The James McConnell Facebook funeral consolidates my faith in people

James McConnell

James McConnell was a former Royal Marine in the British army who died last month in a nursing home in Portsmouth England at the age of 70. He had no family or friends, so the staff were worried that he would be buried alone, with no mourners to accompany him and say goodbye.

Happily though, things changed after a Facebook page was created to ask people to come to his funeral. Over two hundred people took the trouble to attend as a result of the appeal, and there was also a motorcycle cavalcade, a group of British Legion standard bearers, and buglers From the Royal Marines Band playing the Last Post.

What a beautifully uplifting piece of news that is. 

The world can seem so cold sometimes, and Facebook often reflects that. And people want gore, sex, scandal and murder in their press too, which is why the press provides it.

The large majority of those present had never known James McConnell. It's heartening to know that there are some people out there on the Internet with warm hearts, a generous spirit, and compassion. 

Good news for a change...

Gizzajob: *Facepalm*

Here is the news. Major American tyre company (ok, tire for yous Americans:) Titan, which already imports its own tyres into France, wanted to buy the struggling French Goodyear tyre production site. But Titan's Big Boss, Maurice M. Taylor, decided not to do the deal. So he wrote a letter to the French government to explain why.

He said that labour costs were much too high in France, that French workers spent too much time on coffee breaks and lunch, that their unions were suicidally intent on not changing current practices and that if they didn't become more productive and competitive the French tyre market would soon be dominated by Chinese and Indian imports.

The riposte wasn't long in coming. French Minister of Industrial Renewal Arnaud Montebourg wrote back to say that well, if that's how you feel, what we're going to do is to check your tyre imports with "redoubled zeal" to make sure they respect production and safety requirements and if they don't we'll refuse them.

In other words, a businessman tells a country its workers are shit, in response to which its government says that it's going to penalise the businessman's company.

That's it. The news.

Two ideologists waving their 'mine's bigger than yours' cocks around and confronting each other in a grotesque and strutting dance of combat at the very moment the world economy and its movers and shakers need not less, but more reconciliation and compromise in order to clean the current mess.

And these people get PAID for doing this chrissakes????!!!!

Gizzajob.

*Facepalm*

French 'Hypocrital Sick Jerk of the Month' award goes to Joey Starr

A Jerk

I had to rub my eyes and clean my glasses to be sure that I had understood this story correctly. French rap artist Joey Starr has filed a complaint against a woman who, he alleges, slapped him in the face in a supermarket. He claims that she was drunk. He was shopping in Paris' VIII Arrondissment when, a police source says, he was attacked by "a very drunk woman who slapped him."

Well, I don't know if I'd go so far as to file a complaint about it. After all, being slapped by a drunken woman in a shop, whilst being a disagreeable experience, is hardly going to put me in hospital now is it. Besides, I have much better things to do than take drunks to court.

On the other hand, some people would file a complaint, and that's fair enough. Violence is a crime after all.

But JOEY STARR?!

For those who may not know, Starr has been in a Police Commissariat before. Here's why.

1999. 2 months in prison for violence against an air hostess.
1999. 6 months in prison for injuries he inflicted upon his former girlfriend.
2000. €1,000 fine for possession of a pitbull which attacked another dog.
2000. €12,000 fine for violence against a person in the street.
2001. 2001. Prison and a fine for possession of cannabis, a 6.35 automatic pistol and dealing in cocaine.
2002. Guilty of cruelty to an animal.
2003. 4 months for spitting on policemen.
2005. False driving documents.
2009. 3 months and a €2000 fine for domestic violence, against his girlfriend.
2009. 2 years prison (18 months suspended) for attacking a car with an axe. He was also placed under a committal order.

And this 'man' goes crying to the police because a woman slaps him in the face?

Joey Starr is a first-class jerk (crétin). Voila.

Omni Trium Perfectum?

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Those three words mean 'everything that comes in threes is perfect, or, every set of three is complete'. That's the reasoning behind the 'rule of three'. Well, things may come in threes, but they aren't always perfect, as three ongoing French news stories attest. It has been a decidedly bad news week here. But never fear, there's some good news too, which I'll save until last.

The first of these ongoing stories concerns the state of the French economy. With the Mali war fading into the media background, François Hollande and his government no longer have anything with which to distract the public's attention from dire economic news, and the press has been full of articles reminding him of that fact since Monday. The OECD has, for the first time, singled out France's employment legislation, which, they say, keeps millions of young and unqualified people out of a job. They also come down hard on the reluctance of French authorities to reform its economy and its tendency to try to tax and borrow its way out of the crisis. Growth has been flatlined for a year, the government has admitted that it can't meet its debt repayment schedules, and major redundancy programmes are being implemented by several multinational companies. Glum glum glum...

The second ongoing saga is that of the 'horsemeat for beef' scandal. It has been front page news for days, but I just read a thoroughly depressing story which explains how some of the companies involved plan to dispose of the massive amounts of fraudulent frozen, tinned and other products containing horsemeat that they have been forced to withdraw from supermarket shelves. The idea? Well, it appears that they want to give it to the poor and needy! Yes, you did just read that, they want to give it to the poor and needy. And this at the very moment when there is speculation that this kind of product may even contain donkey and/or mule meat.

What an utterly deplorable situation. Here we have food that is judged to be possibly unfit for supermarket shelves but which, we are told, is okay for the poor. Charitable organisations are considering the idea, and if they accept it we can expect the poor and homeless to be queuing up sometime soon in places like the 'Restaurants de Coeur', which serve cheap but hot meals to the homeless and poor. I cannot imagine a more cynical and shameful initiative. Many poor people feel humiliated enough as it is by the plight they find themselves in and this news isn't going to do anything to help their morale.


Lastly, France is seeing yet another spate of copycat suicide attempts. Three people have attempted to commit suicide by self-immolation in the last 48 hours, and another was stopped from doing so before he could set light to himself. The first person, an unemployed man whose right to benefit had expired,  poured petrol over himself and lit it outside a Job Centre in Nantes. He died from his injuries. The second, a "very lonely" unemployed man whose right to benefit had also expired, set himself alight this morning outside the apartment block in which he lived, but he was saved by passers-by and is now in hospital with severe burns. Also this morning a 16-year old boy set himself alight at school. He too was saved, by other children, and he suffered only minor burns. Finally, a fourth person threatened to set fire to himself outside a supermarket today but was prevented from doing so by emergency services.

So that, I'm afraid, is what's been front page news this week. But never mind, not all bad news comes in threes and, as promised, here is some positive news. This rule of three story is that I met an extremely charming lady recently and have spent three very happy evenings in her company in a week.

That news is not in the press however. After all - and as we know - good news doesn't sell. :)

And it is upon that upbeat note that I shall wish you, dear reader, a very happy weekend.

Findus 'horsemeat lasagne': to blame the food industry is to neglect the real scandal

So, let's see if we've got this straight. Horsemeat masquerading as beef has been sold in England and France by major retailers and supermarket chains. The products involved - frozen, refrigerated, vacuum-packed, tinned and other versions of dishes such as lasagne and ravioli - were produced and sold to retailers by French food assembly companies such as Findus, who bought their 'beef' from meat distributors such as French company Comigel, who, in turn, had bought their 'beef' from major French importers such as Spanghero, who, in their turn, had bought their 'beef' from slaughterhouses in Romania.
But now that the fraud has been discovered, and reputations are at stake, everyone in the chain is stabbing everyone else in the back in the hope of avoiding blame. The supermarkets are suing Findus, who say they are taking legal action against Comigel for product misrepresentation, Comigel is doing the same against Spanghero, who, of course, are blaming the Romanians for ripping them off.

Even more worryingly, the British imports came from Dutch and other suppliers which is why authorities now fear that that this kind of fraud exists not just in France, but in many other European countries too.

We needn't linger on the immediate and superficial question of why this fraud was perpetrated, or even where in the system it happened, because the direct reasons for it are very simple: horsemeat is three times cheaper than beef and hard to distinguish from it in dishes such as those incriminated, that which makes it a tempting option in the food industry's efforts to cut production costs to keep prices down, and sanitary, advertising and other controls within the industry are notoriously lax.

Heads shall undoubtedly roll as a result of this of course, be they those of executives from the supermarkets, food assembly companies, distributors, importers, abbatoir facilities, some mafia or other, or any combination of them. But although they are technically 'to blame' for this, they are just convenient fall guys really, because the real blame lies elsewhere.

The food industry is a cut-throat business in which retailers have been ruthlessly forcing down their suppliers' margins for years, particularly since the crisis began. But they are not doing this for the sadistic pleasure of seeing suppliers suffer, they are doing it because the public demands it of them.

Food bills are among the most onerous of all household bills, particularly for families, single parents, the unemployed, those on low wages and others who make up the many millions of the lower-income bracket. But unlike income, local and property taxes and others, all of which rise continually but can't be avoided, cash-strapped households do have an influence on food prices. Millions of people have been buying cheaper and cheaper food in order to help them to make ends meet, and the industry has been obliged to meet that demand. The fact is that cheap food has become a necessity for many people whose income has stagnated or worse.

And what are governments doing about it? Well, not much of course because they know that if there is one thing the voting public hates it's rising food prices, so they have no vested interest in pushing up food prices by introducing draconian and costly legislation to improve the quality of what is sold in supermarkets if they can avoid it. Besides, who would pay for the tens of thousands of inspectors who would be needed to enforce it? And, as Junior Minister for the Social Economy said today, "we can't put an inspector behind every side of beef."

So there we have it. We live in a Western world where people buy food which is so cheap that it cannot possibly be adequately nutritional or of good quality. Butter has given way to margarines, 'spreads' and worse, sausages may legally contain pigs' tongue, muzzle, anus and skin, fruit and vegetables are bland and antiseptic clones of what they used to be, dairy products are a joke, and it's becoming hard to find a real baguette or pastry, even in France. Prices - and quality - are being driven mechanically down by an economic logic which is way out of kilter.

The 'Findus horsemeat lasagne' story offers us not just a much-needed insight into the food industry's practices, it also comes as a stark reminder that our so-called 'advanced' society remains incapable of feeding its poorer members decently, even in 2013.

That's the real scandal....

Hollande's dreadful week proves that 'a week is a long time in politics'

"Trust me Frankie..."  "Ummm, okay Angie, I believe you..:(

It's been a terrible week for François Hollande, although he began it rather well. Monday saw him meeting with American Vice President Joe Biden, who praised him for what he called his "decisive" decision to send troops to Mali. 

Ah, Mali. Those had been indeed halycyon days. Hollande's army had swept with brio through Mali and pushed the rebels back into tiny strongholds in the north of the country, and he received such a hero's welcome during his visit to Mali to meet Malian representatives that he called it "the most important day of my political life." Better still, the whole shebang had been so popular with voters that it almost made France forget its economic woes.

But that was all forgotten the next day. It was Tuesday, and the analysts and some politicians suddenly brought him back down to earth with a bump. 'It's all very well making terrorists run away' they said 'but they are still alive and the hard bit - the asymmetrical warfare bit where they use road bombs and suicide bombers - is not going to be anything like as easy. Ask Bush, whose 'lightning' war to topple Saddam lasted a decade.' Hollande did not respond to the reports, hoping as he surely must have been that the upcoming EU budget summit would restore his aura.

But things got off to an immediate and unauspicious start on Wednesday morning, when Germany rejected Hollande's claim that the euro is overvalued and added that interest rates should not be used to boost competitiveness. Also, rumours began to circulate that David Cameron was going to drive a very hard bargain at the EU summit later in the week and that he was gunning for Hollande. Still, Angela Merkel did come over to Paris to watch the France-Germany football match, so maybe he could woo her over to seeing his point of view? The answer is 'no, he couldn't' because a Merkel spokesperson described their pre-match meeting to discuss the summit as "short and intense." The Elysée was forced to deny any major disagreement between them, and as if that wasn't enough the Germans beat France 1-2. Deary me. But even worse news would come Hollande's way on Thursday morning.

That was when dastastardly David Cameron spoilt his lunch in Brussels as the start of the summit with a violently uncompromising declaration to journalists in which he bluntly warned the EU - and Hollande in particular - that he would not sign the EU budget bill unless it was cut, and not increased as Hollande wanted it to be. "When we were last here in November, the numbers that were put forward were much too high." said Cameron. "They need to come down. And if they don't come down, there won't be a deal." Great Britain had declared budgetary war on France and an angrily defiant Hollande said that he would not give in. Metaphorical cruise missiles were lobbed from one side of Brussels to the other all day long, far into the evening, and onwards into a chilly night in all senses of the word.

As usual, the negotiations were acrimonious and overshadowed by Europe's 'Big Five' - Germany, Italy, Great Britain, France and Spain. And as is often the case they split up into two opposing camps, with France, Spain and Italy fighting for a budget increase and Britain and Germany, with Merkel finally making it clear that she was backing Cameron, opposing them with plans for a decrease.

Things got so bad for Hollande that he crawled sulkily back into his room, from which he didn't move or say a word, even refusing to answer 2am phone calls from EU leaders who wanted him to attend a meeting with Cameron and Merkel. It all reminded me of Hitler's last few desperate days in the bunker.

Finally though, and after a night of the kind of high drama and petulant theatrics which we have resignedly come to expect at EU summit meetings, Europe's leaders managed to thrash out a budget agreement for the rest of the decade. 

It was all over. Cameron had obtained almost all of the cuts he wanted, and Hollande was handed down a crumb or two from the table in order that he may try and save face when he got home. But it was not to be, and by the time he got back to Paris the press, politicians and public alike had already been savagely mauling him for a couple of hours. He was weak, they said, he had caved in, he had let his country down, he was a loser.

'Hollande's Trafalgar?' 'Cameron and Merkel impose austerity on Hollande'. '"Tightfisted Europe" wins out over Hollande'. Those are just three of the top-of-the-homepage headlines which were to be read in the French press yesterday evening. Cruel reading they must have made for Hollande, but crueller still is that they were accurate.

François Hollande must be musing ruefully today about what could arguably be called 'the worst week of his political life'. With his ephemeral success in Mali behind him, and a terrible drubbing in Europe to cap his week off, he knows that he now has no major crusade left to fight in order to keep the public's mind off the awful state of the economy, an economy which he shall now be forced to confront.

"A week is a long time in politics" said British Sixties PM Harold Wilson. Indeed it is, as François Hollande has just found out to his cost.

The spate of suicides at the Arena of Nîmes

The outer walls of the Arena of Nîmes

The municipal authorities of Nîmes, in the Languedoc-Rossillon region of Southern France, are used to dealing with the many thousands of tourists who flock there each year to admire the city's beautiful architecture and Roman remains, but they are now facing an altogether new and baffling challenge from another category of 'tourists'.

Perhaps the most-visited site in Nîmes is the Roman amphitheatre. More commonly known today as the Arena of Nîmes, it is now used mainly for bullfighting events, music concerts and, more recently.....suicide attempts.

Tall and famous monuments have always attracted suicide candidates, and the Arena of Nîmes is no exception, with two recorded suicides there over the ten years up to last November. It was then that events suddenly took a dramatic turn for the worse. 

There have been five suicide attempts at the Amphitheatre over the last four months, three of which succeeded, with the other two leading to very serious injuries. All those concerned were aged between 20 and 30 and they had all jumped off the arena's high outer walls.

In an attempt to prevent further suicides the city's authorities have issued a byelaw which bars entry to the amphitheatre to all visitors who come alone. They are also considering setting up a psychological trauma unit to deal with people who are in shock after witnessing someone throwing themselves off the walls and plunge down to the street. Children are particularly vulnerable to psychological trauma in these circumstances, the authorities say, and this has added added a further sense of urgency to efforts to find ways of preventing similar suicides in the future.

Various meetings and consultations have been taking place in order to try and understand the phenomenon, but no answers are as yet forthcoming, and the byelaw has no 'end-of' date and will thus remain in vigour for as long as authorities deem it to be appropriate.

There have been several instances in France over the last three years in which a specific community, or group of people with something in common, or group using the same method, has suddenly experienced a dramatic increase in suicide attempts. They include a spate of about a dozen suicides by France Télécom employees (although there is disagreement about just how much higher this rate is compared to that of the population as a whole), five attempts at self-immolation in under a year, three of which succeeded, five policemen in Paris who killed themselves with their service weapons in just one week, and a spate of people who died in their cars during the Christmas period and the first half of January this year after deliberately stopping them on high-speed railway level crossings in front of oncoming trains. This last example, incidentally, appears to repeat itself regularly at this time of the year.

News of these sudden spates of suicides involving common factors is to be seen regularly in the French media, and I have the impression that this isn't the case in Britain or America, whose media I follow assiduously. Why this may be I do not know, but I do know that France, as a Western country, has abnormally high suicide rates, particularly in comparison to those of Britain and America.

Meanwhile though, let's just hope that the mysterious series of suicide attempts which have occurred at the Arena of Nîmes ends just as quickly as it began.....