I am in France still, wondering about hair, and hats, and pies

Greetings, dear and loyal readers. I trust the last few days - regardless of your beliefs etc - have passed pleasantly and that you feel a firm resolve to do whatever it is you think you should for the next few days/year etc.

I have passed an excellent few days in my parents' house underneath a pile of food, emerging only to watch the ghastly new "Upstairs Downstairs" with some close friends and associates, all of whom agreed on the following:

1. Downton Abbey was one million times better.
2. They did not sound one bit posh; not one bit.
3. There's no way Lady thingy would shake hands with the servants.
4. There's no way the under-footbutler would have come in the front door.
5. Lord thingy had a common mouth (my own observation).

I have no doubt that the producers, director, cast and production team responsible for this stack of televisual plop all watched "Downton Abbey" through a mist of tears whilst drinking cheap whisky straight from the bottle through a bendy straw. (So saying, I would put Eileen Atkins in a fight vs. Dame Maggie any day, and wouldn't be sure I could predict the result.)

But I digress. My fascination with the Hair of France continues unabated. Witness, if you will, this latest delight, spotted in a Supermarché (as they call supermarkets in France) just outside Cognac:

And what does this man, spotted in the Super U on the road from Rouillac to Sonnac, have hidden under his hat?

Who can tell? My guess is a rutabaga, but I have often been wrong about rutabaga in the past. Anyway, other things are in France, but rather than writing about them with my hands I will just let them exist, possibly with a caption, possibly not. Here goes: 

The Saddest Sign I Ever Saw

Cock Pie 2010

A rabbit having a tug on a snowman's nose

The window of the local driving school. Why, Worzel? Why?

Cock Boots

There we go. If I do not find more amazing French hair to post between now and New Year's Eve, it remains only for me to say: Happy New Year - and may it bring you exactly what you wish for.

Pip Pip!

NWM

I complete my Christmas cake

Regular readers will be aware that I have started a "food blog" - something that no-one else has ever thought of doing, ever.  However, it is Christmas and it is time for cakes, robins, snow etc, so for once I will go "off piste" and will treat you to a photograph of my "chocolate log".  Here goes: 

Do you like it? I know I do. And what is more, it is delicious - poo and all.

Pip "Happy Christmas!" Pip

NWM

I am still wondering at the hair of France

Regular readers will be aware that I am in "France", which is ace. France is a country just across the Channel from the Yew-Kay. It shares a border with Belgium, Luxembourg, Germany, Switzerland, Italy and Spain - and that is just the countries I can remember . I have been on covert operations in Paris for two weeks, but now I am in Charente-Maritime with my parents, in their house. We are having a nice time; a very nice time.

What is an actual fact is that wherever you are in France there are 'themes', like for e.g. excellent food everywhere, loads of wine that you can drink in your mouth, Serge Gainsbourg on the radio all the time and the President of France doing French kissing with his Italian wife.  Another 'theme' is that some English people (not me and/or my family obv) move here but do not bother to learn to speak French. Happily, there is a corner of a foreign supermarket that is forever England, so they do not have to engage with the locals.  Here is evidence:

French speakers will enjoy the sign in the background - and I think that is a fact.

(I am not sure what Fluff and Dr Pepper are doing there, but no matter; the point is made.)

Also, they have AMAZING hair in France - hair like soft fluffy sheep. Here is further evidence; for the original evidence, simply scroll down or click here for my last post, which also dealt with the astonishing subject of French hair.

In other news, my mother brings out meat-based foodstuffs and one of the dogs looks at  them:

You are correct. That is a Radio Times. 

And in the local hunting shop, otters gambol in the window, holding between their paws delightful Christmas balls.

They, like me, wish you a Merry Christmas.  May your festive "season" be exactly as you would wish it to be.

Pip "Jingle Bells" Pip

NWM

I wonder at the hair of France

It is not the first time I have wondered about the hair of France. There seems to be a coiffeur on every corner of every street in Paris, and yet the hairstyles seem to come in only four varieties:

Ladies under 45: Long, slightly tousled, choppy fringe or unspecified 'short'
Ladies over 45: Crop with frondy bits dyed dark black/purple or blonde helmet head.

But the men! The men I am most often in contact with in France (don't ask) have shaved heads and bustling beards. Some of the older gentlemen have nondescript short hair; this type of thing is mercifully rare...

...As is this mother-and-daughters trio o' mullets spotted in the Louvre 2 summers ago. (They were not French, so they don't really count but still - wouldn't YOU want to find an excuse to post a photograph of three ladies with matching mullets?)

But yesterday, whilst lunching with the incomparable Belgian Waffle, I began to detect what can only be described as "a pattern".   Here is a man I saw in Paris two years ago:

And here is a man dear Waffle and I saw yesterday, captured on my SpyCam, and enabled by two glasses of wine.  You will note with interest that the texture of his hair matches his collar exactly - the kind of attention to fashion-detail we have come to expect of our French cousins.  (The temptation to nestle in his curls was almost overwhelming. Waffle says she did not want to lick them, but I do not think she was telling the truth.)

On that note, I must leave you. I have only two more nights in Paris before I must leave, propelled into the loving arms of my husband and simple-minded (but enthusiastic!) parents. 

Pip "Curly" Pip

NWM

It is still snowing

Tomorrow morning at 11am, I meet a very special "associate" outside a shop opened by the man who invented the Baba au Rhum.  Other than that I have very little to do this weekend; for example today, the only things I had to do were:

1. Walk to Sacré Coeur, because I cannot remember ever having been inside it and it is a good walk from where I am;
2. Buy something for supper;
3. Not eat a macaroon.

It is now the end of today, and today has been a mixed success.*  Sacré Coeur was indeed a good walk from where I am staying.  It (and the surrounding area) was also full of people who, like me, are not from Paris.  I did not have to engage with any of them until it became clear that out of the thirty people getting in the way of me getting a ticket for the funicular, I was the only one that understood the instructions on the machine.

Unfortunately,  I have the kind of simple-minded face that means that people ask me for directions and instructions wherever I am in the universe (even Mars).  It was therefore ten minutes, three Chinese people, a cluster of Japanese, some Spaniards, five Americans and a group of disorientated Greeks before I managed to mount the funicular myself, accompanied by my grateful international consortium of new best friends.   (Next time, I will stand by the machine wearing a badge that says: "I put the fun in funicular".  FYI this is the best joke I have ever made.)

Anyway, here are some photosnaps from my walk. Have a look. You may like some of them; you may not.  Either way, it is snowing again tonight and properly chilly, but I have wine in the bottle and the knowledge in my heart that in four sleeps, I will be boarding a train to Angoulême with my husband, the French-Canadian veterinary research histopathologist; after two-and-a-half hours, I will get off the train and find myself waving my tiny monkey paw at the simple drooling faces of Monkeymother and Monkeyfather. Thereafter, we will get inside their car and disappear into Christmas-related activities for two weeks. It will be great.  In the meantime, I must not eat too many macaroons.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with standing outside in the cold taking
 photographs of people buying things made of butter.  And crying. 

Regardez! C'est le Père Noel.  Do not be afraid. He cannot see you naked.

Statue man. Smoking a fag. And fucking loving it.

This man played "Greensleeves", and then he played the theme from  The Godfather.
 I laughed very loudly by mistake, felt guilty and gave him 2 Euros because I am an idiot. 

I can barely look at this photograph, which is why it is smaller 
than the others. If someone put this on my plate with those
 fucking crustaceans looking up at me, I would faint. 
If you are insane, you can click on the photograph and have
a better look. I have deleted the original. 

Anyway, that is enough of that for now. If anything else interesting happens, I will let you know.

Pip "stop looking at me you shelled freakshows" Pip!

NWM



*I succeeded on the first two fronts but failed on the third. (You may, if you wish, see evidence of the success of number 2 and the failure of number 3 here).