If ever a guy looked like the real nautical deal, it was me going into this bar.

Sometimes I should learn to keep my mouth shut. One of the things which pass after about ten years of speaking another language is the idea that everything you say is correctable by the person you are speaking to.

“J’aimerai un sandwich s’il vous plait,” I would say more or less perfectly after I had a handle on the language (at least enough of a handle to ask for a sandwich.

“Un quoi?” What? They would say.

“Sandwich.” I say wondering how I could screw that one up, considering the French stole the word from the English.
“Oh, un sonnnnwiiisssh,” they say in a spray of continental spittle. Okay, whatever.

Anyway, my wife and I went to Saint Malo the other weekend and it was freezing cold but we decided to wander around and see what we could see. I’ll spare you my holiday details but once we finished our bracing walk around the cliffs and once I finished pretending I knew everything about all the boats in the port we came across a fantastic bar overlooking a little bay. There were fishing and sailing boats moored with their bells clanging from time to time and as the sun started to set I thought if ever there was a time to drink a whiskey it was now. I was even dressed in my duffle coat and polo necked, marine blue pullover and as ruddy-cheeked as a lighthouse keeper. Jeez, if ever a guy looked like the real nautical deal, it was me going into this bar.

So a barmaid who looked about twelve years old came to our table and my wife orders some totally inappropriate drink like a Mojito or something (not at all in my old sea salt trip) and I declare that I’ll order a finger of eighteen year old Glenfiddich.

“Quoi?” The twelve year old says to me.

“Glenfiddich,” I repeated.

“Oh, Gliiinfidiiisssh,” she says haughtily as only a twelve year old French barmaid can.

This time I wasn’t going to let it go, “No, Glenfiddich.” I said and threw on a little Scottish accent on the end to boot.

She nodded and came back with the smallest serving of whiskey ever given to a fake mariner and charged me eight euros fifty.

Damn it. Bonne semaine.

One girl said wanted to see Russell DeNiro

The Cannes Film Festival cranked up here for the sixty fourth time this week. As usual the wind is cold as all hell with, what the French call the ‘Saint Glace’ which means the three days from the Saint Mamert to the Saint Servais where temperatures drop and kill off all the amateur gardener’s tomato plants who, like me, have no idea what they are doing and put them in too early. This gives all the toothless oldies a chance to cackle and which fuels their conversation until the following year.

Anyway gardening and Cannes are worlds apart. In fact anything and Cannes are worlds apart. Cannes is the quintessential French film festival. It is an odd competition of vaguely artsy French films which, for the most part you have never heard of, vaguely political foreign films (which you have never heard of either), competing against one or two Hollywood blockbusters (don’t even try to understand the selection process), for a trophy called the Palme d’Or which no one really remembers after.

Although France is a country which loves cinema and are the second most avid movie-goers in the world after the United States, a number of French tourists in Cannes were asked which films were competing this year and of course no one had the slightest idea (although one girl said wanted to see Russell DeNiro). Not only does no one know which films are competing, no one knows the judges, the jury, the announcement dates or, well, anything really.

So what is the point of Cannes? I’ll tell you – glamour. It’s about parading on the most glamorous piece of coastline in the world, in the most expensive dresses, covered with the most lavish perfumes and jewellery, lounging around on the biggest and whitest yachts, and pretending it’s not freezing cold and that you’ve probably planted your tomatoes too early.

Any French person would have loved to have put on some crazy duds and to have jumped into the action

William and Kate’s wedding presented a number of fundamental problems for the French. One glaring problem was how to present the thing on TV while glossing over the fact that France, well, kind of decapitated all of their royals in 1789.

Now, I’m not saying it was a good or bad idea (I wasn’t even here at the time) but one could hear a purse-lipped regret in the voice of the French commentator as every two-bit royal family from Tonga to Monaco found their chairs in Westminster Abbey.

And what’s not to regret. France blew their chance to sit next to a very combed-haired David Beckham wearing a medal next to his Spice Girl, Elton John with more hair than ever sitting next to his husband, or the kids of Fergie with giant pretzels on their heads. Even the Prince William donned Adelaide Crows colours for the gig and any French person would have secretly loved to have put on some crazy duds and to have jumped into the action.

Even the famous bushy bear hats bobbling on the Royal Guard were pinched from the French soldiers at Waterloo. The English thought they looked cool and just, well, started wearing them and the idea took off from there.

At the end of the broadcast the French commentator found two moments of happiness. The first one occurred once the ceremony finished and they all went back to Gran’s place for a drink. The father of Kate Middleton waltzed into Buckingham Palace with his hat on. Oh la la! Le faux pas! Apparently if you are a woman you can do what you want with your hat (did I mention Princess Beatrice’s big pretzel stapled to her head?) but if you’re a bloke you have to take the hat off. Oh little moment of joy, the French love nothing more than to give the English a good lesson in protocol.

The second moment came when the commentator said the French would, in fact, be represented at the palace (I could hear the whole of France holding its breath from outside my window). Who could it be? “French Champagne would be served at the palace to all the guests!”

Pfff. Bonne semaine.

When to say,“Well dudes, my vote is still with the etching.”

I was asked to be the president of a jury to judge an art prize here in France a few years ago. The jury was a group of small town dignitaries and I was supposed to be the representative from the “art world” to preside them all (whatever that means). Now I don’t want to sound mean or snobby but the paintings were a motley collection of cottages and flowers which actually made my eyeballs hurt looking at them. This is not entirely true in fact because a pile of boxes and scrap paper sat in one corner of the gallery which I presumed awaited collection to be thrown in the bin. I was told after this was an installation piece called “Woes of the Planet” or something similar.

So I wandered around the pieces asking myself; “which would I like to hang in my house?” When I arrived at the end with absolutely no answer I thought okay I’ll have another look and ask myself; “which would I not put in the garage if someone gave one to me?” Finally I found a little etching which had the merit of being an etching which is pretty tough to nut out and had the courtesy of being small enough not to attack my eyes like some of the oily butcheries jumping off the walls at me.

I told the jury what I thought. Embarrassed looks, picking at invisible pieces of fluff on shoulders, no eye contact. Not exactly the reaction I expected. “Um, okay did you manage to look at this work Mr. Coote?” The mayor asked in a baritone which mayors all seem to have. “This lady does do quite a lot for various associations in the town and we think her work has a certain… flair.” All round nods and coos of agreement. The mayor led me gently to a familiar corner and I found myself in front of “Woes of the Planet” again. “Oh Lord, why hath thou forsaken me?” was my first reaction. Then I thought why should I be influenced? I needed to put a stick in the sand in the name of all small etchings which are crushed by big, institutionally motivated works, damn it.

“Well dudes, my vote is still with the etching,” I declared to the jury with as much presidential finality as I could muster. The etching won and the lady who etched it continues to produce great work today. Of course I was never asked back again but that’s the price you have to pay I guess.

Close Encounters of the French Kind

I know a couple, René and Hughette, who are probably about eighty years old and who live on a farm not far from here. Hughette is our principle source of information about everything which goes on in the village. Sometimes her information is not really correct but it’s always interesting to hear her take on things. Their kid Gilles (who is about sixty years old), lives with them too and works on the farm, and never really got around to leaving or marrying anyone or having a life off the farm.

Hughette always serves something to eat when we go and inevitably when the “boys” come back from tinkering whatever farm thing they are tinkering she pulls out a bottle of wine. One day they confided to my wife and I over a bottle of white that one of their cows had been taken.

“Stolen?” I asked.

“Sort of,” René said with a big smile. It’s better when René doesn’t smile because he only has about four teeth and even two of them I’m not sure are teeth.

“What do you mean, sort of?”

“Spaceship took her.” René poured me a drink, and Hughette and Gilles nodded seriously.

“A spaceship?” I wanted to be sure I hadn’t mistaken the word spaceship with the name of one of their neighbours (bizarre translations happen sometimes).

“Yep. Spaceship flew down over the field and hovered a little bit before sucking the cow right up from chewing her cud to flying up into space.” René explained to me and I had the distinct impression they were more concerned about the departed cow than the fact they had experienced near contact with extraterrestrials.

“What do you think of the wine?” René beamed.

“It’s quite good,” I said, lying. It was really quite horrid but I didn’t say this of course.

“We go through a thousand bottles a year.” René said still beaming although now I knew why. A thousand bottles between the three of them plus people who drop by, well, you can do the maths.

“Yeah, damn that spaceship taking the cow,” René said shaking his head and having another sip of wine.

Hmmmm.

The Four Feet Deep Swimming Pool

I have friends from New York, Jim and Martine, who decided they wanted to have a pool. This is probably not the most interesting thing you have read this week but stay with me, the story gets weirder.

They bought a fabulous house about twenty years ago in a small village called Les Cerqueuex sous Passavant. The house used to be the old presbytery and is attached to the back of the village church. Now it takes about twenty years for a New Yorker to pronounce the name Les Cerqueuex sous Passavant correctly and to block out the sound of the church bells going off every hour. Jim assures me he doesn’t even notice the bells now and he seems to pronounce the village name without swallowing his tongue and choking to death. So he was itching to show me his pool project and we went into his garden which is strangely on the opposite side of the church to his house. But this is France and stuff is old and never square and over the years you get used to quirky house plans. He jumps down into a four foot deep hole with arms outstretched proudly, “What do you think!”

“Looks like a hole, Jim.” I say.

“Yeah, it’s a hole! You have to image a terrace over here and a rock waterfall over here and I’m going to build arches behind, on the other side!” I admit I love talking with my American friends. Everything has an exclamation point and no project is too big.

“Is it deep enough?” It looked like the water would come up to my waist at best.

“Well, sort of. Look at this.” Jim pretended to swim to the other side of his hole and he showed me a line of grubby looking things placed on a concrete slab. “These are starting to pop up if I dig much deeper.”

I lean in and look closer, “What are they?”

“Bones!”

“Bones? Are you kidding?”

“No this used to be the cemetery before it got too small and they moved it to the outskirts of the village. So I guess these are the ones who didn’t make it out.” Jim nodded in as much of a solemn moment as he is capable.

“So your pool isn’t going to get much deeper than this?” I caught on.

“I figure if I go down to six feet I will start finding stuff which doesn’t look so anonymous and having to declare these guys to the town hall. So…” he looks up at me, “jump into my four feet deep pool!”

Hmmm.

The Whole Kissing Thing

One thing which you have to get used to when living in France is all the little social rituals. Kissing is the most obvious and, well, French thing to get a handle on. In Paris they kiss each other twice, in the south it’s three times but where we live in the west people kiss twice on each cheek to say hello and goodbye. Four times in total to say hello and then another four times to say goodbye! This means that when you go to a dinner party and there are six invited guests you are going to be kissing at least forty eight times (maybe more if it’s one of those dinner parties but that is for a different column…) over the duration of the evening. This is a lot of kissing.

Of course there are degrees of kissing. Now, you are kissing people on the cheeks so don’t get too excited, I mean it’s not like your planting a tonguey four times on your guests to say hello and goodbye, but still the level of participation varies depending on the person. For some people, where the kiss is reduced to its most rudimentary protocol, you are really only pressing cheek flesh. Even the kiss noise is optional. Sometimes the person doesn’t even stop talking (you have to remember French people have been kissing each other all their lives so this isn’t at all weird).

For others you have actual lip contact on the cheek. This means you have to think fast. If you receive the lip contact on your cheek with the first kiss you won’t have enough time to react for the second one to give back the lip contact if you decide you like the person enough to return the gesture (it goes pretty fast). Firstly, you have to decide if the lip contact was accidental or not too. It happens. Accidental lip contact is sometimes like cheekbone bumps. You go in for the kiss, they go in at the same time and you end up mutually inflicting depressed cheekbone fractures. So I wait for the second kiss to decide if I go for a contact or a kiss noise (which is an okay alternative) with the third kiss. The fourth kiss tells you if you have finished the ritual correctly. Everyone is happy, no faux pas, normal conversation ensues, phew made it through the kisses.

Try to keep all this in mind when in France and bonne semaine.

The Tour de France and Low-Flying Cocktail Sausages

The first time I took my son Oscar to see the Tour de France he was only about three. We walked over to the crash barriers installed along the road which cut through our village and waited. This is a big part of the event. Waiting. We watched the occasional motorbike with some official logo on the side scream through the village at about mach two. Then some police. Then more waiting. The crowd built up to about four or five deep behind us and Oscar managed to stay attached to the barrier and I stayed attached to Oscar.

Just when I thought I’d mastered the art of going to sleep with my eyes open, in a roar of noise and colour the Tour de France caravane sped through the village. I’m not sure why it’s called the caravane but it’s a collection of floats, mini-vans, cars, trikes and quads (I think I even saw some quids if that exists) from the sponsors who have girls made up like stolen trucks throwing souvenirs at you.

I managed to collect a couple of Skoda sunhats off the ground from the clutches of some kid who already had about fifteen stuffed into a plastic bag before I looked up at a huge red and yellow Cochonou float bearing down on me. Before I could turn away I came under fire from a volley of small, hard cocktail sausages launched by a half-woman, half-pig from about ten feet above me at full speed. I took two in the head before finding my feet, stuffing some in my pockets, and stumbling back to give Oscar his hat.

He put on one of the horrible hats and I nursed my sausage-inflicted head wound with the other one when from out of the blue, in a near-silent whiz of super-tuned titanium and Kevlar, a solid pack of about a hundred bicycles slid through the village then disappeared. And that was it. Le Tour de France. Oscar looked up at me as we started to walk home and from under my improvised bandage I said, “That was pretty good wasn’t it?” Oscar looked a little confused so I reached in my pocket, “Cocktail sausage?”

“Oui papa!” The Tour de France isn’t just about bikes I guess.

Drunken Frenchmen and Mick Jagger Bouncing Googlies at Me

A few years ago I met this guy at a party who, after finding out I was Australian, told me he was the captain of the French national cricket team. Of course I said, “I had no idea France even had a cricket team,” to which he said, “No one does really but we are going to Denmark next month to play against the Danish national team, so I say, “Denmark, huh.”, I didn’t want to offend the guy but this sounded like the most secret international competition in the world.

“You should come out and play,” he said. “I’m playing a club game in Saumur before we go to Denmark.”

“There are clubs too?” It slipped out. He told me the organization of the the game which involved a portable pitch, a type of roll-out affair which is laid in the middle of the flattest paddock they can find with enough room for the player’s friends and family to picnic without copping a flyer in case any of the batters actually managed to make contact with the ball.

“Yeah, the president will be there which always brings a few people to watch the game,” he said.

“Chirac is coming to watch you play club cricket?” Chirac was still the president at the time.

“No, not the president of France. The president of the club is Mick Jagger. He has a castle not far from the paddock and he puts up the money every year to buy bats and pads, and you know, cricket stuff.”

“Sure, cricket stuff. So Jagger is the president?”

“Yeah, but he’s a terrible cricketer. He floats around long off talking and drinking more than following the game but it’s fun.” It’s fun because Mick pays too, I thought.

I can’t remember now why I didn’t end up going to play cricket with the captain of France and Mick Jagger. Maybe I was intimidated by the international status of it all or maybe it was the idea of drunken Frenchmen and the singer of the Rolling Stones bouncing googlies at me down a strip of uneven matting in a cow paddock but I guess I let that chance slither by.

Oh well.

The Uncanny Similarities between Hugh Jackman’s and My Torsos

Well, I’ve bought a cowboy hat. Of course it doesn’t really suit me but I bought it anyway and am going to wear it (at least on holidays) because it proves my theory that cultural clichés are stronger than regular intelligence.

Before people meet me I am referred to as “the Australian”. It’s a reference point which evokes a number of ideas in people minds – blond surfers, thongs, beaches, jeans, t-shirts, and cowboys. I think Hugh Jackman has something to do with the cowboy part.

Now, despite the uncanny similarities between Hugh’s and my torsos, I differ from Hugh and his character in The Australian in a number of fundamental ways. For example I work in France and Hugh rides horses in the desert. This alone would be enough for normally intelligent people to understand the difference in our appearances, except I still see people with a slightly disappointed look when they see me for the first time. “Oh, you’re the Australian?” I used to laugh it off and have a comeback like “Oh so you’re French, I was expecting to see a beret on your head and a baguette under your arm”.

That was until now. Now I have my cowboy hat. And as dumb as my hat is, it is congruous. It is just the sort of dumb thing which corresponds to the cultural ideas people want to have of an Australian. It worked for Hogan, it worked for Jackman and there is no reason why it won’t work for Coote. Not only that, because the sales are on here, I managed to find hidden under a pile of other forgotten fashion items from five years ago a checkered cowboy shirt to go with my hat. Everything was falling into place, it’s was perfect plan.

So I wore my cowboy hat for the first time the other day and my wife says “Why are you dressed like a Mexican?”

Hmmm (damn it).