea; and then I start to feel rougher and the colds start to kick in again and so I try to start being kinder to myself by kicking the fags, cutting back on the…and round and round we go. Well today I have designated National “being-kind-to-myself-day” and like everyday with that title it involves alternating bouts of self-righteousness and desperate craving, the latter staved of by my trusty old Boots nicotine inhaler and large amounts of coffee, chewing gum and sugary coca-cola . BUZZZZZZZZZZ. Soon be healthy… Still doing 480 seconds of abs work out every morning (a whole 960 seconds the other day in a fit of must-get-fit-ness) and actually found some hard things below my ribs that kind of remind me of muscles I had 15 years ago, except they hurt more to get.

Gael the marine bought a motor bike.

Harvey had a ha-hyena.

Did I confuse you all? Really, I’m desolated. But fear not, my sister has not secretly popped out a couple of sprogs and sent them in exile to the south of France to be cared for by me. The niece and nephew to whom I refer on here are more properly known as my ex-common-law-nephew-and-niece, but really that’s a bit of a mouthful, and since they call me Uncle or in French; “Tonton” and, since I’ve been that to them for all but one of Margot’s nine years and all of Loic’s four, and since little Loic has a bad tum and I just had to wipe his butt, I tend to just call ‘em my nephew and niece for simplicity. That’s all really. Oh, and St Mandrier is all over the TV news at the moment in France ‘cos it keeps threatening to burn to the ground. Look here’s a blurry picture of it! (the yellow stuff is the fire)

I’m sure that idea will make certain people secretly happy.

In other news I’m up to a total of eighty minutes worth of the “eight minute abs” video. That’s over an hour in seasonally adjusted real terms, or ten times of me shouting obscenities at the steroidally enhanced fitness goon on my computer screen. My belly seems to be on the wane or my t-shirts are getting stretched. One or the t’other, but I am impressed with my perseverance. I think it’s mostly due to seeing the picture of me a couple of weeks ago on Geoff’s site. If he wasn’t an old friend I may have sued for the defamatory nature of his obviously doctored picture attempting to make me look somewhat fat and less than devilishly handsome. It may have something to do with watching the sea level rise as I jump in, but maybe that’s just my imagination…

At the moment I’m in a garden overlooking the Med with a beer in my hand, my computers connected to the internet wirelessly, the sun’s shining, I’ve got some Provencal tat up on ebay to see if anyone wants to buy it, and McAlmont And Butler’s wonderful, summery Bring It Back album is playing in the background. Aside from some sad emotional stuff, life could indeed be less good than it is.

Wanna buy this?

What’s big news here?

Biggest news is something little. I was midwife to a cat variously known as Pamponette, Vampirette and Chat, on the arrival of this little fella, aged 1 hour in the picture below;

Mother and littl’un doing fine.

In other news from our “run away the south of France is on fire” desk, there was a fire in a forest near Toulon today that literally turned the sky black. I didn’t take a photo but believe you me, black it was and the sun disappeared which is a rare occassion here, except at night obviously, when it isn’t.

So in the spirit of all things cat, I was explaining to my nephew aged 4 and niece aged 9 today that the biggest cat in the world ever is a Liger, a rare hybrid of Lion and Tiger, hence the name. Ligers are the name of the product of a Lion father and a Tiger mother. When the mum’s a Lion, they become Tigons because the world is sexist like that and they are less big than Ligers and less good looking.

Have a look at some Ligers;

(Liger is the hairy fella on left with worried looking tiger on right for scale purposes)

Big ain’t they? In a jaw dropping, oh-mi-god-is-that-real kind of way.

So I shared with my nephew and niece the rhyme I made about Ligers and Tigons which helps you remember which way round the sizes go.

Ready?

Ligers are bigger than Tigons,
And Tigons are bigger than Cats,
And if Ligers and Tigons lived in your house,
You’d never have trouble with rats.

Thankyou. X

When I was a pup, I had a dog. Prince. Half Collie, half Labrador and nothing about him that fitted together properly. A small head with large ears perched precariously on either side, one most likely inside out for most of his life. Back legs that would stick out at odd angles whenever he sat, much to his alarm. A big fat pot belly, and not the brightest of canines but one of the most friendly and fun loving.

As he reached about fourteen one winter, he began to slow down. Whiskers became greyer around his snout, the pot belly “pottier”, and the time between dreams of chasing three-legged rabbits across summer fields, his legs twitching and muffled woofs escaping his chops, shorter.

“Oh dear”, we all thought as a more sombre, doleful expression began to replace his normal one of constant cheer and bonhomie, “Our Prince will soon be going where the good doggies go, just like Old Shep before him”. So, off to the vets we all went with lumps in our throats and many consoling, “chin up” looks to each other across the car seats while Prince lay farting on the back seat oblivious to his likely impending demise.

The vet did prod, and the vet did poke, and the vet did push a thermometer where the sun don’t shine, causing Princes baleful look to be replaced briefly by one of shocked, indignation, and a slightly startled “humph”, to escape his lips. Then the vet did take one hand and with it did stroke his chin and ponder, (his other hand on his hip in case you were curious) and finally pronounced, with the confidence of a man who knows he will be paid come success or failure, “This dog must be operated on immediately!”. I think at that point there may have been a brief cartoon moment as my mum looked first at her chequebook, then at me and my sisters’ faces, then back at her chequebook again, and then sighed and reached for her pen. Suffice to say that a week later, Prince was back at home with an embarrassing shaved patch on his belly, surrounding an angry looking wound, decorated with the vets finest needlework; strict instructions to watch his diet, cut down on the fags and booze, and to get more exercise, watch less TV, and, most importantly, he was less a dysfunctional spleen.

Who knows what a spleen does? Something to do with blood I vaguely remember from the anatomy segment of my Human Biology A’ Level. Think I may have missed the details by being in the canteen cum bar eating chicken and mushroom pies and under-agedly drinking subsidised pints of Budweiser that came with a free classic Mowtown single seven inch for every 4 pints you bought at the same time. (“Go on have one then I can get Ball Of Confusion by The Temptations.” – those brewers ain’t stupid you know!)

Anyway, one spleenless Prince sat on the floor before me expectantly and I would not let him down. His last pack of 20 Canine Filter-less Full Strength went in the bin, his bottles of Dogka down the pan, and I drew up a comprehensive exercise regime, possibly influenced by having recently seen Sylvester “Sly” Stallones’, “Rocky 1”. A convoluted thing it was, just stopping short of graphs showing timing and improvement (I thought I could keep most of that stuff in my head) but it did involve, as a kind of doffed hat to Mr Bilbao (or however you spell it), a big set of outdoor steps in the form of a railway bridge, which, once a day, Prince would have to try to scale, although he did stop short of trying to do the air-punching bit, it being a mite too complex for a dog and possibly ending in a badly grazed dog chin.

For weeks, every day, Prince would attack his new regime, the sparkle coming back into his eyes by degrees, and the jauntiness back into his off kilter, slightly sideways walk, that slowly developed back into his signature, lolloping , ears flapping every which way, tongue hanging out, run. And, every day, towards the end of his walk, he would be confronted by his Nemesis, The Bridge. Like Connery in “The Hill” he would bound the first few steps with gusto, and the theme from “Rocky” playing in his ears, but then his leaps from step to step would start to falter, and finally, about half way up, his back legs would rebel, and he would flop down on his rear, panting for his life, and looking up at me to let me know that he understood his failure, and was most apologetic for it, Stallones’ music echoing off into the distance mournfully.

I would then pick the big lump up, carry him over the remainder of the bridge, and put him carefully down on the other side, and we would walk the last few hundred yards home, both in silent reverie, barely acknowledging the others presence, both lost in our failure.

Month after month, through the harsh winter we would repeat this ceremony, our breath from a distance like two steam engines side by side. Some happy days He would climb more steps before collapse, and some sad days, less, but no matter how much he tried, and I encouraged and cajoled, he just couldn’t get to the summit of Mount Railway Bridge.

That is until one morning whilst taking our daily constitutional, both possibly aware of the impending failure and the progress charts, flat-lining in my brain, just short of the goal, we fell into step with a new neighbour and her cute young Border Collie bitch. For fourteen years Prince had never really had an eye for the ladies, leading the family to believe that perhaps he was one of those select breed that preferred the company of men and the sound of high energy disco music. But, this young lady, it would appear, was special, and had awakened some long dormant gland somewhere in Prince’s nether regions which after many years of inactivity had found its purpose in the September of its life. Tails wagged, both dog and bitch started doing those playful little jumps towards each other with rear ends high in the air and front paws down low, then the young lady of Prince’s desire hared off down the path in a “Chase me! Chase me!” way. And Prince? He did what any red blooded dog would do in the situation and careered off after her… towards… the… bridge…

At that moment, I reacted like any caring parent. My heart was in my mouth. Please don’t let him fail. Let him have this moment. Oh god don’t let her see him collapse half way up the steps, with the confidence we had been building for him post-illness in tatters.

I needn’t have worried. Like a good’un he took the steps two at a time, barking happily, and shot to the top of the bridge without a moments pause, launching himself down the steep drop on the other side, after his lady love with careless disregard for his advanced age and personal safety. And I stood and watched, full of pride for this daft looking hound with his ears flapping crazily in the wind, racing after the girl of his dreams, for I could see now that it had been her and not three-legged rabbits he had been chasing in those dreams that we had laughed at…

Recently, twenty years on, with Prince long gone, I’ve noticed that I’ve started to slow down, to spend more time sleeping, and that there’s a bit of a doleful expression on my face as I look in the bathroom mirror of a morning. My belly has also been becoming more “pot”. So this morning, I finally watched my illegally downloaded “8 Minute Abs!” DVD and did everything the strange, endorphin-pumped, thick-necked goon on the screen shouted at me to do. Then I went into the village, had a light breakfast, a bit of a read of Mark Gatiss’ excellent new novel “The Vesuvius Club”, and then I took a deep breath and climbed the Million or so steep steps up to my tiny apartment in Forty degree heat. And, as I got to the top, pouring rivers of sweat, struggling for breath, feeling terrible and with my head spinning, I remembered Prince, and I smiled.

So what are things like now (and why do so many of my posts start with “so”)? Things are like windy with a hint of very warm, a dash of pine scent and a large dose of hangover brought on by sitting out under the stars with a bottle of good whisky at hand. I could do with a good shower, preferably one that cleans out the insides too, but standing up makes my head spin. Sir Geoff of New York is back in town and the already high French level of imbibing has been ratcheted up to 11 for a week. Last night must have been particularly heavy as he has gone back to bed, a behaviour generally unheard of in his brisk-walk-before-breakfast world. Come on we’ll miss the best part of the day…

It’s generally acknowledged in the South of France that the best part of the day is L’heure Du Pastis. I guess it’s a better part of day for those who work as it’s what you have when you get home after a hard days slog. I haven’t done much slogging for a while now so I can’t claim that I feel it the same way as a hard working Provencal person, but it’s pretty good anyway. L’heure du pastis generally slips like a hand into a silk glove towards les trois or quatre heures of wine and laughing, which soft-focus their way into L’heure or deux de whisky, followed by L’heure de wandering back to my little apartment in a wobbly fashion. No matter, it’s taken years off me…

Prior to the arrival of Geoff, I had the pleasure of the company of Fabio for a week here. That week was somewhat less drunken and involved more playing music in the next door neighbour Vince’s garage studio. Drumming again. I’m losing pounds off my arms and legs… doesn’t seem to be doing much for my belly yet… maybe if I drink more of the wine?

Been for picnics in places that look like this…

And I wish you could smell this over the internet

Also been looking into the idea of buying somewhere here. For a while it seemed that I could sell my house in London, pay off my mortgage totally, buy a little apartment with a garden overlooking the port in St Mandrier and still have some money in my pocket… hmmm tempting… Then I spoke to an estate agent in London whose other job is telling children that Santa doesn’t exist at the earliest age possible, and now I’m looking for a good pyramid scheme to get involved in. There is a cloud on the horizon for the first time since I stopped working over a year ago (should have really had some sort of Yuka anniversary shouldn’t I?) and that cloud is dressed as a rapidly dwindling bank account. And we know what that means don’t we boys and girls? I’m going to have to try to find some work soon… (Pause for dramatic bit of music.) Ideas welcome…