The core essence of this blog has been, from its inception, the desire to speak to the cultural differences that would strike me in my daily encounters. It was also meant to bust, if not combat, cliches that so often minimise the enrichment inherent to cultural differences. Over time, the number of articles has reduced, because alterity became slowly normality, and it was getting harder to get surprised. That assimilation did not prevent me from being torn by a Franco-British Paradox, and from sometimes being reminded at my core where my roots were. Back to the roots. Every now and then you may be tempted to go back to your origins and to embrace the stereotypes associated to your homeland. Only to toy with them with tongue-in-cheek references, that turns cliches on their head. I have had my eyes for years, 7 years in fact, on talented Scottish rider Danny MacAskill. I have always found that this athlete was capable of bringing a touch of intellectual poesy in his performance. He is in control of the image that his films convey, and there is always more to the jumps and rail slides. In his latest release, A wee day out, Danny gives us again that perfect twist... He dives into the cliches of a dated country life, with its lot of high tea, scones, hay bales, green pastures, steam trains, stone walls, small crowds and deserted stations. You could almost expect Postman Pat to pop by with his cat and his red van. But the heights of Britishness in this setting is also creating a perfect stage for taking mountain biking to new heights. But rather than dwelling too much on it, how about taking a ride in that delightful Great Britain:
At a time when sports resonates in the media with bribery, scandals, big football transfers, and other big amounts of cash... It is critical to anchor ourselves in what sports are and should remain: a source of ecumenism, an ode to personal achievements and limits that are pushed always further by the human body and brain.
My older son is now almost six and as part of his school curriculum, he is exploring the origin of sports. What a better age and place to do so? He was only three when the Olympics hit London. Our town. Our sports. But he still has crystal clear images in his brain of that event, conscious that he took part in something unique, and that we expect to relive sooner rather than later, maybe in September with the Rugby World Cup.
London 2012 took place almost 3 years ago, and next summer the flame will ignite Brazil, and yet I cannot avoid watching these Olympic highlights without being moved to the tears. So here are my memories of a summer not so long ago...
Flashback on a backlash.
Flashback. I have a vivid memory of the exact moment. July 6, 2005. I am in a car and I cannot think of a better birthday present than hearing the IOC confirm that Paris would host the Games that it had been campaigning so hard for. The French capital, as much as the rest of the Hexagon, had dreamt of these 2012 Olympics which would put sports at the heart of the City Of Lights. Imagine that, athletes competing on the Champs de Mars with the Eiffel Tower as a backdrop… The radio is crackling. Singapore is far away. And then, the verdict. Paris did not manage to fully convince the committee and it's Chiswick running hero, Sebastian Coe, who bags yet another victory. Paris is bitter, London exhilarated. The city will host its third Olympic games. Unfortunately the joy would not last as the following day a terror attack tears apart London with a series of bombing. What if Paris had won?
A few months later, a career opportunity leads me to cross the Channel. As Paul Feval once wrote it, « if the Games are not coming to me, I will be coming to the Games ». Fast forward seven years, and here we are. System failure after system failure, the District Line has been renovated. East London has found a new dynamism with the influx of investments made to the Olympic Park. The Londoners have volunteered en mass. And finally the streets started to be populated with new styles. Forget the buttoned-up suits from the City, the Shoreditch hipsters or Camden's goths. For a full fortnight the trendiest outfit was track suits… designed by Stella McCartney, but still.
At the heart of the games
Some had fled the city for the Cotswolds - no appetite for them to share the city with a million of plebeian visitors. Personally, this was purely unconceivable. My parents had told me so many stories about the 1968 winter games in my home town of Grenoble, stories about Jean-Claude Killy or Marielle Goitschel, stories of how they were moved to the tears when they heard on loudspeakers the heart beat of the last flame bearer walking up the stairs to light up the cauldron. Bam-bam, bam-bam, bam-bam. I wanted to live on that very same rhythm. Bam-bam, bam-bam, bam-bam. I wanted to embrace fully the promise of the games, and today I am sharing some of these heart beats with my sons (and you at the same time) with the ambition that one day we may have the joy to resonate in unison. Bam-bam, bam-bam, bam-bam. Here is my recollection of the games, an open-hearted memory if you wish.
Olympics are memorable. We all have in a corner of our mind a moment or an image from one of these competitions. For instance, I clearly remember being stunned by French Judo hero and flag bearer David Douillet's pragmatism when he declared to journalists before the Sydney games that his games would be over on day #1 and that he was hoping to carry another gold medal on that opening day. Funny enough my first real life encounter with Olympians was on the very first morning of the games where I was to grasp the depth of this declaration. Bright and early, I had gone to the ExCel Arena, only a few hours after Her Majesty the Queen jumped in a parachute over London with James Bond by her side. My agenda was to watch a few judokas fight for glory on tatamis… Or, as my son best describes it, two people in pyjamas pushing each other.
Judo: hard sport, hard facts.
Imagine that a second: you step into the arena, bow to the referee and to your opponent who in a jiffy grabs your kimono and throws you to the ground. 4 seconds, and the Games are over. Literally swept under your feet. You have not even have taken part in the opening ceremony the night before because you wanted to be fully fit for your big day. I let you reflect on the distress that the competitors face in such a moment. "What matters is to take part" may be hard to swallow at that very moment. I was touched by the abyss that the athletes were facing, and even today I remember word for word what Team GB Euan Burton uncompromisingly declared after being beaten: "I cannot think of anything positive right now. I have the feeling to have failed myself. I failed my coaches and everyone with whom I trained. I failed my mom, my dad, my brother. I worked very hard for a quarter of a century to reach that point, so no, I don't think of anything positive to take away." All is said.
Ipanema-on-Thames
Just like the Parisians dreamt their games, the London Olympic committee had managed to present the competitions in that jewel box that London can be. As a sneak peek to what the Brazilian games may be in 2016, the Horseguard Parade square got enhanced with a gigantic sandbox for the Beach volleyball tournament. In spite of occasional showers, St James Park had never looked more like a seaside resort where a colourful crowd could cheer and dance on the instructions of a passionate commentator. This is also that the Modern Games.
It's coming home. England is home to football. But if beach volleyball carries along the scents of Copacabana and its coconut trees, the Beautiful Game still smells nowadays like outdated sexism and machismo. I was therefore delighted to see Wembley, the temple of this local religion, filled with 80.000 enthusiasts cheering the sporting performances of the women football teams. That was a victory in itself.
But it was topped by the privileged opportunity to stay in the stadium long after the last kick and to see the athletes walk around this mythic location with their medals around the neck. As the stewards were pulling down the nets and the spectators were exiting the arena, the US players walked the pitch one more time, to make the moment last just a little more. Tobin Heath, the pious, stood still, her arms outstretched, her eyes closed, as if she wanted to absorb every vibration. La Marseillaise as a finale.
And since I speak about unforgettable moments, how could I skip the performance by the Experts? The French handball team, who had failed during the preceding European championships, were not ready to give up on their Olympic title. I had the honour to watch the final from the same stand as the players' family and other members of the French delegation. It was extremely moving to see their wives in tears as their husband were reaching the highest step of the podium… You could think that this is strange as if anyone should be used to victories and celebrations it would be them: this handball team has indeed been nick-named The Experts following their surgical double world champion titles, two European championships and two Olympic gold medals in just 6 years… This proves that one never really gets accustomed to glory. And to support my point even further, I witnessed this surreal scene when Renaud Lavillenie, himself Olympic champion of Pole Vaulting since the previous night, asking Jérôme Fernandez, the team skipper, for his autograph. Just like any other spectator... except that he received a little comment in return: « now it's your turn to get a second one! » (note: Renaud Lavillenie has since broken the world record a few times and is obviously tipped to fulfil that prophecy in Rio).
As a French in London, my emotions reached their paramount on that last night of the Olympic fortnight. As I wrote it already on this blog, you may question sometimes your attachment to your home country, especially if like me you consider yourself as a citizen of the world, a privileged migrant. On that night the answer was unequivocal and can be checked with this little test: can you listen to this Marseillaise, sung by a whole stadium, without having a shiver in your back? I can't! This epidermal reaction is worth any pledge of allegiance:
In the end, I would say that during these Games, London has never been as welcoming and smiling. I was proud of MY town, of MY countries... I was proud to have been one of the many heart beats.
The London 2012 Olympics are still a vivid memory. I totally embraced the spirit of the Games at that time, enjoyed every second of this international event and the drama that came along with it. Sports are a marvellous catalyst of emotions: joy, despair, achievement, anger, rage, sadness...
This myriad of shared feelings, concentrated in a short period of time, sublimes the actual sport performance to make it something bigger, larger, more universal. It triggers a response of communion between nations.
A marketing plea?
I am personally a cerebral machine that works on emotional fuel. This is why I have been working in advertising. I like to tell stories, engage people emotions. Too often though, and especially in the context of economical pressure, story telling is discarded to focus on transactional messages. "Don't charm, sell" seems to be the motto as if you could not use your charm and connivance to actually drive business relationship.
Of course you do have the big brands that are the trees hiding the forest. For the Nike, Apple and other Microsoft, how many other advertisers are forgetting to instil some emotions in their engagement with their customers? Some claim that brand building is not required for all brands, and that some brands do not require to create an emotional connection with their market. Commodity products spring to mind...
Who cares about toothpicks? I hear you say. Can buying a USB stick ever give me butterflies in my tommy? Someone adds.
Well, I do think so... It just requires a little more efforts. In fact marketing commodities, like good B2B marketing, is about applying the same level of intransigence as for marketing high-involving products despite more limited resources and an easy path towards complacency.
Paris-based creative hot shop Buzzman did an amazing job with their Hunter Shoots a Bear interactive video to encourage people to make use of Tippex. And look at what Procter & Gamble has done with the following commercial. It does not sell diapers, wipes, detergent... It sells emotions! And smartly announces their corporate tie-in with the upcoming Sochi Winter Olympics that surely will be heavily used in shops to drive product usage and adoption. Smart. And efficient.
Some people say about the UK that is home of football. There is such an enthusiasm and passion about that little piece of rubber that it is difficult to argue (even if other nations have open their own door to that sport). World Freestyle Football Champion, Andrew Henderson, takes us through the streets of London like never before. After all, there may be other ways to coming home, to coming home... Football's coming home!
Every July a bunch of (sport) addicts jump on their bicycle and tour one of the largest countries in mainland Europe, France. Crazy. They do that in the hottest month of the year., under a harsh sunshine. Crazier. And, to boot, they dress up in multicolour lycras and get cheered up by Satanists, Bull-heads, Lunatics, Chickens... Craziest.
The Tour de France is clearly a frenzy, embraced by the masses. It is truly a popular phenomenon in my home country and beyond. In fact there is a French idiom that describes a crazy person as someone who has "a little bike in her head" (avoir un petit velo dans la tete). But no matter how mad you think it is to embark in such a physical performance, you may want to reassess your referential schemes with the following video.
A bike in the head.
Martyn Ashton takes the £10k carbon road bike used by Team Sky's Bradley Wiggins & Mark Cavendish for a ride with a difference. With a plan to push the limits of road biking as far as his lycra legs would dare, Martyn looked to get his ultimate ride out of the awesome Pinarello Dogma 2. This bike won the 2012 Tour de France - surely it deserves a Road Bike Party!
Shot in various locations around the UK and featuring music from 'Sound of Guns'. Road Bike Party captures some of the toughest stunts ever pulled on a carbon road bike:
Paris was originally nicknamed The City of Light because it was the European epicentre of enlightenment in the 18th century. Later on, from 1828, Paris began lighting the Champs-Elysées with gas lamps. It was the first city in Europe to do so, and so earned more broadly the nickname "La Ville-Lumière" or The City of Light.
This stop-motion video is a great showcase of that later definition with a scenic tour of the French capital by night and through the lens of its day and night glows... Enjoy!
It is now blatantly obvious that the regularity of my posts have reduced. There are many reasons to that situation, amongst which the delightful arrival of a little one, three years ago, who has since been playing a growing part in my daily workload. But that is not all.
Walking in the valley.
In fact, I started that blog with the conviction that as a foreigner in an alien country I would find tons of topics to talk about. That I would be able to endlessly dissert on the cultural disparities between my referential scheme and the civilisation I was now living in. And it has indeed been for years a great source of inspiration.
But I reckon that nowadays I am less and less surprised by the Brits. It is maybe what people call assimilation: I have blended in, with my British-born son playing the mixologist role by naturally seeding insights on an on-going basis. It feels that I am no longer looking at this society from the outside, or from up there as I say in the above description... I am now in the valley, amongst the passer-by's down here. For god sake, I had to roast some beef on Sunday last week, that sums it all!
But don't get me wrong though, I am still not citizen of her royal majesty and have no intention to become one at this point of time. There are still many of these French/British paradoxes that remain true to who I am. I am still puzzled by some idioms and in turn my French sometimes catch my friends off-guard.
And yet something has changed.
Euro pudding.
In fact, I watched this week one of my favourite movies, Cedric Klapisch's L'auberge Espagnole (i.e. Pot Luck or Euro Pudding). For anyone who has lived an Erasmus-like experience, the one-year adventures of a French economy graduate student in a Barcelonan multicultural flat-share will resonate.
But Cedric Klappish and I share more than a first name. Many of his lines in his filmography find a positive echo in my own life. I quoted him in my wedding ceremony for instance. And there was a sentence in L'Auberge Espagnole which really encapsulate how I probably feel today. Loosely translated that would sound like:
When you arrive in a city, you see streets in perspective. Lines of meaningless buildings. Everything is unknown, virgin territory. Here we are. And later we will have walked these streets. We will have reached the vanishing point. We will have gotten to know the buildings. We will have lived stories with people. When we will have lived in that city, walked this street ten, twenty, a thousand times... At that point of time the city will be yours, because we will have lived it.
When the Big Apple is compared to the City of Lights, that can be enlightening... And this animation by graphic designer Tony Miotto, is clearly a nice source of light. Nice execution on the cultural differences and references of two of most famous cities in the world.
And if you like that split-screen graphic approach, you may enjoy a similar stance on Franco-American relationships with this video (shot with a Nokia phone), and which describes a transatlantic love story.
This summer marked my sixth year on the British soil. An anniversary which also means that I have now lived longer in the British capital than in Paris for instance. During that time I got accustomed to the local rhythm, the indigenous habits, the cultural disparities... I have blended in. This is quite an ambivalent feeling as Brits and French are traditionally referred to as what one could call frenemies, i.e. the worst friends and the best enemies. I wrote quite a few articles about this Entente Cordiale that unites both nations, but being right in the middle of it is an awkward situation.
Although I am not British, I feel sometimes so and this city is like home. So no wonder that during the Olympics I waved and cheered at team GB, that I carried a Union Jack in my backpack... I got lucky and could attend quite a few events in the end. The lottery granted us only some tickets for a men volleyball semi-final, but perseverance and tenacity (let alone networking and generous friends) opened a few more doors. At these events, we were there as French nationals, as Londoners, as sport supporters.
Moment of truth.
But at a time when nations drop their weapons and random quarrels to support their Olympian troops, you are supposed to choose sides. I felt like a child in the middle of a divorce case. I love both mummy and daddy. I value Churchill and De Gaulle. I want the goldfish and its bowl. I want weekdays and weekends... I wanted to support blue, white and red, no mater whether these colours are laid out in crosses or in tiers.
And I thought so. I thought that almost like a bi-national I had today both nations ingrained in my soul on parity. But it was not the case... It took me a minute to realise it. Well, two half-times of 30 minutes each and 1 minute to raise a flag an that was it. Goose bump, spinal shivers, a tear in the eye... But who would not when hearing this:
France retains its Olympic title by beating Sweden in handball final
La Marseillaise
France national anthem, La Marseillaise, was written and composed by Claude Joseph Rouget de Lisle in 1792. The French National Convention adopted it as the Republic's anthem in 1795. The name of the song is due to first being sung on the streets by volunteers from Marseille but was soon adopted by the revolutionary armies which put an end to the French monarchy and dropped the seed of the Republic.
This song is a war song, a march that galvanise soldiers and unite them behind a cause... During the 1992 winter Olympic games in Albertville, a young, pure, white-dressed girl sung a capella this anthem in front of millions during the opening ceremony, and many only then realised how violent the lyrics could sound...
La Marseillaise (most commonly sung extract. Source: Wikipedia)
French lyrics
English translation
Allons enfants de la Patrie,
Arise, children of the Fatherland,
Le jour de gloire est arrivé !
The day of glory has arrived!
Contre nous de la tyrannie,
Against us tyranny
L'étendard sanglant est levé, (bis)
Raises its bloody banner (repeat)
Entendez-vous dans les campagnes
Do you hear, in the countryside,
Mugir ces féroces soldats ?
The roar of those ferocious soldiers?
Ils viennent jusque dans vos bras
They're coming right into your arms
Égorger vos fils, vos compagnes !
To cut the throats of your sons and women!
Aux armes, citoyens,
To arms, citizens,
Formez vos bataillons,
Form your battalions,
Marchons, marchons !
Let's march, let's march!
Qu'un sang impur
Let an impure blood
Abreuve nos sillons !
Water our furrows!
This anthem sung in the handball arena, the box that rocks as the British journalists nicknamed it, swept any doubt that no matter happens and how long I will stay away from my homeland, at core I will remain French. An interesting realisation amidst athletic performances which contrasts a lot with some conversations I have had with US immigrants who had decided to embrace the US Constitution and rejected their origins by doing so. Unfathomable for me. Now.
At a time when French politicians trust the front page of tabloids with their kinky habits, it is good to remind that French lovers are not (only) about S&M, role plays and threesomes... Call me a sentimental, but there is also that weird thing called "romance".
...One love story.
Shot entirely on the Nokia N8 mobile phone, the following video won the Nokia Shorts competition 2011:
Splitscreen: A Love Story by JW Griffiths tells the story of an American and a French who live parallel lives on each side of the pond until they one day collide... Interestingly enough in London.
Beyond the performance of shooting a split screen video (a technique brought back to fashion with the TV series 24) with a phone, there is the refreshing story telling. It may well be the hot summer, but it feels good to see that love is the air.
