Gripped

It was with some trepidation that I took my eldest to see the doctor this evening. He came home from school complaining of a temperature, muscle pains and nausea. Oops...

I called the doctor and got an appointment because of the possibility it might be the dreaded Grippe A (H1N1, swine flu). Kids have been falling like flies at his school - the whole of troisième has been closed, although I'm not sure how many of them are confirmed cases of swine flu.

In the meantime, the French are proving very wary about getting themselves vaccinated. Those most at risk have been sent vouchers, but many of those not in the medical professions simply don't trust the vaccine. The vaccination centres are installed in sports halls and are able to take up to 1000 people, but are pretty empty. It doesn't help, of course, that you can't just go to see your doctor, but that you have to get to a particular place which may not be convenient to you.

Now everyone is criticising Roselyne Bachelot, Health Minister for her handling of the vaccination campaign and holding her responsible for the modest uptake on being vaccinated. One of the problems is that there is a video doing the rounds which accuses the laboratory Baxter of accidentally contaminating a test vaccine with live virus. Mme Bachelot had ordered a first round of vaccines from Baxter but refused to give the name of the lab when asked thus inciting deep suspicion in the population.

So the situation now is that there are dozens of centres around the country standing almost idle while those who could be vaccinated are choosing not to be, but the vaccines in multi-doses are not being used on anyone else either. Once opened, they have to be used within 24hrs or thrown out. The fear is that there'll be chaos later when those on the priority list who haven't been vaccinated and whose vouchers have expired (after 10 days) will panic when more people catch swine flu and everyone is rushing to get themselves jabbed.

When will politicians ever learn that people are not sheep, that the internet is a huge resource for outing lies and dodgy stuff, and that they can't fob off any old piece of crap onto a population that takes its health very seriously. One whiff of opaque spin and that's it, everyone becomes consumed with paranoia. They refuse to heed advice they consider suspect and a huge crisis management campaign has to be added to the original one. You can't put the tele on for the news without seeing someone being jabbed and smiling happily about it.

After all that, my son doesn't have swine flu (apparently - we'll see... paranoia paranoia). It's just a bog-standard seasonal one resulting in a day off school in bed tomorrow and no sport for 6 days. Phew (pending review of situation in a couple of days)!

Democracy vs Apathy

I sometimes get the feeling that many people in the West don't deserve democracy. It's become part of the furniture and is mostly taken for granted.

It was with interest then, that I read Daniel Finkelstein's article in The Times today, 'Which Queen? Which Speech? Who Cares?' in which he bewails the lack of interest in politics by most people. They simply, he says, don't care. At all.

It's not even that they've become disillusioned recently. They never been interested. What people notice is results - cleaner hospitals, less vandalism, better schools. The rest is just tuned out as 'noise'.

For anyone who fought for democracy, this is either a sorry state of affairs, or proof that it works so well that people cease to notice it. Unfortunately, when you stop taking notice, you leave the situation open to abuse and it's only when the results start hurting - unemployment, too much immigration, too much surveillance, restraints on free speech, political correctness, excessive human rights laws, elfansafety lunacy, over-taxation, financial crisis that people sit up and realise a lot's been happening behind their backs.

Then there's uproar and the papers have a lovely time digging the dirt and analysing ad nauseaum until everything settles down to be quickly forgotten.

In France there is a much higher turnout for elections and peope are continually complaining about the government. It helps that Sarkozy concentrates minds wonderfully as people moan and whine about the changes he was elected to implement. Because there is so much to do, and most of not pleasant, large swathes of the (mass) population detest him and enjoy being bad-tempered amongst friends at the threats to their avantages acquis.

As with Brits, they are especially virulent when results of policies affect them adversely. What politicians believe is that their policies will affect the way people vote, but it's not that at all, it's what everyone's personal situation is on the day of voting that affects the way they vote. Consider this from the last British election:

For two months in the run-up to polling day, voters were asked: “Has there been anything in the news about what the Conservative Party has been saying or doing that has caught your eye this week, whether on TV or radio or in the papers?”
Most of the time the proportion who could think of nothing hovered around 90 per cent.

Scary? Comforting? It does help to know that all that last-minute political posturing passes most people completely by and makes no difference to the way they vote. If they vote at all, that is...

So do we deserve democracy? I have a nasty feeling that one day so much will have been going on behind our backs that it'll be too late to stop, and then we'll rue the day we took democracy for granted.

Look after democracy,

Cherish it with care;

For you never know its value

'til it's gone, and then you'll care!

Scenes de menage

M6 has created a little bijoux of a 'shortcom', 'Scènes de Ménage', a weektime daily series that goes out at 8.05pm.

I tried to resist watching it, but it's so piquant in its humour, and so Frenchly true (and maybe even universally accurate) that it's plus fort que moi.

Three couples in their thirties (mixed - him black, her white), fifties, and seventies, are portrayed in short 'scènes de ménages' which are based on arguments, but not always. For example, in one scene, the elderly woman asks her husband if he appreciates her for her beauty or her intelligence and he replies 'For your sense of humour'. That is typical of the sometimes vicious humour that they aggress each other with. Of course, being French, they indulge themselves in a lot of shrieking and shouting, but ultimately they are solidly married and stay that way.

It's very funny and so true, and there's nothing like it anywhere else on the tele. It makes a change from a standard soap like Plus Belle la Vie too. Talking of which, Canal+ has made a series called 'Pigalle, la Nuit'. I suspect they are taking the piss but I couldn't detect any parody in the preview.

According to SeriesLive.com, M6 has joined up in a partnership with Vie de Merde.fr, the website where people write in to recount shitty happenings in their lives. Apparently, people will be able to vote on the best VdM story which will be made into a SdM scene. The successful contributor gets to see his or her story on tele and sees it being filmed too.

It's all very silly, but a good laugh. Of course, some of the language is a bit fruity, but nothing that your average French adult wouldn't say in the course of a haranguing match. 'Merde' comes into it quite a lot...

Shame it's on at prime eating/chatting time though. I get the impression sometimes that there's a conspiracy to stop me living the sort of civilised life where people have intelligent discussions over a delicious dinner. Yeah, I am taking the piss. I have a male ado at home. Any hope of a semblance of civilised discussion over dinner is wishful thinking and just an illusion...

Cold Remedies

For some reason, my Sky Digibox isn't working at the moment. I can get the menu but a message tells me there is no satellite connection. So I missed last night's episode of FlashForward. A bit of a bugger but I can catch up later if I get a connection...

Instead I watched Capital on French tele's M6. It's one of the few programmes I like watching because it gives some good information on a variety of topics. Yesterday they were talking about improving the insulation on houses which has become big business due to the increase in fuel prices. Many companies have jumped on the bandwaggon and offer a complete service ranging from replacing windows, insulating the roof and walls, and installing the right heating system.

It's incredibly expensive though. One retired couple with a fairly large old house (210m²) were presented with an estimate of 210,000Eur to completely renovate the house. Horrific!

One of the selling points that sales reps ram down the throats of prospective customers is the magic 'credit impot' which is a tax rebate on some of the money spent. What people don't know, however, is how it works, and much fury has been engendered by people discovering too late that they didn't get as much as they were promised by the slimy rep.

To start with, you'll only get money back if you use a professional to install the equipment. BUT you only get a rebate on the cost of the equipment, not the installation. Also, the Fisc (French tax office) will only give a rebate up to a maximum of 8000Eur, or 16000Eur for a couple. The couple paying out 210K would not get any more than one paying out 20K. The level of rebate is not the same for all types of equipment, so while a pompe à chaleur (heat pump?) gets 50%, insulation material is rebated at 25%.

There are all sorts of other conditions too, so if you live and pay your taxes in France and want to insulate your house, check up on the French government tax site (then Les crédits d'impôt pour dépenses d'équipements dans la résidence principale) to find out exactly what you're entitled to.

I'm not sure how people are going to be able to pay such astronomic prices though, unless the government implements some sort of equity release programme like the UK. My parents benefited from that and their house is now as snug as a bug. Of course, the sum paid will be taken off when the house is sold, but if they have to go into a care home, that'll eat up anything that's over anyway.

I think children these days should renounce on the prospect of inheriting their parent's home. By the time the care home has fleeced them dry, there'll be either nothing left, or no more tuppence ha'penny of which the government will take most in death duties.

Admit it guys, we're on our own, and if you need your parent's money to get somewhere aged 50+, let's face it, you're a loser.

Film Review - 2012

I came out of the cinema this evening quite blown away by 2012. It was the first thing that my eldest had wanted to see since his birthday in September, so a late treat, but worth it.

The special effects are just stupendous. We were sitting in the second row so got the full blast, as it were, of the vastness of everything. The cinema was pretty packed and it was a good thing I'd reserved because I'm not sure we would have got in otherwise. The boys sat munching popcorn and drinking soda as the world was demolished before their eyes.

The story is fairly simple. Divorced father of two kids finds out about the end of the world due to excessive sunspot activity and sets out to save his family including his ex-wife and her new boyfriend. I won't spoil it by saying who'is still standing at the end, but it's no particular surprise.

I had some favourite moments. The first is when the family is in a Russian container aircraft full of luxury cars belonging to an oligarch. It's just about to crash and they all, including the Russian, his two boys and his chick, jump in a Bentley so they can drive out of the aircraft while it's still moving. The car won't start despite the hero's attempts with the key. Then the oligarch shouts for silence silence and says "Engine start..." the engine starts and he looks around and says "démarrage automatique, c'est ça qui m'a seduit" (yes, we watched it in French) with a beautific smile on his face.

The second was when a whole load of world leaders and powerful types were filing onto the vessels, and the engineer hero looks at them all, including a sheikh with his entourage and asks what the criteria for entering on the vessel is. He's told it's a genetic advantage for rebuilding the world. He looks at the sheikh and says "what's his genetic advantage?" and is told "money". I chuckled at that one.

I enjoy the simple pleasure of watching a disaster movie. This one doesn't have any great message, and some of the sincerety scenes are a bit predictable, but you do get a whole load of movie for your money. Recommended for breathtaking light entertainment.

Why Flow?

Today I was looking into flowcharts. They are singularly tedious things designed, I think, to appeal to the more autistic of human characteristics. I can just imagine earnest assistant managers poring over their newly downloaded flowchart software gazing lovingly at the boxes, diamonds and oval shapes, and trying to fix a round word into a square hole in the pursuit of Order.

It's not that I've got anything against Order (or method or discipline), but flowcharts have an unfortunate tendency to conjure up images of managerial mumbo jumbo, smartarses like David Miliband (bet he loves them) and an ambient temperature of irritation.

Luckily there are quite a few people out there with a sense of humour, and if you Google 'flowcharts' you come up with some examples created by those who have obviously sat through more than their fair share of flowchart presentations. Probably on Powerpoint with over 50 tightly-packed slides giving TMI (too much information) through 101 'fun' multi-coloured visual effects. My favourite, however, was the musical angle. You have to be pretty nerdy to create a flowchart of a song, but the world is full of strange and wonderful people and the internet enables us to connect with them...

You have to admit, that's pretty cool. Nice one, Love all this.

Why was I looking at flowcharts when I obviously have an irrational objection to them? Well, it was all in a good cause, in the pursuit of writing an educational resource. I believe that when I'm writing extra material for something it should be mind-broadening, preferably elitist and definitely with a total disregard for pc fads, drawing on culture and general knowledge.

I know that general knowledge is only considered admissable in the context of a television competition, and culture is a dirty word, but I'm unapologetic cos... I drink Carling Black Label...

(Actually I don't, you can't get it in France so maybe I should have written 'cos Heineken refreshes the parts other beers cannot reach' but it's not quite so snappy, is it?)

Have you ever thought what a flowchart depicting 'love' might give? I have a feeling that even the most hardened flowcharter would be ultimately stumped. Still, if you're tempted by medecine instead, give this a go:

Maybe I'm coming round to flowcharts afterall...

Tele Target Practice

I'm having a 'poor me, I'm ill' day at home today. Not swine flu, no, just a simple common or garden cold. Happily it coincided with the day my new tele was redelivered.

A couple of weeks ago I bought a new tele from Carrouf, special offer, last day only. Of course when I say 'I bought', I mean in the non-literal sense of 'owing money on the purchase of' said LCD pretty big Philips screen. It was delivered last Tuesday morning.

By Tuesday evening I had noticed what looked like a target bottom left. It hadn't shown up on the blue programme search screen but it did on the paler colours of a poisonous lake. In fact, it's all I saw.

Furious, I asked the boys if they had bashed into it or something equally disasterous. Beyond giving it a hug (!) they had not touched it. I didn't really think they had, but if one is to go back to the shop to make a fuss, one has to be standing on firm moral and guilt-free ground.

The next day I went into Carrouf to the Accueil and told the woman there was a problem with the tele. She suggested I bring it back in. "I don't think so," I replied, "it's too big" whereupon she lost interest and told me to see After Sales. It was about 1.40pm. I explained my problem to Mr SAV (service après vente) and he said I'd need to come back at 2.30pm because the tele guy in charge returned then.

Seething only slightly, I went away and came back some time later after 2.30pm only to be told he was actually due back at 4pm. I stayed calm, something of a feat, because Mr SAV was clearly embarrassed and wanted to help out. He sent me to see the tele department and explain my problem.

We live in a connected world of computers and 'labour-saving' technology. Don't we? Well, it took an hour, yes sixty minutes of going through the procedure of producing the paperwork to do a simple swap of my defective tele for a new one.

Then when I got to the till it started all over again because the promotion had ended and there was 100Eur difference between the prices marked on the invoices. I told the guy on the till that if he thought I was going to pay anything he was wrong because it was more than dodgy to sell a defective tele cheap only to slam the customer for the extra when it had to be replaced by the same evening.

He agreed and called his supervisor. By this time all the other customers in line had given up and wandered off. I felt sorry for them but it wasn't my fault that Carrouf has such an incompetent set of procedures. I just wanted a tele without target practice.

I didn't, in fact, have to fight too hard to get the new tele. They put it down to 'faute d'emballage' which I'm sure it was - a packaging issue, or unpacking issue, or something nothing to do with me, or the boys. Apparently it was a pixel or two that had blown and was busily causing short circuits in the surrounding ones thus provoking the rather interesting target practice effect.

You can be sure that when tele 2.0 arrived and was unpacked, I had a VERY good look at all the pixels to make sure none of the little buggers were giving up the ghost. For the moment at least they seem to be holding up.

Unfortunately, although my tele has an integrated TNT (Télévision numérique terrestre) thingy, I am in a shady TNT spot which means I can't receive it. Down the road they've got it, at Carrouf they've got it, but chez moi, I haven't got it. Bugger. Don't worry, said my first tele installer heartily, they've got to cover the whole country by 2010. Unfortunately, said my tele seller, they are very behind and it won't be until 2012 that everyone gets it. Great. I'm stuck with crappy analogique pictures until we move probably.

As I've said before, thank god for satellite Sky!