Good book

I picked up a reference to this book on a blog that I was passing through recently.  It was included in a list that the blog writer had read and was recommending, and since I have an interest in China, her politics and how she is starting to make herself felt, I thought I'd take a look.

It is a thoroughly researched, detailed, clear and articulate exposition of China's past, current status, and  extrapolations and predictions as the what the future might hold.  It's as excellent a political book as I have ever read.   See other reviews here.   If the subject is of interest, don't hesitate.

Pushing envelopes

I have been nervous playing music in front of an audience ever since I can remember.  I still vividly remember the terror of a school concert where, as a teenager, I played a Chopin waltz on the piano.

Since those times my working life often involved giving formal presentations to large audiences, and although I was nervous in the early days, my technique improved over time.  In the end, although I would sometimes get a bit nervous before presenting, this would never get in the way of a good result.   So it came as a surpirse (and a considerable disappointment) when, the first time I played my flute in front of an audience, the terror struck again.  I was shaking so much that my trembling jaw made its own, completely uncontrollable vibrato, and the overall result was, of course, a disaster.

In the grand scheme of things, not being able to play for an audience is not, at least for me personally, a big thing: it's not as if I'm ever going to be a professional musician.    But I find it frustrating not being able to share my love of a piece of music with a wider audience.  What's more, other people play in public without being reduced to gibbering wrecks, so it's clearly a personal, internal barrier that belongs to me.  So I set about trying to get rid of it.

I tried hypnotherapy, counselling, and above all, practice at getting out and playing.  The music school here is especially helpful, since they hold little informal concerts at the end of every term, and one is simply expected to play.  We have also hosted a couple of the flute courses run by the inspiring teacher Wissam Boustany here at Les Hallais.  Wissam is a firm believer in playing from memory, or "by heart" if you like, and the wonderful concert he held at the end of his recent course inspired me to go for it.

So here, warts and all, is my first ever renditiion of flute music, in front of an audience and from memory.  The rehearsal was better than the concert, and the video isn't really as good as the concert, but such is the way of things.  2 Romances, from Op94 by Schumann.  With thanks to Wissam and to Sandrine, the wonderful pianist.

Top marks to Maxwell and Williams

We chose Maxwell & Williams' White Basics range of crockery for the gîte.  It has a simple elegance that we both like, and being off-white, goes with any colour of furnishings or table setting.  However there is a problem that we didn't thnk about when choosing it: there are no French-based suppliers.

Breakages are inevitable, and to replenish our stocks this year, we had to have the new items sent to my sister's place in England, and pick them up when we went over.  (Thanks, sis, we're always grateful).  It happened that we ordered the necessary items at the end of October, and picked them up during our recent trip, in the middle of December.

The crockery was superbly packed but despite this there were two chipped plates.  These things happen.  So I telephoned the supplier (International Home Goods Ltd in Thrapston, the Maxwell & Williams distributor), explained the situation, and they shipped two replacement plates to arrive next day at our friends' house where we would then be staying.  They duly arrived.

Later on, we looked for, but didn't find, an invoice in the original box, so a second telephone call resulted in an electronic copy by email within the hour.

I reckon that this is excellent service.  The crockery shipped in October and we didn't collect it until December, and as far as IHG know, we could have been using it since then, and broken the plates playing frisbee.  No quibbles, and replacements that arrived on time, which was important since we were only there for one day.  First class.

Missing food

Our trip to the UK this last weekend was hugely enjoyable.  Visits to friends, family, with the special extra of celebrating our 10th wedding anniversary.  The wedding itself was organised in a bit of a rush, since we realised fairly late in the day that we were going to have been together for 25 years, and to hit the right date, we had to get our skates on.  So the centrepiece of the trip was a 3-star Michelin dinner and overnight stay at the Roux brothers' Waterside Inn at Bray, where we got married.

We commented that of the things we thought we might miss in moving to France, good food was not on the list.  And yet the impression whilst we were back in England was that we hadn't eaten so well since, well, the last time we were in England.  We ate fish 'n chips, a curry, a burger (Burger King, char-grilled), Chinese, Thai, as well as French.  Had we had any room left on the way to the ferry on Sunday night, there is also an excellent pizza take-away right near the Portsmouth ferry terminal.

OK, France doesn't do fish 'n chips, you wouldn't expect it.  And they do do burgers (Mac's and Quick are in Laval, but not Burger King, the best of the lot in my view), and if you want more American options, KFC have recently installed themselves, and there is a Buffalo Grill American-style steak/beef restaurant chain too.   And if you fancy Italian there is a perfectly acceptable Pizza Del Arte chain in Laval.  I should also mention chinese-style places too, often of Vietnamese origins.  They are all fine, and if you want French, there are all levels, including Michelin stars to be found.

Pictures: The chippie where we bought the fish & chips, and the seafront at Warsash where we ate them.

And yet.....

The fish 'n chips was perfect; freshly cooked in crisp seasoned batter, the Chinese take-away organised by our friends was not only delicious but delivered to their house.  The Thai, in an invisible Harry-Potter style space between two pubs, was beautifully spiced and presented (and available at 2:45 on a Sunday afternoon too).   Even the French food in England was better than anything we have eaten anywhere in France (though to be fair, more expensive too).

I accept that this comparison doesn't hold for Paris, and probably other big cities too, where you can get superb cuisine of all kinds.  Perhaps no small part of the difference is because we are, of our own choosing, out in the sticks.   Well, fair enough.  If you can find sticks to be out in in England these days, perhaps the choice and quality is limited there too. And perhaps I'm simply missing the spicy flavours, but I don't think it's just that.

But one thing I will say for sure.  The idea that the food available every day to the average person in England is in any way inferior to that available to the French isn't just outdated; it's just plain wrong.  If anything, it's the other way round.

Colour clash

Blue and green should not be seen
Without a colour in between.

Looks OK to me.

Decisions, decisions

We're always on the lookout for ways of promoting our gîte in a cost-effective way.   Being a large-ish place with catering provided, and best suited to groups, it doesn't lend itself to standard holiday promotion vehicles.  So we keep our eyes and ears open.

I got a spam phone call from a part of Ryanair yesterday.  The gist of the spiel was something like "we don't have enough places of your size in your area, so would you like us to promote you to our clients"   Well, yes, if it doesn't cost anything.

Now I don't know about you, but I tend to assume that someone who says "your size" and "your area" doesn't in fact know where you are or what size you are.   A second red flag is that Ryanair are trying to sell me something.  Mr O'Leary has a reputation for financial astuteness, so I'm figuring that in any deal between me and Ryaniar, I might well come off worse unless I keep my wits about me.

So it turns out that this guy is basically flogging space on a Ryanair holiday website, and he persuaded me to at least take a look at it, so I did.  After all, it might just be worth going for.  It looked pretty standard holiday stuff to me, and not really appropriate for what we do, but out of curiosity, I contacted one of the advertisers and asked them if the site worked for them.  This is the reply I got:

"No, always on vacation has not brought one single enquiry let alone a booking.
It's rubbish as far as I'm concerned."

Now it could be that this proprietor has found the Ryanair website to be a real goldmine and is lying through his teeth to keep the secret.  After all, I have no way of verifying what he said.   And a random sample of one can hardly be expected to be representative either.   But those are both risks that I'm prepared to take.   Some decisions are easier than others.

Eye question

We have (at least some of us, I guess) seen at some time, a diagram of the human eye focusing an image on the retina.  The image appears upside-down.   This is not a problem because the brain simply interprets the top of the eyeball as represening "down", the same direction as the feet, and the pull of gravity.

The brain's ability to "correct" or interpret this image has been demonstrated by getting people to wear prismatic glasses that invert the image back to "the right way up" on the retina.  People took a couple of weeks, but adjusted to it.

Now the human eyeball is basically a sphere, give or take a bulge at the lens, and the junction with the optic nerve.  It is rotationally symmetric about a line drawn from the centre of the lens to the opposite point on the back of the eye.  So images on the retina are inverted left to right as well.   Now there is no asymmetry to left/right like there is for up/down, so does the brain also correct for left/right reflection?  If it didn't for some of us, how would we know?  And would it matter?  How about left-handed people?   Am I missing something obvious here?