Competitive Dad

In this post, I am first going to blow my own trumpet, then mute it and draw a parallel with something I saw last weekend. Here we go.

Between the ages of about 7 and 17, I was probably the best footballer in the county in my age group (that's me blowing my trumpet - I can do this because nobody can corroborate it and I have "moderate comments" activated :-)).
However, I come from one of the sparsest populated counties in the country, so it doesn't say too much (that's me muting my trumpet). We would often travel to Manchester or Liverpool to play against teams with 11 snarling Wayne Rooney lookalikes, or to Newcastle to be humiliated by teams with 11 chirpy Gazza play-a-likes. So, I was the best player in the county which had the worst football team - does that count for anything?

Anyway, I played simultaneously for many teams at different levels (school, club, region, county) which explains why my knees are knackered). At the local level, we often used to play in competitions where there would be several teams, each playing the other and a winner emerging (as they do), and we usually won. Not surprisingly given that statement, we often played against teams that were far inferior. This seemed to infuriate several watching parents, many of whom would berate their offspring for pulling out of a tackle or missing a rare chance to score. I have seen children in tears because dad actually threw his coat to the floor before jumping up and down on it and swearing loudly.

Once, on an icy pitch, I slid the ball past a player, and swerved round him, keeping the ball and myself just on the touchline leaving him standing. However, a parent of a player from the opposition was having none of that and nonchalantly stuck out his foot and tripped me up. I think he got a red card for that.

This weekend, with my youngest son, we were walking past the local pitch when we saw the same sort of competition in progress. It was as if I had been transported back: teams of weaklings with players 2 years younger than others that had accumulated all the best players from the area. I watched coaches shouting at the group of players before their next match, trying to get them motivated, fathers jumping up and down on their coats, loudly swearing '"putain, c'est quoi ce bordel", quietly proud mums and even one child leave the field in tears as another goal went in.

My 8-year old is football-obsessed and he is showing all the signs of being an excellent sportsman and wanted to get involved. However, I don't want to turn into one of these parents who live their dreams through their children and trip up any child who gets in their way. I should be OK, but time will tell!

Maybe I'll force him to play piano 3 hours a day instead - at least his knees won't be worn out by the time he's 20...

An Apostrophe Too Far

Last night I was watching Sky News (again): "All the news and sport in 15 minutes, every 15 minutes" gives you an idea of the depth of their coverage. I presume that in the UK, they have adverts between their 15 minute slots, because, in France, they show headlines with a few words about each story (usually what David Beckham or Robbie Williams are up to, that sort of thing).

The people who write these "stories" are often either stuck for inspiration (I know that feeling) or have trouble spelling (I know that problem too). Last night one of the headlines intrigued me:

"Red Hot Chilli Peppers Bassist Flea's House Destroyed by Malibu Fire".

I had 2 interpretations of this headline:

1. A mis-spelling of "flees" with an unnecessary apostrophe which probably should have appeared earlier in the headline, or,
   
2. An unfortunate victim of the recent fires at the Malibu house where the bass player kept his collection of fleas.

I like the Red Hot Chilli Peppers, but can't claim to know the names of any of the band members. However, on further reading, it became apparent that their bass player is actually called "Flea". Reading on, all became apparent.

It just goes to show that you shouldn't judge before reading to the end. My apologies to the Sky News headline writers. Laziness and pre-judgement on my part rather than yours in this case.

Wii? Oui!

When my parents visited in September, they left some money in order to buy a Wii for the kids for Christmas. Ever since, roughly about once a week, I have received calls telling me that I've got to hurry to the shops and buy it because, pretty soon, there won't be any left! This came as a surprise to me because they are everywhere (even our local mini-supermarket is selling them).

A friend of my aunties (long story) works in Asda and informed my sister that that evening they would be receiving 10 (that's "ten") Wiis and that they would be quickly gone. My brother-in-law therefore went and queued outside Asda from 7:30am in order to be there at 8:30am when the store opened. He did this and got the last one! Now they tell me that they need a remote control but they are impossible to come by...how can this be? I explained this to the guy in the shop where I bought one a couple of weeks ago and he was surprised because, as far as he was concerned, they are everywhere.

Are Nintendo creating a demand by limiting their availability, or are they simply unable to keep up with demand in the UK? I found it amazing to hear such panic in my mother's voice when I told her that I'll wander down there and get one just before Christmas (it's only November for god's sake). So much so, that I bought one early because I started to get tense about it myself (because it was her money I was spending and she would have been upset if I screwed up).

Anyway, we bought said Wii while the kids were at my father-in-law's house during the school holiday's (oh, what bliss). After bringing it home, we wanted to try it out (well who wouldn't). It comes pre-packaged with a set of sports games (I'm not going to go into all the details of how you play them).

Needless to say me and my wife loved it, and what a couple of prats we must have looked, moving aside the furniture, essentially to play "air-tennis" on a console with child-like graphics that reminded me of my old ZX Spectrum days.

I was one of the first people to get a Spectrum (I never had a ZX 80 or 81). It was September 82 and my parents had to send back 3 of them (you could only get them by mail order) before we got one that worked. However, once I was up and running (or sitting down in this case), the games were simple and really addictive (try getting emulations of Hungry Horace, Manic Miner or Jumping Jack if you don't believe me). You bought them on cassettes and downloaded them onto your Spectrum with a tape recorder. Bliss. Oh what fun we had staying inside on rare sunny days instead of playing outside.

Anyway, you felt like you were on the front of a wave when you were playing games with your Spectrum - you knew that everyone (well, geeky teenagers anyway) wanted one and the games would just get better and better (especially when you could get versions with 48K memory).

I should mention that I have never played on a Playstation or an Xbox, so my game console knowledge is pretty sketchy. However, playing on the Wii with its fun games and dodgy graphics made me feel like I was on the crest of a similar wave that would change the way people used their consoles and that things could only get better (cue dodgy song).

I can't wait for Christmas to see what a "real" Wii game looks like...from a geeky 14-year old to a geeky 40-year old in the space of only 26 years!

A Wedding Present

We live in a small French town which has an excellent library and a good CD/DVD section. I have been really surprised that they have many CDs that cover my musical tastes really well. I am there pretty much every week in order to borrow the latest stuff (last week, The Klaxons, The Rakes and The Hives (Interpol, Royksopp and all that gubbins for you John - Kate Bush and Dolly Parton for you Kenny)). However, they also have older stuff that I had mostly forgotten about (randomly, from memory: The Ramones, Stiff Little Fingers, Echo and the Bunnymen...the list went on and on - not all great music, but evocative).

Last week, when I took back my CDs and the DVD I had borrowed, "24-hour Party People", the guy behind the counter asked me what I thought of it ("average, but great music from the time I was a student in Manchester"). He then went on to tell me about the film, Control, which touches on some of the subjects in this film and he assured me that as soon as it was released on DVD, he would be ordering it for the library. This seemed to be a curious choice of DVD for what I imagine is a fairly conservative, and in any case, non-northern-working-class-English population (not that you need to be English and working-class to enjoy them, just that they seem quite incongruous).

We then got talking and it turns out that he had been to Grenoble the previous evening to see "The Wedding Present" reprising their "George Best" album. I explained to him that I had seen them twice, 20 years ago, and still have the bruises to prove it. Blah, blah, blah, we bored the pants off everyone else in the queue who was there for the latest Claude François or Johnny Hallyday CD. Actually, give Claude François a listen - kitsch personified and quite catchy at times.

Anyway, this guy (not Claude François - he's dead) is responsible for the library's CD budget and seems to indulge himself by buying CDs that only he likes. He has now asked me for any suggestions and will order them for me -basically, we are now using the local taxes to build the CD library together, ordering music that probably only us will listen to - should I feel guilty or pleased? I'll let you guess.

To bring this Côte du Rhone-induced nonsense to a laboured close: to think that somebody actually thinks my opinion on "popular culture" is of value has been quite astounding to me (OK, maybe not astounding, but pleasantly surprising). Now, if that's not a Wedding Present, I don't know what is (erm, apart from a present bought for a wedding, that is).

An imperfect storm

I thought this blog would be a view of French life through the eyes of an Englishman. However, more and more of the stuff I want to write about is England viewed through the eyes of an estranged Englishman. I have to admit before continuing that my view is becoming narrower and narrower and is mostly formed through friend and family visits and TV, so I am likely to be more and more out of touch -please forgive me in advance.

That said, I saw an excellent piece on Sky News the other day (there's a phrase you won't often read: a perfect example of an oxymoron). There was a set of meteorological conditions that meant that high winds came down the east coast of the UK and into northern France and excessively high tides were expected. The news reports said that whole towns had been evacuated and the main roads blocked off by police the night before the storm in order to avoid a repeat of a similar incident in the 50's that caused hundreds of deaths. This is all very well, but to an ignorant Englishman abroad, seemed to be an over-reaction given that nothing had been mentioned on any news programs I had seen in France.

In the end, the "perfect storm" never really materialised. However, there was one part of the Sky report that made me realise how there is a heart of Englishness that seems to be unique and that I miss; one that would never be seen in France and is probably dying out in England with the older generations. One small town had been mostly evacuated into a school gym for the night and they interviewed an elderly guy: "How are they treating you?" the journalist asked. His reply was priceless: "Ooh, just great - we want for nothing - they give us all the tea we need."

There have been whole books written on Englishness, but my brief analysis of his reply is that it was a stoicism that came from years of hardship suffered by his generation, when events such as the wartime air-raids meant that people often spent evenings in shelters with only a "nice cup of tea" to keep them warm (note that there is no such thing as a "cup of tea", it must always be prefixed with "nice"). Of course, I must add my "but I might be wrong" cover-your-ass caveat here.

The French suffered in the war too, but I reckon that subjected to an evacuation like this, both French people and post-war English generations would not accept it with such good grace.
I should also add that I don't even know if his was a typical reaction, but what a great old boy - I hope he got a good night's sleep and has many more.

Nature vs Nurture: a positive outlook

I mailed my uncle recently (not the one from one of my earlier posts) and one of my comments about hitting 40 was how, in my youth, it took me a long time to realise that I wouldn't be a professional footballer, citing at one point, "it takes some people longer than others to come to terms with their mediocrity". (I am not having a mid-life crisis by the way - at least, I don't think so :-/).

My uncle was a journalist for many years and has had a novel published, and I really appreciated the wisdom and sentiment in his reply, so put it on the web because there are some words that I thought might be interesting to others (you never know!). Here is the abridged version of his reply. I hope it isn't too cloying :

Glad you got the birthday card. With the Post Office strike (then) entering its second week we were wondering if it would ever be received.

...

Come to terms with mediocrity....it's a feeling often felt as you grow older. I was sure I was going to be the youngest editor of a national newspaper in Fleet St, believing that I was the best reporter that ever walked the hallowed streets of London;
...

Alas it never was to be but I have still lived (and hope to extend it) an incredible life full of excitement, tragedy and stacks and stacks of fun and enjoyment.

Now in retirement it doesn't move at the same pace but is still there to be lived and four grandchildren have opened up a new vista. Life does go on.

...

I thought of writing on and started another book but a voice was constantly saying to me that there's much to do; you spent your life writing to earn a living; why spend days indoors pounding away on the typewriter (ooops! word processor) get out and enjoy life.

...

Take care and whatever happens be happy and be lucky. You don't need anything else.

I really liked his reply and I hope you did too.

Some people say you make your own luck, but luck, by its very nature, is uncontrollable.

Being happy though, is something we should be able to have some control on. That's the premise I'm working on in any case, but I'm lucky (sic) that this hasn't really been put to the test as of yet.

Unchained Metaphor

OK, after reflection, I changed the title of the last post so that it has the more pretentious title that I decided not to use. Sorry - if you already read it, then you don't need to re-read, unless you didn't get the obscure message...

There is a thriving set of "associations" in our town (An association in France is a publicly-funded organisation that makes no money (a .org)). Last weekend was an exhibition organised by the local ornithological society. Now, I am fond of birds- I have bird boxes and feeding boxes ready to help them through the winter and give them a home in the spring. However, what I hate is to see caged birds. I have an almost overwhelming urge to open the cages and set them free. Pet shops are a nightmare for me as seeing caged parrots hopping from perch to perch makes me sad and angry - I have seen them in the wild and that is where they belong.

Visiting the exhibition last week brought this urge to new heights. Picture the scene: You walk into a room and are confronted with 6 rows of cages, each row with 4 cages piled on each other, and each row containing 40 cages: 480 bird cages. Each cage is 50 x 50 x 50 cm and there is a single tiny bird in each, all of them singing and generating a reverberating cacophony in such a small room. It was an impressive sight!

Each bird was beautiful, especially from someone who comes from a place where there is a constant screech of seagulls and the only colour is provided by blue-tits and robins if you are lucky (although pigeons do have an impressive chest when puffed-up during the mating season).

I have never seen such shapes and colours in birds. Tiny birds with striking purple, yellow and red intertwined, pale yellow, bright pink birds, birds with crests, feathers pointing in all directions and many more. My kids were fascinated: a beautiful sight when viewed individually.

However, the ensemble, to me, was depressing - these birds did not belong here, neither free-flying or caged. Although I could never have acted on it, the urge to set them all free was overwhelming. I imagined a lever which would open all the cages at the same time and set them all free to fill the hall with their noise and colours before flying, as one, through the door to freedom. It would have been like the explosions of colour that Sony put together for their TV ad recently (the one with the explosions of paint from tower blocks) - maybe they should consider it for a future version.

It could never have happened, but what a sight it would have been!