Posts from — June 2010

By guest blogger, photographer Macondo (Andrew McRae)

The shadows lengthen in rue des Barres, looking away from the Seine River on the corner of rue de l’Hotel de Ville. A young man makes his way between the outdoor cafe tables, a student heading home perhaps. I’ve always liked the view up this lane which leads to rue Francois Miron, the Paris Mairie and the small Place Baudoyer where the Farmer’s Market is still open on this Wednesday afternoon. Just out of sight to the right of the bicycle is the Chez Julien restaurant, which features in one of my earlier photos. Part of the church of St-Gervais can be seen on the left; the shadow in the foreground has been cast by this impressive church.

Yesterday we invited my landlady and her boyfriend to lunch. They are a very lovely, groovy pair of 80 year olds. Most of the recipes were experiments but they sort of worked out, especially the main course. This was my attempt to copy the lunch I had in Bonn on Monday at the Deutsche Welle Media Forum I attended.

The entrée was mache leaves, piled with celeri remoulade and carrot rappée, (both from Franprix), topped with toasted pine nuts and lightly cooked sliced mushrooms (that’s it, above).

Since my landlady has requested the recipe of the main plat, I have to write it in French. If anyone wants it in English, you’ll have to write and ask for it!

(Picture below)

600g de filets de saumon

La moitié d’un pot de sauce Napolitana (j’ai utilisé la marque Barilla, achetée à Franprix ; je peux la trouver à Melbourne aussi), avec la même quantité d’eau ajoutée et mele.

Douze petites tomates.

Coupez les filets en assez gros morceaux et mettez-les dans une cocotte pour le four. Couvrez avec la sauce, et mettez aussi les petites tomates dessus.

Mettez la cocotte dans le four (chauffé à180 degrés), et faites cuire pendants 15 minutes. Servez avec du riz.

Bon appetit!

This post by GUEST BLOGGER  Macondo (Andrew McRae)

Today  (Tuesday 15th June), while walking to the Place de la Bastille, Carolyne and I literally stumbled upon the large demonstration by la Force Ouvrière, the largest French workers’ union, against the French government’s plans to raise the pension age and other austerity measures affecting workers and their rights and conditions of retirement. The government was to make its first recommnedations the following day, June 16th.

The large demonstration marched past the Bastille monument and continued along rue de Lyon towards the Gare de Lyon. I don’t know where it finished or where they assembled, but at the end the crowd was addressed by the FO’s leader, Jean-Claude Mailly, as shown on the organisation’s website. The FO estimated the attendance at more than 70,000 but the Police estimated about 25,000. It brought back many memories for me of large demonstrations in Melbourne, especially against the Vietnam war nearly 40 years ago, and in support of Land Rights for Australia’s indigenous people. I remained in the area of the Bastille for 90 minutes, starting well after the march began, and my guess is that the crowd was far in excess of the Police’s estimate.

Demonstrators had come from all over France, mainly manual workers, but covering many different professions. They included metal-workers, agricultural workers, firemen, ambulance staff and police; all age groups and many ethnic groups were involved.

When we returned home several hours later we tried to find some commentary on the demonstration from news websites, but all we found was Le Monde describing it as a wasted effort which caused little disruption. Apparently the internecine disputes between the various labour organisations mean that the resistance to the government’s plans may well be splintered, but after what promises to be a long period of privation for many in Europe the demonstrations might become more populist and widespread, perhaps less peaceful.

I’m writing this on the Toulouse to Paris train, a nearly five-and-a-half-hour journey. France is the only country in which I make long train journeys. In Australia the distances between the major cities are so vast that I usually take a plane.

I adore French trains. The famous fast-speed  TGV (Trains Grands Vitesses) render  journeys between Paris and the major cities a short, pleasant interlude. Even the ordinary trains are relatively fast, and equally comfortable. This route from Toulouse to Paris is via Bordeaux, so ‘ordinary’ speed for the first leg of just over two hours, and grand vitesse from Bordeaux to Paris, a distance twice as far as the first leg, but taking only slightly longer thanks to the much faster speed.

Most of my friends, being enseignants-chercheurs, or at least avid readers, find train journeys very productive, and I agree with them. Where else am I forced to sit at my desk for five hours straight with few distractions? More than that, there is something inspiring about being surrounded on all sides by such an abundance and variety of green: the trees, hedges and rows of crops; but also the farmhouses, villages small and large, clustered around a church spire, the occasional chateau in the distance.

If Sarkozy’s racaille* really do exist, they are not on this train. The loud one-sided phone calls to which I am frequently forced to listen on Anglophone trains are not here either. An announcement at the start asked us to switch our mobile phones to silent, and reminded us there are small sections between compartments where one can speak on the phone, and also recharge laptops. My fellow-travellers speak in low voices to each other, read or sleep. On the first leg, it’s so quiet in here that I hope the tap-tap of my typing does not annoy anyone. Many more people join the train at Bordeaux and the carriage noise settles into a low hum. Even two small children across the aisle from me are relatively quiet, their parents providing distractions and constant ‘shushing’.

So far, in one-and-a-half hours I have read several chapters of a novel, sketched a lecture outline for next semester, and written this blog post. Not a bad morning’s work.

* In 2005 when Sarkozy was the Minister for the Interior, he famously/notoriously referred to the young men who had rioted as ‘racaille’—rabble.

I’m in the beautiful ‘pink’ city of Toulouse in the Midi-Pyrenees region of southwest France, this week, to give a seminar paper, and to meet with various chercheur-enseignants at the Université de Toulouse. Founded in 1229 the University of Toulouse is one of the oldest in Europe, although subsequently split into three.

The city of Toulouse itself has been in existence for around 24 centuries, and now with around a million inhabitants is the fourth-largest, but fastest growing city in France. It is  home to Airbus, houses the European aerospace industry, the Toulouse Space Centre, the manufacture of satellites and various other technological endeavours.

From 118BC for around 500 years, Toulouse was part of a large area of southern France colonised by the Romans, and called Provincia Romana (the modern Provence is said to have come from this name) or Transalpine Gaul. From around 43BC to 33BC it seems that Mark Antony was the person responsible for this province, Rome’s largest.
A bust of Mark Antony’s head, along with those of many other important Romans, is in the collection of antiquities in the Musée Saint-Raymond. His face is so finely detailed that when I stand in front of him, I imagine him sitting for the artist, or walking the streets of Toulouse, and feel myself plunged down the vortex of 2000 years, a hiss of vertigo in my ears, as I escape the 21st century.