Do you know I was preparing a long impassioned piece about climate change and why you should care about the Campaign for Climate Justice and participate in the world's first musical petition before the Climate Conference in Copenhagen in December.
And then cause fatigue set in. So watch the video at the top to start with.
Anyway, I've noticed that the less I write, the more comments I get. So when you've watched the video at the top, put a pair of headphones on and mime along to the one at the bottom. Bob Geldof and Lily Allen are supposed to be in it but I must have blinked a couple of times.
Interesting fact (1): The song 'Beds are Burning' was written, and originally performed, by the Australian band Midnight Oil, whose singer, Peter Garrett, is now Australian Minister for the Environment! How cool is that?
Possibly interesting fact (2): Vincent Perez, dishy Frenchman who appears in this video, used to date Carla Bruni and is now stepdad to Gérard Depardieu's son.
If you want to download the tune and in so doing add your signature to the petition going to Copenhagen asking for a robust agreement to replace the Kyoto Protocol which runs out in 2012, you can do it here.
I shall overcome my excitement over Obama winning the Nobel Peace Prize to tell you about the global online event going out tonight, starring all your old eco-favourites - Al Gore, U2, Peter Gabriel, Yann Arthus-Bertrand, the Cirque du Soleil. This is the reason that Guy Laliberté, founder of the Cirque du Soleil, is up in the space station at the moment, not just because he's a very rich clown who can treat himself to a holiday in space. It kicks off at 8pm EDT (New York time - 2 am in London) and is being broadcast online. So if you're still up and about in the middle of the night, fire up your 'pooter and join the party.
NASA crashed its LCROSS mission into the moon's surface this morning in an attempt to find water, which is certainly not coincidental. Why haven't this event and the organisation behind it not been given more publicity? There has been no coverage on British or French TV of the One Drop Foundation or the worldwide online event this evening. We should be told!
Scrumpy, my eco-warrior friend, practises what he preaches. He saves an enormous amount of water by not washing. It's a sacrifice, but somebody's gotta do it. I urge you to conserve water, unlike this inconsiderate woman:
Whoops I did it again, in the words of someone or other. Not content with wishing the Princess of Wales into oblivion and seeing my wish fulfilled within a few hours, I've managed to cause Petite Anglaise to cease blogging within a couple of days of being featured on my blog. I had no sooner taken an interest in Wham! than I learned they had split up. I am beginning to think I am a witch. I daren't mention anyone else for fear of prosecution.
On the other hand, I could use my powers to rid the world of noxious influences. You've heard of the Curse of Hello - many people who've sold their souls, I mean wedding pictures, to Hello Magazine have divorced. For a small fee I could feature someone you would like to see disappeared, and strike them down with the Curse of 'Allo. One word from me, and they'll be up the Alma tunnel without a safety belt. For the moment it only seems to work on blonde females, but I'll practice over the weekend and see if I can expand my range. If I can't get rid of them, I know a man who can.
Wiping my floury hands on my black apron which I have donned in mourning for Floyd, I am now going to make a neat segue from cooking to blogging.
American blogger Julie Powell first turned her blog into a book, and now the book has been made into a film. Julie and Julia tells the story of how Ms Powell managed to cook all 524 recipes from Julia Child's seminal 1961 recipe book "Mastering the Art of French Cooking" - in 365 days! That translates into 10 dishes a week, including 9 ducks and 2 geese, whilst simultaneously holding down an office job and writing a blog. One detects an absence of husbandly attention here, not to mention a little artistic licence. However, Meryl Streep's superb portrayal of Julia Child will no doubt carry this film, and help sell both her book and Julie Powell's, and I think it may be a suitable comforter to help us through the immediate post-Floyd period.
Another blog-to-book success story now. Parisian blogger Catherine Sanderson, alias Petite Anglaise, has just published her second book, and her first novel. The cover sings out chick lit, but in fact it's a highly good read, I was pleasantly surprised.
Anyone who knows her story will immediately twig that it's quite autobiographical, but it's well paced and Catherine, unlike Dan Brown, knows her Paris. Anyone who has lived in France will love the way she sprinkles the prose liberally with French expressions, without always translating them. Her observations on the little quirks of Parisian life brought back fond memories. Her account of going home to England for Christmas and being chided by her mum for her fancy French ways will ring a sourly familiar note for some.
All in all, it's a faithful account of life in Paris of a British expat. Just be careful not to mix it up with "The Art of French Kissing" or "French Kiss" which are also romantic tales of life and love in Paris with drawings of the Eiffel Tower on the cover. Honestly, publishers are so unimaginative. If you haven't got a bookstore close by, I recommend ordering from The Book Depository whose prices are excellent and who ship anywhere in the world for free. I had my order in less than a week.
Vi Hornblower has managed to blag herself a job in Paris, as lingerie editor of Elle or something, so I'll be renewing my acquaintance with the City of Lights with some alacrity before too long. Vi and I have had some fun in Paris before (see Wayne-Boughs Worldpassim) and share a taste for macaroons and shopping. I can see I shall be up and down on the Thalys more often than Carla Bruni's knickers. I've sent her my copy of French Kissing as appropriate reading on the Eurostar when she makes her triumphal entry into the Gare du Nord.
I was deeply saddened to hear of the death of Keith Floyd at the beginning of this week. It appears he was the subject of a documentary on Channel Four broadcast the very night he died, which is rather spooky. I was hoping this might have been the first in a series of 'Keith meets Keith', but I doubt anyone else will give Keith Allen an interview now. - Keith Richards might be the only bearer of the name brave enough to take on the Grim Reaper of broadcasting and his cameraman.
K. Richards will no doubt be tuning in to BBC1 next Friday evening, along with the rest of the band, to see how Ronnie's ex missus gets on. This is surely the sweetest revenge a scorned wife could have inflicted on a wayward Stone - reduce him to watching Strictly. I hope she sent him a briar pipe and tartan slippers to wear while he's watching.
But back to Floyd. He was that rare animal, a TV presenter who couldn't give a toss. About anything. Including his own career. And quite often, about his cooking. He had a natural nonchalance, that mixture of raffish rakish rogue and impeccably-mannered public schoolboy that is so irresistible. His enunciation, even when sloshed, was so much better than his cooking, although the food was not really the point. He had never done any cookery training. The point was his joie de vivre, his banter with Clive the cameraman, and to see if he could get the dish finished before he got completely bladdered. He was everything that Delia Smith is not, and never will be. Jonathan Ross would never be able to wear braces, bow tie and panama hat with such natural flair. He was the kind of Englishman that even the French like.
I have a book of Floyd recipes, "The Best of Floyd - my greatest hits", in which each recipe starts off like a newspaper column. He sets the scene, recounts an anecdote, usually involving consumption of alcohol, and finishes off with the instructions for preparing the dish. His recipe for gazpacho has three pages of preamble and one page of recipe. He was one of the people I would have had as a guest at my fantasy dinner party. He still is, in fact.
I can imagine him strolling up to the pearly gates in his white suit, bow tie and waistcoat, and scrutinising the menu before he decides to go in. Then sneaking in the back door of the kitchen, pouring himself a glass of very fine Chablis and giving the ambrosia a stir while having a sneaky slurp.
Keiths
He did not age gracefully, and was starting to take on an odd resemblance to another Keith - K.Rupert Murdoch - in his old age. His appearance on the Channel 4 programme apparently involved some extremely strong language, but let us remember him as the dapper, handsome, irreverent and unhygienic fellow he was here, licking his fingers before poking them back into the mixture, and swearing in impeccable French:
This weekend Brussels has its end-of-summer last mad weekend, with lots of street parties, no-car Sunday with free public transport, a grand fête-champêtre (country fair) in front of the Royal Palace, and the grand opening of the "Square" a transparent cube leading to a "spectacular new venue" in the newly-landscaped gardens of the Mont des Arts. Brussels' answer to the Pyramide du Louvre, only without the Louvre. And the weather, for once, is glorious!
