A Pacemaker at 104!

My father is 104 years old and he has just been advised to have a pacemaker fitted.

One of the disadvantages of living in France is that I am separated from my family but fortunately my sister looks after my father and he is still living in his own home. He can get up and walk around slowly but recently he has been falling occasionally. The “falls assessment nurse” eventually came and found that he had a heart rate of about 30bpm and low blood pressure when he was standing.

He was born in 1906, he has lived through two world wars and in his lifetime he has seen unimaginable technological change. When he was a boy horses were still being used for transport and the motor car had just been invented. He didn’t own a car until the early sixties and before that he went to work on an autocycle (the forerunner of the moped) and we used to have family holidays on the coast by taking the train.

In the late thirties, after marrying my mother, he took a job as a telephone operator because during the Great Depression he was worried that he would lose his job in the Stock Exchange. This led to him being posted to the Signals Regiment when he was called up and he was safely behind the front lines when in 1944 the Allies landed on the Normandy beaches. Later he was very nearly sent to Burma, but when he took the medical exam the doctor listened to his heart and decided he was not A1, as it said in his records, but C2. He had a heart murmur. He has always had a very low heart rate. Without being particularly fit his normal pulse rate was about 50 beats per minute. He had an infection when he was very young which damaged his heart in some way but it was well compensated and never gave him any trouble.
After the leaving the Army he passed the Civil Service Exam and, throughout my childhood, he worked as a Civil Servant. He retired at the age of 63 when it was discovered that he had cataracts and angina, but neither of these stopped him and my mother from touring all over the UK in their motor caravan. They moved to a bungalow in Wantage to be closer to my sister in the 1980’s.
In his early nineties he was still painting the bungalow, working off a short ladder, while my mother stood below exhorting him to be careful! But soon afterwards he stopped taking an interest in his garden and started to lose his short term memory. When my mother was dying in November 2008 he would come with us to the hospital, and was able to answer the doctor’s questions during the visit, but when we arrived back home he didn’t know where he had been.
A few months ago we tried to get him to wear a heart monitor to record a day’s activity but he removed it overnight, not remembering what it was for. Yesterday my sister took him to see the specialist at the Radcliffe who, after some deliberation, recommended installing a pacemaker. When this was originally suggested I was against the idea, thinking that it is a major operation which would be most likely to kill him. These days, however, it is a procedure which is done under local anaesthetic and requires at most an overnight stay in hospital. The hope is that increasing his heart rate, so that it is pumping more blood to his brain, will keep him more alert, which will in turn make him easier for my sister to manage. We worry whether it is the right decision because we are aware that, after every setback in his health, he tends not to be as good as he was before. The operation is scheduled for later in May, the decision has been made, and we will have to wait and hope for a good result!

Postscripts
15th June
My father had the pacemaker fitted on 11th June and came home on Sunday 12th.  He had a sleepy day on Monday but he has been walking around more confidently since.  Otherwise he is not much different from what he was a few months ago, before he started to fall much too frequently.  He certainly has not suffered a setback after the operation and I am hoping that he will still improve a little more.
28th November
Nearly six months later he has not improved much more, but he is much, much better than he was before the pacemaker! He has still fallen a few times, but that is when he loses his footing and there is nothing that you can do about it.  It has happened to both my sister and I when we were standing next to him and neither of us could stop him ending up on his knees!  Fortunately he has not suffered more than a minor graze so far. 

Elect a Queen

This morning on, France Inter, Jean Pierre Rafarin (ex Premier Ministre under Chirac) and Martine Aubry (Secretary of the Socialist Party) were quoted as calling into question the idea that the President and the assembly are both elected at the same time for five years. This was a recent constitutional change, just before the 2007 Election Presidentielle, because previously the President was elected on a seven year cycle and the Assembly on five years. This often led to “La Cohabitation” with the President belonging to a different party from the Prime Minister, which was thought to be a bad idea because the Government was not able to act in a coherent and concerted way.

With the harmonisation of the two terms of office, and the personality of Sarkozy, we have a different situation. The role of the Prime Minister is reduced, whilst the role of the President is augmented. But the Assembly can’t sack the President, they can only change the Prime Minister, and changing the Prime Minister would make no difference if the President was still the same and was “hyperactif” like Sarkozy. So without proposing a solution, Sarkozy’s critics are expressing the view that “Le Quinquennat” does not work as it was intended.

But what is the answer? If France reverts to the situation as it was before, then the problems that were observed before will recur. If the terms of office of the President and the Assembly are displaced by two or three years, given the French tendency to elect alternately left and right wing governments (La Pendule), there is likely to be a permanent state of “Cohabitation” in which nothing gets done. It was Chirac who said “La France est un pays très conservatif” and perhaps I could forgive myself for thinking that this would suit the many French people who like to resist change at all levels of society and at every opportunity. “Il n’y a pas de petites luttes”!!

But I have found a solution! It is a solution which is at the same time practical, lucrative, European and which would raise the status of France in the eyes of the world. Why not elect a Queen? It would allow France to express its solidarité with the other countries of Europe who have constitutional monarchies such as Belgium, Denmark, Holland, Lichtenstein, Monaco, Norway, Spain, Sweden and of course the UK. It also would solve the difficult problem of how to provide a Head of State, who would not interfere in politics, and who can’t be sacked for political reasons, because they would have no political power!

With all the beautiful French actresses that the world knows well, like Catherine Deneuve, Juliettte Binoche, Sophie Marceau, Audrey Tatou, Isabelle Adjani and others taking part, imagine the world-wide television rights! If you were prepared to take the risk you could even invite Carl Bruni to stand. But in order to preserve the essentially non-political nature of the role, one of the principal Royal candidates, Segolene, would be barred from standing.

The campaign could start with primaries in the autumn; it could have a Christmas special, and then move on to the real election in the spring between three or four candidates. You could add “Queen for a day”, in which “les francaises ordinaires“could have the opportunity to share the lives of the actresses for a day, all ending up with meeting the incumbent President and having a treasure hunt in the Elysée Palace. If France television was given the job, I am sure that the hole in the Social Security budget would be refilled, and there would be enough left over to last for the next five years!

It would have to be made clear to the candidates that the role was purely constitutional, and that it would be a five year contract (CDD Contrat Duré Déterminé) against a defined budget but, with such a high potential return, I am sure that a deal could be struck with the successful candidate which would satisfy all parties.

And then, once she was elected, the tabloid press in all European countries could have a field day digging up stories about past affairs and indiscretions and the paparazzi would make a fortune snapping topless pictures of the Queen whilst she was on holiday. It would be “la fête en permanence”.

This would then, of course, open up the role of Prime Minister to be both the head of the government and the leader of his or her party, and the Assembly would have the right to pass a vote of no confidence and change him or her whenever they wished.

Tony Blair speaks French doesn’t he, what about Helen Mirren?

Francois Morel's Chronicle in English - La Chronique de François Morel (En Anglais)

Following the regional elections in France, which were considered a great failure for the UMP, and especially for President Sarkozy himself, everybody, including members of his own party, have been taking turns to denounce his reforms and to condemn his style of leadership. So during the week of Sarkozy’s visit to the USA, the French press and commentators were all criticising his English, which they thought was the worst amongst the European heads of state. Perhaps that was why Francois Morel decided to do his chronique of Friday 2nd April entirely in highly accented English.

Allo M. Demarrand and everybody. I would like to say zis morning my chronique in English. I am pairfectly bilingual and I think that it is important to be not only frenchy-frenchy but to be open to ze perspectives of ze entire world. Naturally I profited de fait zat Mr Sarkozy has visited Mr Obama for saying ze great friendship who, which, exists between Americans and French people. Like said ze big poet Michael Sardou “if ze ‘Ricains was not coming ‘ere you’ll be all in Germany to speak about I don’t know what, to salute I don’t know woo”. It’s true, it’s complettly true! One morgen in the words of ze poet who illuminates ze way.

 So Mr. Sarkozy and his pretty woman, Carla Bruni, was invited directly in ze White House by Mr and Mrs Obama, not in ze bistro of ze corner but directly in ze White House. It’s a great honoor, a great, great, great honoor, not only for ze French President and ze first lady but for everybody in France because when Mr President and his pretty woman are invited it’s you, it’s me, its Mr Demarrand, it’s Mr Achilly, it’s Mr Lefebure, it’s Mr Legrand, Thomas ze Tall ‘oo are invited.

Perhaps not exactly everybody, by example not Mr Guillon. Mr Stephane Guillon, I don’t know if you know ‘im, I don’t know if you have ‘ear speak of ‘im. ‘e begins to be very famous in France, ‘e makes some chroniques at ze beginning of ze week. Amusing chroniques, but REALLY aggressive chroniques and I think zat for ze moment it is better, zat he doesn’t go inside in any presidential palace where he is not very “in smell of holiness”, in “odeur de sanctité”. I think that today it is difficult for Mr Guillon. Mr Besson said zat Mr Guillon was racist, lache, I am sorry I do not know what is the traduction of lache in English, coward, OK, of coward and Mr Frederic Mitterrand, ze French minister of culture, it is not “n’importe qui”, has said recently that he detested ze remarks of Stephane Guillon. “I don’t succist where Guillon” he said (???) and he has added,” in France humorist people go too far”. All ze ministers now in France ‘ave to speak about Stephane Guillon, many declarations, many assertions, many speech, and during zis time ze works of ze various ministers are not done! Are not done! So I propose, not necessary to make a minister only consecrated to Stephane Guillon, but pir’aps a special cellule, “cellule speciale” in French, for e- tu-die every chronique of o’r friendly and talentuous colleague.
 So I come back to my subject, Mr Sarkozy was very sad about Mr Obama because he was not the first to be invited in ze White House. Before ‘im eight ‘eads of state of Europe was invited, eight, not one, not two, not three, not four, not five, not six, EIGHT! Eight ‘eads of states of Europe was invited. It was fini-shed by becoming hurted, humiliated, the Greek, the Sweden, the Dootch and ‘im, Nicholas Sarkozy, the great head of state of the France NO invitation! He said what’s happened, I stink the party or what? But now all is back to normal, so much ze better. I think zat it is very profitable for the American President to listen all ze advice from ze French President, who success nowhere but who has an idée –a, un id’ – an id-ea, (c’est juste ce mot la j’ai du mal à le dire c’est dommage), from ze French President, who success nowhere but who has an idea on all. And now we sing all together “if ze ‘Ricains was not coming ‘ere you’ll be all in Germany to speak about I don’t know what, to salute I don’t know who”!

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xcsw9e_francois-morel-in-english_fun

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xowmg_michel-sardou-les-ricains_music

The Wire - Expletives Deleted!

Yo Lisa! What up gal?
Down here in da south we all out’ta yellow top. We be waitin’ on a re-up coming down from da north but there a problem wi da package, cos da bagman was holed up at San Michel waitin’ for da white stuff to melt, and now he got trouble in da family he cain’t fix so he don’t be wantin’ no bother wid no brown stuff. So now we be getting da fix from da red top but it don’t got da same kick.


Stringer Bell alias Idris Elba



Stinkum bin got las’ nigh and dat bad c*ck s*cker Omar he done the gettin’. Bey got one in the leg. The five-o know what bin goin’ down but they protectin’ him cos he their witness.

Avon he heavy, but dat Stringer, he gonna ring his bell one day, he da man. Macroeeeconomics an’ eeelasticity, whad is all dat sh*t?



Down here in da South we bin hearin’ ‘bout da brothers on da east coast done bin organisin’ a Tee party. I say’d ta ma shorty, “Tee whad is dat stuff “? How come dem brothers don’ get dusty usin’ coke like us normal ni***rs. But she don’t know nuttin’, so when I crossed dat Stringer yesterday I done put him da question, dat Stringer, he smart man, wi’ da college an’all. He say’d I ain’t heard it righ’ an’ it don’t be no brothers havin’ no Tee party but a bunch o’ white dudes from Boston ‘bout 200 years ago. I say’d “sh*t man! Who care about all dat stuff now’a days”? He say’d some white shorty name o’ S*r*h P*l*n bin tryin’ ter stir up dem East Coast whiteys fo’ da next elecshun an’ it all be “symbolic”. I don’ get dat “symbolic” sh*t but String’ he say’d dat if dat S*r*h P*l*n get elected it all goin’ get ver’ heavy fo’ us brothers in da game an’ dat we all gotta know about dat stuff.

 So las’ nigh’, after a day slingin’in the Pit, I was catchin’ a bit o’ whitey news on dat Foxey channel when ma shorty done gone asked me if I want’d some Tee. Man I dain’t know what ter say! I started gettin’ to thinkin’ if she ain’t bin seein’ dat Stringer on da side!
 See y’all

Jay Jay
Apologies to David Simon and the writers of "The Wire".  All five seasons are excellent!

http://www.hbo.com/the-wire/index.html

Sorting the Sheep from the Goats

Cutting the Meadow

Sometimes you drive 50 kms to look at furniture and end up buying a mower/brushcutter instead and on Monday we bought a tondeuse/débroussailleuse near Figeac. We only want to cut the “meadow”, that is the lower part of our terrain, two or three times a year, to encourage the wild flowers to set seed, and allow our rich insect life to flourish. If we were really ecological we would buy a tondeuse naturelle (a living lawnmower), but the responsibility of looking after a goat or a sheep is daunting. Anyway they like company and I don’t think that the rabbits which are digging up and eating our plants would count. I wouldn’t mind if they ate the grass!

What we really need is a virtual sheep! Perhaps we could host an episode of Shaun the Sheep. How about “Shaun goes French”? On the way to buy a pain au chocolat he could have a close encounter with one of the bulls that protect their herds out in the fields in the summer, or meet the goats who produce the cheese and try a croissant with spinach and chèvre. He could also help us by asking the sheep, which occasionally live in a field near us, why they wear bells around their necks! (I have a theory concerning les grelots but it doesn’t translate very well into English)! I’m sure that if he brought his friends along they could eat our meadow in no time. Shaun has his own show now on CBBC (1800 Saturdays), quite a step up from a minor part in Wallace and Gromit. I wish him and Nick Park every success in this new field.

Angora Goats

At the Ferme de Siran, on the Causse above Autoire, Gaëlle and Julien Taillefer raise angora goats. We first met them two years ago when we visited in March and it happened to be their first year of “kidding”, (well what would you call it)? It has become a regular trip now, especially if we have visitors. All the goats have names and last year, when the letter was B, we were introduced to Boum and his sister Bada-Boum. The little goats are very cute and are similar to lambs, but they have tiny little horns and an in-built desire to play “King of the Castle”.

Gaëlle and Julien have now been breeding them successfully for three years and starting with 24, they now have more than 120. They are firmly ecological and I find it hard to identify anything they do which is unsustainable. They don’t use fertilisers, they hardly use machinery and their crop is the mohair wool and woollen goods which they produce. This week they are presenting their farm as part of the event “Seven Days of Biodiversity in the Lot”. You can see their website at fermedesiran.com it might remind you of something!

 Conte e’Moi – A Festival of Conteurs

Rachid Bouali is a conteur. He told a colourful tale of his childhood in an immigrant suburb, with all the characters and events that populated it. At one stage I was crying with laughter as he related the story of the sacrificial ram named David. He managed to create a three part polyphonic rhythmic episode, with a chanting crowd, the swish of the blade being sharpened and the cries of the ram who sensed what was coming! It was quite a dramatic achievement! By the way the ram escaped which, of course, led to a frantically hilarious chase around the neighbourhood. This culminated in his assumption into heaven, where he took his rightful place in the constellation of Aries. The inspiration for the sacrificial ram was the story of Abraham and Isaac, which like many of the religious texts is shared between Islam, and the Judeo-Christian Old Testament. Isn’t it amazing that three religions which share many of the same holy books can be so opposed to each other!

The tales that a conteur tells usually last for between an hour and an hour and a half and in France it is still an active profession. Our nearest town, Bretenoux, hosts a week long festival of conteurs this week and we went to two events. I was pleasantly surprised that my French was good enough to understand the stories and even the jokes. On the first night Christiane said that it was because they talk slowly. It is true than Jean–Marc Derouen, one of the organisers who opened the festival with a tale of mermaids, fishermen, the sea, and lascivious curés all drawn from his native Brittany, had a slowish manner of speaking but you could not say the same of Rachid Bouali.

Both evenings were very professional and of the highest standard. We will certainly be keeping this week free next year!


Stop Press
Yesterday we saw the first swallows flying over, today I heard a cuckoo and it’s cold wet and windy so it must be Spring!

Presidentielle 2007 - Why is Libéralisme a Dirty Word in France?

libéralisme, nom masculin
Sense 1: Doctrine centrée autour des libertés individuelles. 
(Doctrine centred around individual liberties).
Sense 2: Doctrine économique qui défend la libre entreprise, la non intervention de l'Etat dans le secteur économique.
(Economic doctrine which defends free enterprise and the non-intervention of the state in the economic sector).

I have mentioned before that in French politics liberalism is a dirty word. I thought at first that this is because France is fundamentally left wing, and is very concerned about social cohesion and preventing the exclusion of its less favoured groups, but for the last twenty five years it has alternately elected right and left wing governments. I have therefore found it difficult to comprehend why France should be so strongly against liberal policies, but with the help of an article in Le Monde 13 March, based on an interview with Pascal Perrineau, the Director of Political Research at Science Po, I am beginning to understand why.

I have quoted heavily from his interview in the following extracts. I hope he will forgive any inaccuracies of translation.

“Liberalism has become a scarecrow, almost an affront to public opinion. And lacking an enemy, which today’s French politics cruelly misses, liberalism has become the ideal enemy. Today, even when in reality liberalism flows through a candidate’s political culture, no candidate can take the risk of proposing and defending a liberal policy”. Elsewhere in Europe liberalism has a visible political existence. Across the channel it is an integral part of the Conservative Party and the Labour Party has adopted some of its aspects. In Germany the Liberal Party is the hinge between the Social Democrats and the Christian Democrats. In Holland, Denmark and Italy liberals actively participate in government coalitions, generally of the right, and bring their political themes”.

“The only true attempt to offer a liberal alternative to French electors was in 1997 when Alain Madelin created a party called Democratie Libérale and stood for election in 2002. He got only 3.9% of the votes, which represents one million electors. These came mostly from the owners of small businesses, the artisans, the self employed and those working as senior managers. Amongst the middle and working classes his support was negligible. This failure has shown that no one can brandish the liberal flag without suffering the opprobrium which follows and this has condemned liberalism to being a stowaway in political programmes”.

“Why has liberalism never been able to occupy a durable and credible part of French politics? From Colbert (advisor to Louis IV, 1619 – 1683) via Napoleon to de Gaulle, there is an historical attachment, from both the right and the left of French politics, to the power of the state. For a variety of historical reasons, this does not exist in Germany, the United Kingdom, Spain or Italy.
There is also a cultural question. The right in France has developed around catholic values, whilst the left has developed around Marxist concepts. Both are hostile to money and business.
There is finally a very French political and judicial approach under which public power embodies the general interest. Particular interests, which menace the general interest, are therefore illegitimate. For our neighbours, however, the general interest flows from the addition and co-ordination of freely developed particular interests”.

So, in 21st century France, liberalism is seen as a right wing political doctrine which leads to adverse social consequences, such as a loss of jobs and a greater divergence of income between rich and poor. But liberalism is an economic doctrine which defends free enterprise and the non-intervention of the state in the economic sector; therefore it is also seen as a potential challenge to what people have become used to as the role of the state.

French people rely on the state to protect and nurture them, and their belief in the concept of the Republic is partly founded on the ability of the state to deliver this protection. Therefore a political doctrine, which by definition implies the withdrawal of the state from some of its customary responsibilities, threatens this belief. This is profoundly unsettling for many French people and is one of the less obvious reasons which explain why liberalism is such a dirty word in France.

Presidentielle 2007 - From your French Political Correspondent

Two weeks is a long time in politics. Nearly two weeks ago I wrote about Francois Bayrou (UDF centre right) implying that he was irrelevant, since he was in third place at only 17% in the opinion polls, and he was unlikely to get elected. He has risen steadily since then and Le Monde (9 March 2007) was quoting support for him now standing at 21%, seriously challenging Segolene Royal at 24% and Nicholas Sarkozy at 29%. The Socialists are worried to the point that their spokesman said on France Inter (10 March), that if Bayrou beats Royal on the first round, he should withdraw so that France is offered a true left of centre alternative to Sarkozy. French journalists are so well trained and respectful that no one laughed!

There are two rounds of voting for the Présidentielle. For a long time I have been trying to understand the rules for the second round, so finally I looked them up and they are very simple. If a candidate does not get a majority of the votes cast in the first round, then there is a second round with only the top two candidates. Whoever wins this is elected. In the same poll quoted above, people were asked who they would vote for on the second round, and the figures were Bayrou 55% against 45% for Sarkozy.

So there is now a serious possibility that Bayrou could pull ahead of Sego in the first round and win in the second. Since he is an experienced politician he is unlikely to make silly gaffes, and his platform, of being an alternative to the left – right pendulum of the last 20 years, is clearly going down well. It is after all a very simple message to sell. I shall now have to try to understand whether he has anything else to offer because I still have reservations about him. Firstly his basic left-right coalition idea is naïve and will not work. Secondly I watched one of his speeches a few weeks ago and a disproportionate length was given to education, but he had only one serious idea for helping businesses and re-launching the economy (he used to be Minister for Education). I am, however, certain that he has no grand ideas for reforming France and voting for him will be a vote for the status quo. Lastly, there was an event this week which bears on him and deserves explaining.

Simone Veil is a Grand Dame of French politics. She is Jewish and was a concentration camp survivor. She is a symbol of the re- construction of post war European politics and is said to be one of the best liked personalities in France. As a female politician, over the years, she has championed the rights of women but from a right wing rather than a left wing perspective. She was a member of the UDF, Bayrou’s party. For some years she has been on the Conseil Constitutionnel, an organisation, which amongst other things, sets the rules for elections and is non political. This week her term of office ended and on the Day of Women she announced her support for Sarkozy. In 1989, Bayrou directed her campaign for the European elections, which was considered a fiasco, and she lost. She is on record as saying that he was ineffective and their antipathy has deepened since then. Her intervention did make the television news, but we will have to wait to see whether it has made any significant impact.

There are still six weeks to go until the first round of voting on 22 April and that is a very long time in politics. I don’t think that any of the candidates are really dominating the media and they are missing opportunities. There is little of the rapid riposte and media management that we are used to, and got very tired of, in the UK. I think this is especially true of Sarkozy whose message is not getting through and needs simplifying. I wonder whether Alistair Campbell can speak French. I would say that their politics are very similar and there is still time to make an impact.

José Bové (Confédération Paysanne, Peasants Union) is in a bit of trouble. He is a colourful character on the greenish extreme left, and is one of the minority candidates who is difficult to ignore. His difficulty isn’t the fact that he has been sentenced to four months in prison for driving a JCB into the front of a MacDonald’s. Since he is out campaigning as usual, that is not his most immediate concern. His problem is that he is several hundred signatures short of the 500 that he needs to sponsor his candidature, from the 36,786 mayors in France. Until the list closes on 16 March, the CSA (Conseil Supérieur Audiovisuel) has decreed that all candidates should get equal airtime. This explains his frequent appearance on many TV discussion programmes, which I am disappointed to report, has confirmed to me that he isn’t a peasant, but a well educated politician. I look forward to seeing much less of him very soon.