Ghost train...

Insular realization.

Living nowadays in London with the Eurotunnel makes you sometimes forget that Great Britain is actually an island... French in London, a fellow citizen and blogger based in London - as it says on the tin, posted recently an article (in French sorry) about his own realization of this insular status: after the early September blaze led to condemn one of the two chunnels, everyone was trying to find alternative ways to leave or come to London and the only "viable" alternative to the overbooked flights were good old boats.

Before the Chunnel, you indeed had to enjoy the ferries ad nauseam (literally). 5-6 hours with on one side red-burnt English tourists returning from their week off on the French Riviera and indulging their greasy chips; and on the other side buses of drunk French pupils sizing the opportunity of a week away from their parents to experiment the impact of cheap beer on their bowels... Lovely. But what great memories! Engraved in your mind - and your nostrils- forever.

Now with the Eurostar you are a little more than 2h away from Paris, which means that you could even commute faster than some people actually in Paris...

All by myself.

The train is definitely a great alternative to travel to mainland Europe. Faster than the ferry, greener than planes (I must admit less green than the fellows bending overboard on ferries, but still not bad), extremely convenient as it picks you downtown and drops you downtown... Nothing to complain about, unless you end up in one of those coaches where you have to share your compartment with hords of toddlers and talkative Chinese tourists crossing the Channel to complete their round-Europe-in-32-hour tour.

But let's be fair, most of the time you can easily screen out these noisy parasits and enjoy a moment of relaxation. You just need to forget that the reason why your Blackberry is no longer synching is because a sea and some tons of rocks are hanging above your head.

Another option is to travel during these awkward times when the traffic is partially interupted... Most of the people decide to look for alternative routes (some even opt for a pilgrimage on a Ferry), which means that when you are lucky to come onboard the yellow and black train, you can sometime enjoy the following view:

I came back from Paris on Tuesday 16th September evening and had to share the whole carriage with noone but myself. These two hours might have been quite enjoyable as a result. But in all honesty, I am some kind of a social animal, and I almost came to miss the toddler who starts crying in Gare du Nord and finaly fall asleep in St Pancras. Almost.

Eat your Japanese carrots, Boy!

Your plate is your future.

When you are young and reluctant to eat what's in your plate, your parents always come back to you with some absurd rationals on why you should tuck in. They try to find in your plate some omens of your favourable future, just like Greeks were looking at the inners of a sacrificied animal for good auspices...

And the worst thing is that candid and credulous as a child can be, they tend to believe it all. Interestingly enough we even have a colloqual expression in French for "falling for a story": we say that someone "à gober l'histoire", literally "has swallowed the story".

The kind of lies or popular culinary legends argue that if you "Eat your soup and you will grow tall and strong", if you "Eat your spinach and you will be strong like Popeye"... And when it comes to carrots, well, there are two options:

• first for naughty children : "eat your carrots, they'll make you kind and polite"
• Alternatively, for organic and nutriceuticals friendly-parents: "eat your carrots, they'll make your bum skin soft and rosy"

Japanese loneliness.

These children stories came back to my mind when eating in a Japanese restaurant (to prepare myself for my upcoming trip to the country of the Rising Sun), I faced this bottle of still water. Now, I don't read ideograms, but I thought the imagery was quite explicit... It seemed that by hydrating myself I would improve the tonus of my bum. After all, we are made of more than 60% of water so that would make sense. And is the last ideogram just pointing at the areas where the benefits will be the most obvious???

As I said I am about to leave for a three-week journey in Japan, and I had a sudden flashback at Bill Murray in Lost in Translation when living this "experience". I will soon be the one hanging desperately around in Shibuya... Better go to my fridge and grab my last bunch of carrots to remain kind and polite during my whole stay.

The f word junior

Behind the stove.

In France we have big names like Bocuse, Ducasse, Veyrat, Robuchon... All grand Chefs who master the culinary art. The UK has their own chefs. They are also quite good behind their pans, but to my point of view they are way better than my fellow citizens when it comes to stand in front of the camera.

In front of the camera.

Jamie Oliver of course is great. He is THE nice guy who cooks, writes books, encourages you to by healthier food at Sainsburry, makes your mum ask you father to buy a new TV set for the kitchen... But then you have Gordon Ramsay, the strong character who haunts restaurant kitchens, like Freddy Krugger haunts your nights.

With him, nothing but perfection is acceptable, and you better get your fingers out of your a** if you don't want him to shout f**king insanities to your f**king face. But guess what, Gordon too has a vocational inspiration to the younger ones. Enjoy:

Grand tour in your living room

Social warmth.

As part of their 'I Am Everyone' campaign, Orange has decided to endorse a neat initiative. I have already touch base on this guy who decided to hug random people in the streets of Australia, or this American around-the-world traveler who films himself repeating the same dance steps in the most remote parts of the globe. And this time it's all about music and conviviality.

A concert from your couch.

Jont is an accoustic guitare player who, with the help of Dave, is the genitor of and active contributor to Unlit, a series of home gigs. He is literally going from home to home, across the world, to perform mini concerts in people's flat, house, garden... Places where people invited him and organised this micro-social event by opening their homes to total strangers.

And guess what, he is now coming to the UK, so if you are interested in hosting such a concert and playing along, just register at: www.i-am-everyone.co.uk. Here is what you could expect:

Tribute to my Grandmother

This blog is usually written on a light-hearted tone of voice, but for once, it will embed some sorrow.

This morning I indeed received a call from home informing me that my grandmother passed away in the night. I therefore wanted to dedicate these lines to her, her who was a true mountain dweller. She was born in a remote village in the French Alps from where she was leading cattle to higher pastures before she decided to move to Grenoble with her husband.

Her humility certainly transpires in my own approach of life, and I will forever keep her words in mind:

"The main thing is that you are and remain happy".

Fernande Chambaz (1921-2008).

Rest in Peace. Je t'aime.

The wheel of the good fortune

© James F. Perry

As the Olympics has recently started I wanted to introduce to the readers of these lines another Mountain Dweller who is just a sport phenomenon. Originated from the French Alps, Jeannie Longo is part of the contingency of French athlets who will compete in the coming days for a medal... But Jeannie has already a few tinting in her bag, 4 in fact (1 gold, two silver and a bronze). What so special about her then? Well, the main reason according to me is that she is attending this yeqr her seventh olympic games... Yes, you have read correctly: seventh. 7 times 4 equals 28 years, almost three decades at the very top.

And guess what? At almost 50, Jeannie still kicks ass on her bike! She has a few records in her bags as her personal website lists (sorry if this list is no longer exhaustive, but she is really very fast and it seems that she is faster than her webmaster):

1034 victoiries
38 world records
Olympic champion
106 medals in Olympics, World and French Championships
3 Tours de France
13 times World Champion
55 times France Champion
World Record for the 1 hour run with 45,094 Km (Mexico 2000)
World record of number of victories in a year (both gender considered)

Not bad for someone who initially considered a ski career (earning a few titles in that discipline too before her future husband suggested to swap the skis for a bicycle). And of course such a record of achievment comes along with a temper and she had avery polarising effect on the French sport scene. She is a sport phenomenon, an ecologist activist, an organic fan... So of course she attracts attention as the NY Times spotted it in its recent article.

But I tend to keep on looking at the sport results and can only say: kudos. Go on Jeannie, we are behind you.

(Edit: Jeannie ends up her Olympic career with no medal. She finished 4th of the Individual Time Trial at only 2" of the Bronze Medal. Not bad but damn close)

The nation excuses...

The Canadian alibi.

A colleague of mine just returned from her holidays in Canada. She went back late to the office, one day after her planned return date and simply pretended that she got stuck in a chalet after some rocks fell on the road and blocked the traffic up and downhill for several days.

Credit: JONATHAN HAYWARD / AP on Seattle Times site

Rocks? Well, back home, we call that pebbles or possibly stones, but rocks? That must be this classical North American enthusiasm for superlatives, I guess.

Cultural story-telling.

Anyway, I could not stop thinking that the rock slide story was probably one of the greatest excuses I have heard for long. That and its contender "I could not finish my paper yesterday because my parents were kidnapped by extra-terrestrials" are certainly amongst my favourites. But you must acknowledge that the advantage with Canada is that it makes the excuse plausible. Where else on earth could you pretend to be isolated in a mountain resort due to a rock slide?

Now that raises an interesting question: are there any cultural bias in alibi and excuses? If you live close to Roswell maybe the above-mentioned claim becomes credible. If you are a French citizen, you can always claim to have been stuck due to unforeseen strikes. And again it is a very probable story. As a matter of fact during one of my last trip back home I almost missed my late night Eurostar connection after some Britons decided to blow up train voltage transformer to protest against some random political decision around closing a hospital (what would have happened if they got injured doing so? Where would they have gone to?).

Up to you.

The thing is, I am a traveler and tend to move from country to country. As a result, I need to enrich my portfolio of excuses in case one day I oversleep with locally suitable alibis.

This leads me to the following question to you: Wherever you are from, can you share with us the most probable excuse you have or would use to explain a delay?

I am looking forward to reading you, and remember: "A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on.”
Winston Churchill (1874-1965)

On the road to Beijing

Getting closer to the Olympic Games, the IOC is seeding the web with some inspiring videos which hail sport as a culture of respect, differences, etc. Enjoy!


Best of us
by brutosaure

Good signs

Road signs.

Back online after being on the road for both personal and professional reasons. During the last few days I have travelled in Italy, the UK, the US and had the opportunity to experience some cultural shocks like I appreciate... In this post, I wanted to share with you a few signs I have bumped into, and which made me smile...

An eye on your pockets

In London, first, when walking up the street, I came across this first sign by Buckingham Palace. Having lived in several major cities, I am used to that kind of inconvenient side-effects that are called pickpockets. I touch wood, but so far my shaved and somehow tough-looking head (not to mention my prominent muscles) have managed to keep these nuisances away. Nevertheless my hears are now used the usual warning messages such as "watch your belongings", "thieves are operating in this station", etc. However, I had never come across such a sign:

Where else than in the UK could you have the humour to reverse the proposition: instead of protecting the potential victims, let's remind the criminals of their own risks... "Bad boys, bad boys, what you gonna do, when they'll come for you" says the song.

The Italian job.

Next stop, Rome where I was visiting some friends who got married in the Eternal City (some pictures here). The Italian capital is not only renown for its ancient stones, its Vespas and other Fiat 500, but also for their relaxed interpretations of regulations... Note that Vespas and Fiat 500 are themselves loose interpretations of what a car and a scooter can or should be.

Anyway, walking in the narrow streets of Trastevere, a group of friends and I entered a Moroccan style shop where Shishas were at the customer's disposal on every single table. Nicely seated on cushions, you had the leisure to appreciate the subtle scents of exotic tobaccos, here with melon flavours, there with caramel hints... Comfortably installed, you could let your spirit wander alongside the smoke curls, until your eyes get in contact with the following scene:

Right above the central centre of interest of the venue, a strange sign is stuck to the wall... Just like in the UK in July 2006 it is now "vietato fumare" in every public places in Italy: smoking is prohibited. I remember reading about a French paradox, but this example triggered another great smile on my face. Latin style baby, Latin style!

2 years later. Same story.

And finally the US... Georgia state and its big city Atlanta, or Fatlanta as some nicknamed it. A rejuvenating trip to their conference centre during which I had the chance to attend the largest employee meeting in the world with 13,500 attendees (MGX for the ones in the know). Rejuvenating because alongside the visionary presentations and inspiring speeches, we were invited to some social events which brought me back in time. I had not been in the US since 1999 and a student trip with some mates. I had not stepped in roller coasters for even longer, etc.

But what was awkward was that two years after writing my first blog post, I was facing the exact same situation which made me start this blog on the cultural differences and the funny misinterpretations that can be generated by foreign words read in your own language.

If you are a regular reader of these lines, or a French fellow-citizen, you will certainly get it at the sight of the advert below:

Well, the US are so keen on superlatives. Everything is "the best", "the greatest", "the world #1"... that they could not avoid doing better than Marks&Spencers. The British chocolate was mini. In the US, the bite had to be perfect. Don't get it? Have a read here, but beware, you might never enjoy your chocolate sweets the same way.

The number 8

Pick your number.

Every nation has its cherished numbers. Christianity has a very peculiar relationship to 13 as it was the number of guests at the last supper of Christ. Satanists hail the triple 6. Sport fans will associate 23 to a flying deity and the 10 to either a headbutting crane, samba dancing feet or a divine arm extension. Chinese despise the number 4 but love 8. The earlier is indeed sign of bad luck, whilst the second is about abundance and prosperity. It is interesting that from an arithmetical perspective twice the evil equals happiness...

Photo by Claude

Want some funny implications of those believes? In Europe, hotels will never have a room 13 or a 13th floor to avoid any disturbance amongst the most pious customers. In Chinese countries (i.e. countries where the Chinese diaspora has a strong influence like Singapore, Taiwan, etc.) a lift would bring you straight from the 3rd to the 5th floor. No intermediary stop. And guess what? When are the Beijing Olympic Games starting? On August 8th, 08.08.08! Will they push that principle to its very limit and ignite the torch at 08:08 pm, I can only assume so.

My own 8.

Recently, I have been tagged by Laurence who asked me to take part in one of these blogger chains and to answer the question: what are 8 ways in which you’ve used social media? So here is my contribution, I have used social media to...

1. make my career evolve. First it led me to resign from my previous role as an Sr. Account Director in a web-agency by nourrishing my professional frustrations, and then it fulfilled my personal ambitions. I was indeed recruited for my current job thanks to a headhunter who found my profile on... Facebook.
2. keep in touch with friends on the other side of the world, of the Channel or even of the city. RSS feeds are simply one of the greatest inventions to save time... Well yes, I am busy because of point 1.
3. be live on a national TV channel in prime time for 15 minutes. A TV Producer found this blog and liked my thoughts on the Entente Cordiale and asked me pay him a visit on Sky News.
4. share my "art". One of my flickr pictures has been selected to be published in a photo book to be released in September
5. keep track of my running performances in a constant effort to regain my former fitness.
6. bring virtuality into reality by meeting people from very diverse horizons
7. watch reality becoming an astonishing virtuality through fantastic initiatives like wefeelfine.org by Jonathan Harris.
8. enrich my marketing classes with videos in a vain effort to shine in front of final year business school students.

Apparently the Chinese are right, 8 is quite fulfilling... What do you think? What are your 8 digital achievments?

Timber mindset in a suit

Office life is tough, on both sides of the Atlantic...

Quote of the Day - Kata of the day

"My movies are very international. In Japan, Belgium or America, everyone understands a slap in the face"
Jean-Claude van Damme (1960-)

The return of the hero.

What I like about this guy is not that he can still put his feet on chairs that are two meters away from each other at almost 50. It's not either his stratospheric and metaphysical considerations about the interconnection between human beings and dolphins. It's not his capabilities to speak his very own language, a mixture of French, English and VanDammish... No, what I like about this guy is the fact that he has overcome many barriers and opinions to ultimately become an icon.

Interesting enough, for a long time, as this previous paragraph testify of it, the JCVD icon was associated with negative stereotypes. Show business, drugs, super-ego... You name it. But recently JCVD has managed to go beyond and turn this downsides into his advantage. He has for instance been doing advertising spoofing his own caricature. And now this... JCVD the film.

The virtuous and hilarious circle

I really like the way the journalist from Variety, Rob Nelson, puts it: "Incalculably superior in tone, attitude, intent, and intellect to bulk of bodybuilder vehicles...". The plot is appealing by essence as Jean-Claude Van Damme plays himself in parody biopic. Call me a cynical, but the perspective of seeing a guy taking a piss of himself can only succeed.

When I got married, the priest said to the assembly a very interesting line: "Praise the one keen to laugh about themselves, because they are not about to get bored". I think that this film is a great illustration of this as you can see on trailer:

Rock around the world

Charlie had a chocolate factory and also enjoyed hiding in the crowd... Now that was fun (Edit: just realised that in English, it's not Charlie but Wally who is hidding in the crowd. Why the hell did they change the name of this cartoon, just to ruin my introduction I assume). But the web has brought something funnier, more engaging, and certainly more international. So I could not avoid publishing a little article to hail this pointless, and thus valuable, initiative.

Around the world.

Meet Matt, a 31-year-old American who decided to change life after a promising career start in the video game industry. Similarly to my friend Flavien, the bicycle fan who resigned from his area manager role to cycle around the Mediterranean sea to meet the locals, Matt opted for an international journey around the world. Except that his traveling mate was not on wheels but on tape. In his profile, Matt puts his story so nicely that I decided not to reinterpret his thoughts but extracted the quintessence of it:

In February of 2003, he quit his job in Brisbane, Australia and used the money he'd saved to wander around Asia until it ran out. He made this site so he could keep his family and friends updated about where he is.

A few months into his trip, a travel buddy gave Matt an idea. They were standing around taking pictures in Hanoi, and his friend said "Hey, why don't you stand over there and do that dance. I'll record it." He was referring to a particular dance Matt does. It's actually the only dance Matt does. He does it badly. Anyway, this turned out to be a very good idea.

(...) In 2006, Matt took a 6 month trip through 39 countries on all 7 continents. In that time, he danced a great deal.The second video made Matt even more quasi-famous. In fact, for a brief period in July, he was semi-famous.

Things settled down again, and then in 2007 (...) he wanted to travel around the world one more time and invite the people who'd written him to come out and dance too.

Well, guess what? Matt has done it again. He has recently published a third video, the 2008 edit, of him jiggling in front of a video camera all around the world. This time he is no longer on his own in random places. He is dancing with the people he encountered in random places, which makes the fun even funnier... I particularly love the North Korea segment with the emotionless soldier staring at our fellow, and the bollywood sequence.



Useful and useless.

This is a brilliant idea. Simple and pointless, and that is probably the reason why I am so hooked to it. In our society everything needs to be calculated, planned, organised... so from time to time, it is just great to take a deep breath and dive into some none-sense. However none-sense does not mean stupid to me. I am no fan of Jack Ass for instance, but I loved the free hug project on the other hand.

I guess that I am charmed by the good vision of humanity that transpires from people like Matt who just decides to do good for no specific reason. Thumbs up and keep on rocking. Because you do rock.

Quote of the day

"When you travel, remember that a foreign country is not designed to make you comfortable. It is designed to make its own people comfortable."
Clifton Fadiman (1904 - 1999)

Parisian, head of crustaceans...

Le Parisien is a regional newspaper with national reach - actually adapted in the rest of the Hexagon under the title "Aujourd'hui en France".
For a few years they have used a tagline that says "Le Parisien, il vaut mieux l'avoir en journal" (The Parisian, better read than met) and used very funny TV commercials that bring that line to life. The latest released is now available and enclosed to this post.

Although it is still using the same creative vein, it is still very good. The idea is simple: Parisians have a reputation and these ads capitalise on their worst cliches. They are gross, unfriendly, unpolite, don't like tourists and proudly support a football team that is avoiding relegation every year... So yes, definitely, you'd better read the Parisien.

La tour Eiffel - Le Parisien

Note: On the billboard... "Kiss my ass if you read this text"

More about The Parisian excellence here. And if you wonder why I came up with this post title, you probably don't speak French... So here is a quick rational: we have a riming pun in French that says "Parisien, tete de chien. Parigot, tete de veau" (literally "Parisian dog face, Parisians veal face"). It does not mean anything per se, but simply mock the Capital indigens. So tried to give back the same idea with an English rime...