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Everything you always wanted to know about France - from France |
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Our life in France this weekLast week I had Coffee and Croissants in Fouquets on the Champs Elysees and dinner with a beautiful young lady in London. Next week I will be in Aix en Provence, St Tropez, Cannes and Nice - so if you missed me on my trip to Paris and London, try and catch me in Provence and the French Riviera next week. Blue sky, trees groaning with ripe cherries local wines and fresh bread from the boulangerie - there is nothing like a good gloat. (the beautiful lady is my 20 year old daughter, one of my three beautiful daughters) === Last week I wrote about the feeling of invisibility I experienced from young Japanese tourists - a lot of you wrote in saying they had the same weird experience and many had theories as to why this was - one reader did say... "One immigrant (sic) in France describes another tourist group as "characters from a manga cartoon"? I'm not sure what your intention was, but this does not sound good. I wonder how the French people in your town describe you and your fellow citizens? Would you kindly remove me from your mailing list?" - no problem one reader happily removed - in fact I am a great admirer of Japanese are and see manga as a vibrant development of this, but I am happy to remove anyone who will criticise something they know nothing about. My comments are an observation, clearly seen by many other people. One reader suggested the reason is that the "personal space" in Japan is much smaller - I think it is just a cultural thing, like the people who rush to be first to get off the plane when we all know we have to queue at immigration and the luggage carousel. === I have often written about Carole the kids and my Mum here in France, but I have rarely written about my two kids from my first marriage who live in the UK - my son Tony works on the Renault F1 racing team cars and lives in Oxfordshire, my daughter Belle lives near Cambridge and is studying for a degree - I am of course proud of them both and love them to pieces - the about us pages will be updated and more photos added as soon as I can. === My favorite site of the week is http://artchive.com/ftp_site.htm This has some high quality images of many of the world finest paintings - just look at http://artchive.com/ftp_site.htm then enlarge and make to maximum size - the quality, definition and speed of this site is awesome - it is not commercial so use the adverts to keep this wonderful resource open (just like on this site, please look at the adverts on this site as well, I have to feed my family) === Clio has just finished her first week as an intern in the UK, she is working 7 weeks in a company right in the center of London and commuting from South London (the locals call it southern Chelsea!!) each day - she is fascinated by the "Big Brother" television show and reports that she saw some sunshine today for the first time in a week. I rest my case, we are staying put in the South of France even if I do find it difficult to make a living. === I got this letter from a reader... "Tony, I have a problem which has persisted since our arrival here in 1991. We have a 'piano mecanique' (pianola or player piano) and can find no-one capable of adjusting it so that it plays correctly. Would any of your readers have expertise in this field...certainly not French piano tuners because a pianola is such a very rare breed here. I'd be thrilled to hear it working properly again. Can you help ? Cheers, Annie" - can anyone help? Please mail me if you can === There are over 2,000 features and articles on this site about French life and living in France. You can search from the search box above. Do browse through our website and please use the advertising links, they help pay for the site. I do try to reply to all mail - Contact Me - most is about property or living in France. I publish comments in this newsletter which I believe are of interest and may help find answers for people wanting to come to France. I hope readers will go to the adverts which help support our overheads. |
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