The eggs were well and truly scrambled

I was very disappointed with N.C.I.S. yesterday evening. It is very popular in France. Friday evening we have episodes of N.C.I.S. and on Saturday evening episodes of N.C.I.S. Los Angeles.

 In episode 23 of season 11, Tony finds himself in Marseille. Why wasn’t the episode filmed in Marseille? The outside shots looked suspiciously like thinly disguised Washington sets. When Tony asked for breakfast in French the waitress arrived with scrambled eggs! In a café, breakfast is croissants or baguette and jam or both if you ask for ‘petit déjeuner complet’.

In my etiquette book the question is asked “What should one give American guests for breakfast?” and the answer is that American guests do not travel all the way to Europe to be served with their own food, so give them what you normally eat yourself. (The book dates from the 1930s)

I’m sure that CBS could have done better there.

Down, back and up

This has been a really interesting weekend for me. Yesterday lunchtime, on TV,  there was a documentary about the men who spend their tours of duty manning a nuclear submarine. The film crew spent a week with them. It was interesting to learn how everything fit together within the submarine. Equipment is designed so that it can be moved through small spaces. They even recycle in the galley. You should have seen what they get to eat! (Well, this was a French submarine).

The crew was very interesting and friendly with a proud sense of duty. Of course, there was a lot that they couldn’t tell us and the microphones were switched off during a visit to the engine room as the sound of the engine is part of a submarine’s identity and must be kept secret. Needless to say, the film crew was glad to leave after a week in such a confined space!
 I’ve written about submarines in the past: here and here

 Yesterday evening there was a telefilm about Georges Clemenceau (the Tiger) who was the French leader during the First World War.

One of the monuments associated with The Towers in La Rochelle is the little house that Clemenceau stayed in for holidays by the sea in Vendée. One Christmas Rob was guardian for a couple of days and nights there and we’ve visited several times. ( A short story that I wrote about that Christmas) Clemenceau was also a close friend of Claude Monet and persuaded him to have operations on his cataracts.

 This lunch time I’ve been listening to The Museum of Curiosity. Buzz Aldrin was one of the guests contributing to the Museum this week. He’s really interesting with a good sense of humour Unfortunately, there is only one day left to listen if you want to know the first words he said to his wife when he landed back on earth

September winds on

Olivier still hasn’t moved into his apartment. He has an appointment with the agency on Tuesday next week. We took some furniture to one of his friends whose mother is hiring a van to take it all down to Bordeaux. Olivier left on Monday and started the term on Tuesday, for the time being he’s staying with friends. He’s coming home for the weekend and then we’re going on Tuesday to take the rest of his things. I never thought that it could be so complicated.

Dom and J-M are coming for the weekend tomorrow evening. It’s my birthday soon and Dom will be making me a cake! I'm looking forward to hearing their teaching adventures.

Not much to report otherwise. Seem to spend a lot of time working – evenings too. I do have some breaks. Downton Abbey is on Sunday evening and the Tudors is on Thursdays. Catherine Howard is about to start losing her head – so to speak. For once there are two programs I don’t want to miss. I’m still amazed that I can have so many channels at my disposal and most of the time nothing to watch on TV. I remember the good old days of just BBC and ITV in the UK. Some evenings we had difficulty choosing which program we wanted to watch the most!

Out of Africa and Out of Africa revisited

I was watching a news report on TV about the droughts in some parts of Africa this year. An elderly lady was being interviewed and she was saying that she had never seen such bad conditions all her life. They asked her how old she was. She was the same age as ME! It’s easy for us to appear youthful physically; we have such easy lives…

Out Of Africa was on TV last night. When it first came out I dragged Rob to the cinema to see it. He fell asleep and my French wasn’t good enough to understand the subtleties of the plot. Although, I did enjoy the shots of the magnificent scenery. At last I understand why she wanted the land. I don’t think we see enough of Meryl Streep these days

Breaking news

Time for a general news report. For the second time in a year Rob and I have found a car in the stream which runs alongside the marsh. This one was right on its side. *I looked around a bit, no sign of breaks being jammed on, looks almost as if they did it on purpose. Perhaps a romantic couple who thought they’d park on the side of the road – and fell into the ditch?

*We’ve got Numb3rs back on French TV so I’m being extra observant at the moment.

The big news in our region is that one of the inmates of the revived Big Brother on French TV is a very pretty ex police woman from Bordeaux who doesn’t mind pole dancing and stripping on the side. The worse part is she quit the police to go into the gold fish bowl and has broken a 5 year contract. I'm not the only one to blog about it, one of the young men she arrested recently was first.