I've Moved...

...for simple reasons, i.e., it was cheap and my mate John generously offered to host it, I have got myself a dedicated website. It's called www.soggers.com. From now on, it will replace the Blogger site. If you are a visitor to my blog, please update your bookmarks. If you use a feed, please update it to point to here.

I started the blog following a visit from John, not knowing what to write about. It seems to have settled down to 4 major themes:

1. France


2. England


3. Epilepsy


4. Nonsense

I thought this would be a good point to take stock so I asked myself, "Is anyone actually reading this stuff?" and if they are, "Which are the most popular posts?". Luckily, Google Analytics is there to help me, so I am happy to inform you that, yes, much to my surprise, people are visiting the blog - it seems that I have had 1200 visits since I started, and that 250 of you actually come back for more - masochists!

The list of the most popular pages is interesting (to me) - here are the top 5. Note that most of them were stumbled on via search engines:

1. "Three things I dislike about France". This was supposed to be an amusing piece, but has been picked up by search engines from people who really don't like the French. I wrote "Some Things I Love About France" as a response when I saw that Google picked it out as the number one link for the search term "I hate French people".


2. Saturday "Night Fever". A classic film and a classic post :-)


3. "Generic Medication Considered Harmful (By Me, At Least)". Conspiracy theorists unite.


4. "Ca plane pour moi". Lots of people out there still want to know the lyrics to this song!


5. "Epilepsy: it's all in the mind". Worried people wanting to know about their ailment?

I looked back through the posts (43 in 7 months), and decided to pick my own top 5, based on whether I enjoyed writing it and the reaction it provoked:

1. Saturday "Night Fever". Makes me smile and cringe at the same time.
2. "Three things I dislike about France". I just thought it was really funny and it was something I wanted to write well before I had a blog. I toned down the title after discovering that xenophobes loved it.
3. "Mon Pere, ce Héros". Words never to be expressed aloud and one of the reasons I tell very few people about this blog - I'm just a frustrated, mono-syllabic northern lad at heart.
4. "The Brian Robson Experience". A major turning point for me.
5. "Heisenberg's Bicycle". Concocted on a bike ride home from work, this post generated the most comments and seemed to amuse people.

Actually, there are several more that I really like, so the blogging experience has been a positive one. Interestingly, it seems that there is some crossover between the ones I like and the ones that readers most liked too. I guess that this should be no surprise really - birds of a feather flock together and all that.
Anyway, I have a few more posts up my sleeve yet, so stick around. See you in the new world.

Friends, RE: "United in Irony"

How many real friends do you have? I am talking about the type of friend who you might not see for 5 years, but, as soon as you meet, you pick up right where you left off. This is the friend, who, if you were to turn up on their doorstep late at night, suitcase in hand, tears streaming down your face, would invite you in, put the kettle on, and not ask questions or look slyly at their partner/watch/TV.

Chances are, you won't have many. In fact, people can count themselves lucky if they have any friends like this. Friends come and go: "we used to go mountain-biking together", "he was a good laugh", "we went to the football together", that sort of thing.

I reckon I have 3 friends of this "calibre" - I'm a lucky guy. The problem is that because I live in France, seeing them once every few years is a reality. In the spirit of "New Year, New Resolutions", I decided to call one of them over the holiday period. He's as phone-shy as me, so it wasn't our best medium. However, I gathered that he hasn't had a great year. Some of the details I will omit (even though he will never read this) ,but some of them, viewed from the outside (i.e. by you), are quite amusing and ironic.

My friends wife is great; off-the-wall and extremely funny, although often it is unintentional. She has a sister. Her sister is nothing like her and they have always found it difficult to get on. Her sister is extremely career-oriented and became a highly paid management consultant. It was at work that she met her husband, another highly paid management consultant. Unfortunately for both of them, getting to the top invariably entails sacrifices. In their case it was the ability to relate to other human beings on a personal level.

However, once they had a child, her husband changed and realised that maybe there is more to life than downsizing other people's businesses (or whatever it is that management consultants do). Given that they were rolling in money, at the age of 35, he decided to retire to look after their child. From then on, weekdays were spent playing golf, punctuated by, no doubt, inconvenient school runs. However, it seems that after a couple of years of this, the school runs became more and more interesting to him: so much so that last year he left his wife for one of the mothers that he met every day at the school gates. He's now gone back to work as a highly-paid management consultant and his new partner has taken over childcare duties during the week. Ironic don't you think? I do.

Anyway, my friend's wife's sister (still with me?), as I said, sacrificed the ability to express herself. This has left her incapable of coping and she has, over the course of the year phoned my friend's wife for at least 3 hours a day. This is OK - everyone needs a shoulder to cry on. However, 3 hours a day for a year can get tiring for the person who has to listen, especially when is is a single-subject monologue. My wife has now started phoning her on a regular basis in order to let my friend's wife let off steam, something she appreciates - the chance to talk to another female about her problems and not somebody else's. Ironic also, don't you think? I do.

A second, and completely unrelated event happened during the year as well. After 45 years of marriage, my friend's mother met up with an old boyfriend, left my friend's father and went to live in Canada. Devastating I would imagine. He seemed quite phlegmatic about it, so I ventured the question, "Did they meet on Friend's Reunited?". "Senile Old-Age Pensioners Reunited, more like." he replied.

All-in-all, it was what the Queen would call and "Annus Horribilus" (which doesn't translate from the Latin as "an ugly backside". At least, I don't think so).

To finish, writing this, I struggled with the question, "If these are such great friends, how come you could never envisage telling them that you have a blog?". Maybe, like my friend's wife's sister, I am unable to connect to people on a personal level and can only express myself anonymously? If this is the case, like my friend's wife's sister, it would have been nice if it went hand-in-hand with a successful career. Ironic don't you think? I do.

Testing my liberal credentiels

I recently received a CV from a Canadian national, Fisher Scott. Two things struck me about the CV:

1. The name seemed a bit strange: I would have thought Scott Fisher was more likely
2. The technical capabilities weren't quite right, but it may be worth an interview anyway.

I therefore gave the guy a call and left a message asking him to give me a call for a phone interview.

It was only much later that I admitted to myself that a third thing had struck me:
3. It would be nice to have another native English speaker around the place.

The following day, I received another CV. One thing struck me about this CV:

1. It was identical in every way to Fisher Scott's CV, except that the name of the applicant was Mohammed and the native language was marked as Arabic rather than English.

This engendered feelings of both panic and amusement and I showed it to my boss. He displayed only feelings of panic: journalists or worse still, the government, were testing us to see if we were racist employers. He asked me to call the Algerian candidate and invite him for an interview.

I have to admit that I felt like I had been stung and was against calling, and, when he arrived, I asked him if he was here as Fisher Scott or Mohammed - a low blow. When I pressed him on why he had sent two versions of his CV, his reply shocked me, "When I apply as Fisher Scott, I get about 25% replies (either positive or negative). When I apply as Mohammed, I am lucky if I get a single reply.". When I asked him how he expected to get a positive reaction when a bogus Fisher Scott turned up, he replied, "I just hope that the interviewer can put that aside and that I will be judged purely on my technical and personal aptitudes.". He explained that this was a common approach for north African job-seekers.

We hear often about the plight of what they call the "visible minorities" - unemployment levels for the 30-39 year-old African-descent population is running at >30%. What a terrible state of affairs and one that I had never had brought home to me so clearly.

Now I have to ask myself whether I am equally guilty of racism: would I have called the guy if the first version I received had been the Algerian version? Deep down I have to admit that I might have passed over it if it hadn't been for the Anglo-Saxon name. As a minor consolation, I can say that this means that I might also have dismissed it if the CV had come from Monsieur Blanc. I wonder how many times my CV has been rejected because of my name? One thing for sure is that it is less often than the poor Fisher Scott.

If anything positive came out of it, it is that I have learnt my lesson. I just hope that France as a nation can do so too, but from what I see around me, I fear it won't be any time soon.

As to the glaring question, "Did you hire him?", the answer is, "No, he was rubbish". And that is based on purely objective reasoning.

Dig Hard, Dig Deep (Scoops 2, 3 and 4)

Like my teeth, the follow-up to Scoop 1 has been difficult to get out. However, for your delectation, here, finally, is the sequel.

As I said previously, I was kindly invited back for further investigations, having gone away from the first visit with a temporary filling, which "would hurt, but in a different way", designed to disinfect the site ready for the real work to start. With the filling removed, scoop 2 began. Very kindly, the dentist decided to use anaesthetic for this one. However, he seemed to inject it everywhere in my mouth apart from the dig-site. For several days afterwards my gums were scarred and I am pretty sure they were burnt by this anaesthetic.

During this investigation, he decided that the nerves were beyond repair and that it would need "at least" 3 more sessions in order to deaden them. "After that, we'll talk about your wisdom teeth". "I've put in another temporary filling - I can't understand why the first one didn't work".

However, he very kindly filled the second tooth for me in the meantime. It was only the day after that I realised the filling was not at all adapted to the shape of my mouth and that, when I closed my mouth on one side, on the other side the teeth were not closing - I looked like Popeye; all I needed was a pipe to hang out of this side (and infeasibly large muscles in my arms) and the effect would be complete. Unlike the cartoon violence meted out by Popeye, this situation led to extreme headaches because the muscles on one side of my face were constantly tensed while those on the other side hung loose . Not pleasant.

"OK, let's give this one a chance to work - come back next week and we'll carry on".

Now, I may be a coward, but I knew full well that it would be folly to keep coming - of course, I was never going to tell him to his face. Oh no, run away and hope he doesn't notice. So, it was with a feeling of guilt that I rang him just before the 3rd appointment and told him that I had been delayed overnight on a customer site and would call him when I got back. I then called the dentist where we used to live and who is treating my son. The thing is, they are very popular, so it was another 10-day wait for an appointment, and only then because they gave me preferential treatment - they have already taken 700€ from us for his brace, with the certainty that his story is not finished and my other son will soon need the same treatment. Mouths - who needs them? The phrase "put your money where your mouth is" never rung truer.

Anyway, onto scoop 3...

Entering the surgery here literally made my jaw drop (but, for obvious reasons, only on one side). Everything was clean, new and white. The dentist had an assistant who held the apparatus for him - I didn't have to do it myself! I didn't have to expectorate (great word) from a paper cup into a dry-spit-covered off-white basin - they had a machine to do this too. I had couched the visit as needing a "second opinion" on the original work. The dentist was very diplomatic, but could only express disbelief at the fact that the filling was convex, thus preventing my mouth from closing properly. He had a tiny X-ray machine. A click of the button, a swivel of the head and he could see the results immediately on his iMac screen. These results showed that there was no obvious nerve damage and that a simple filling would suffice. "I will fill it with a white composite" he said, quickly correcting himself, "Well, not white, but matching the colour of the surrounding teeth". Gggrrrr.

So this time he corrected the damage from the filling from scoop 2, gave me another (well-fitting) temporary filling and asked me to wait another week to make sure that there was really no nerve damage before coming back to have the other filling. "And then we can talk about your wisdom teeth..." was the now familiar parting line.

Scoop 4 is a happier tale. I arrive and am led to their X-ray room where they take a full mouth X-ray with a lovely new machine that swivels around your head, takes 2 seconds and flashes the results up immediately on the computer screen. A quick filling and the bill is presented - 64€ for 2 sessions which included 3 X-rays and 2 fillings, all of which is reimbursed by the dramatically over-stretched health service. Funnily enough, I still haven't received any word from the original dentist. My guess is that it will come to more than 64€ though.


Anyway, to finish, a few words on my wisdom teeth. It turns out that, like a drunk driver in a crowded shopping street, they have veered uncontrollably to the right, crashing through the crowd of orderly normal teeth, causing them to scatter in panic. This has had the effect of squashing them together so that the poor tooth in the middle has been isolated. Imagine a police line-up: the victim selects the suspect and he is asked to step forward while the others take a step backwards- that is what my poor centre tooth on the bottom must be going through right now. Unfortunately, the wisdom teeth have defended themselves by wrapping themselves around nerves. "We can take them out, but if we make a mistake you will end up spending the rest of your life with no feeling on one side of your face...". I think I'll put that decision off until after Christmas.

Unfortunately, the story itself, like the blood from my gums, will run and run, but, from now on, I will spare you from the gory details.

Dig Hard, Dig Deep (Scoop 1)

This post relates to my first experience of French dentistry. Prepare to wince (if you don't, I have failed in my goal). It is a long, ongoing story, so I split it into a few parts in order to stop you getting too bored and speed-reading to the bottom to see if there is anything interesting.

Anyway, to get underway, I should say that, like the French medical service, I assumed that French dentists would be of a high quality, with immediate availability - kind of like a high class call-girl (I would imagine).

As we have just moved house (did I already mention that :-) ), I didn't have any recommendations, so chose the one closest to our house (one dentist is pretty much like another, no?). First surprise: a 2 week wait for an appointment. So, as a proper man, I had spent several months moaning to my wife about the excruciating pain, and, like a proper Englishman, I waited several months before doing anything about it. OK, 2 more weeks, but the wheels were in motion.

Come the big day, I headed off down to the surgery. The signs were good: the surgery was in the courtyard of a beautiful bourgeois house; the waiting room was full of antiques; basically, it was not like any dentists I had ever visited before. Also, unlike any I have ever visited, I was welcomed at the door by the dentist himself - an austere man befitting of his surgery's waiting room, obviously close to retirement, but seemingly steady of hand with a pleasant manner and obviously lots of experience - I should have seen it coming...

I never asked myself, "where is the receptionist? Where is the dental assistant? How much is this going to cost?" as I was waved straight into the surgery. Second surprise: the surgery was also full of antiques, starting with the chair that he beckoned me to sit in. Think imitation beige leather, worn out and patched together with cellotape and you get the idea. OK, it's just a chair - he had comforting high-tech gadgets after all. Look at that Sony monitor in the corner - no idea what it does, but at least it's beige. It looked like one of the oscilloscopes we used at university 20 years ago - actually, maybe not so comforting...

So, napkin on, and in he goes. "Where does it hurt?". Strangely, that day, it didn't hurt at all. He soon fixed that though. With something too closely resembling a fish-hook, he pulled and pushed my teeth in the general area where I said it hurt. Soon enough he found the problem, and like a dodgy garage mechanic (aren't they all?), he gave a sharp intake of breath and told me that I had 2 cavities, both below the gum, one of which had dug a secret passage from one tooth to another. Of course, the problem was down to the previous dentist who had badly filled the teeth.

So he decided to have a closer look. He went off to get his drill bit from one of his antique cupboards, uttering, "Hhhmm, I only seem to have one left but that'll do". He didn't want to use anaesthetic, so in he went, asking me to raise my hand if it hurt. It was OK for a bit, but sure enough he got far enough down to hit the nerve causing my hand to raise, but not under any control. "Hhhmm, even worse than I thought. It'll need at least another four sessions. I'll have to deaden the nerve, do this, do that...come back tomorrow".

At this point, the alarm bells and my gums were ringing. No price ("we'll discuss that at the end of the consultation"), no details, no waiting list - this was the big one; the one that would pay for the new tyres on his Jaguar. Still, as the good Englishman, I didn't dare to kick up a fuss and agreed to come back in tomorrow, which was incidentally a Saturday.

I'll tell you next time about anaesthetic that left my gums burnt, deeper digging (with non-functioning anaesthetic that was obviously past its sell-by date), a filling on the other tooth that left me unable to get my teeth to close on one side of my mouth causing headaches and a final realisation that I needed to see a real dentist...