Desert island discs

I’ve a compulsive ambition to become fluent in French so I’ve been going to weekly classes for a few years.  I love language and need to keep learning stuff to exercise my flabby brain cells whose only other regular work-out comes when I compile shopping lists.  So, studying French feels good.  Ironically I’ve only been to France twice and neither trip was for pleasure.  The first time was to visit an oil tanker, of all things, where the most exotic moments were when mingling with engineers in oily boiler-suits, and the second time was spent holed up with some English colleagues in a homogeneous airport hotel, where engineers in oily boiler-suits would have been a welcome distraction.  Still, one of these days I’ll pack my beret and Breton top into my valise and attempt to break the world record for running down the Louvre.

Most of the year, in my small, informal French class, we learn the rules and complexities of tense and grammar.  But in Summer the structure changes and we just chat.  From the first “Ça va?” to the last “Au revoir!” we don’t speak a word of English and it’s a brilliant way to practise.  After 75 minutes of metaphorical running on the spot I’m almost thinking in French, even if it’s just a baby-talk version.  To help us focus, we’re given a specific topic for each session and the chance to prepare in advance.  Subjects have included ‘food’, ‘a favourite piece of art’, ‘something new you learned this year’, that kind of thing.   In the last few weeks I’ve ended up discussing Don Powell from Slade losing his sense of smell and caterpillars (but not at the same time).  It’s a great way to learn new vocabulary and my thumbs get a good work-out too as they leaf through the French dictionary to find the words for drummer and cocoon, etc.  And should I ever find myself in conversation with a French person about ‘70s bands from the Midlands or insect larvae, I’ll be well equipped.

Anyway, the next topic is ‘Desert Island Discs’.  At first I was really excited - wow, a chance to talk about my favourite bands / records! – but now the lesson looms closer and I haven’t got a clue how to tackle it.  For a start I don’t know how to narrow it down to just a handful of tracks.  I’ve never tried to compile a DID list before; I don’t have anything definitive in mind and my aural preferences tend to change week by week.  I know that the purpose of the exercise here is not really to demonstrate one’s impeccable musical taste, but still there’s something inside me that feels compelled to make meaningful choices.  If I’m going to talk about them in French, then it seems only right that I should also be able to talk about them with passion.

Where to begin?  How do I narrow down several decades’ worth of listening to just eight songs?  Eight songs that I’d want to hear whilst going slowly insane, looking out to a tropical sea, sipping coconut milk and hallucinating about talking conch shells? Would I want to hear 'London Calling' to remind me of grey English skies, city fumes and a misspent youth?  Yet would it be unwise to take some Saint Etienne in case I accidentally trod on a scorpion whilst dancing naked in the sand to their irresistible rhythms?  And would Morrissey remind me of just how lonely I was in this godforsaken hell-hole prison cell of an island paradise?  Or would Suede find me slowly turning into a man as the combination of a Brett Anderson obsession and the nuclear fallout from secret tests on a nearby atoll caused me to grow unexpected appendages?  

And then there’s the book and the luxury item as well!  This is harder than learning French! 

French connections, (a breathless) part three

The start of the summer holidays means I have two weeks without my usual French evening class.  I know it’s only a fortnight but I miss it.  A few years ago I decided to brush up on my incredibly rusty ‘O’ Level French and got hooked.  Firstly I think it is quite simply a beautiful language (it’s just so sensual sounding, and requires you to form your mouth into interesting shapes!), secondly it’s good for my brain, of which I feel sure I only utilise one side (although I can never remember if it’s the left or the right) because I spend so much of my time working visually.  Thirdly, I have a penchant (oh, how I love the way these French words infiltrate our everyday language!) for certain aspects of the country's culture.  And fourthly, it gets me out of the house…

But as I’m staying chez moi for now I reckon that dipping into some French films will be a fine way to help keep my linguistic faculties in good shape. 

Here’s a favourite from Godard.  Funny too how this trailer is like a French vocab lesson (but so much better than anything we were taught at school…although my French teacher was always on about Johnny Hallyday.)

À Bout De Souffle

French connections, part two

I’m going all Francophile again today.

J’adore ceci…

A classic scene from a classic nouvelle vague film -  Jean Luc Godard’s  ‘Bande À Part’ - with one of my favourite songs by French ensemble Nouvelle Vague.  I think it just fits so well.  The timing is quite something and, well, for me it’s just one of those satisfyingly complementary combinations.  Like peaches and cream, or rough paper and a soft pencil, or (just for you Godard fans) like Jean Seberg and Jean Paul Belmondo.  The dance sequence itself has also been cited as an influence for scenes in several other films, not least ‘Pulp Fiction’.

Nouvelle Vague, who also named their second album ‘Bande À Part’, frequently surprise with some of their more unlikely choices of cover versions.  If you know Lords Of The New Church’s original of this track, ‘Dance With Me’, you’ll appreciate how much they manage to change a song almost beyond recognition.  NV’s vocalist on here, Mélanie Pain (thank god she’s French, Melanie Bread just wouldn’t sound quite right), manages to make it sound so sensual, whereas Stiv Bators’ approach sounds, as you might expect, a tad more sleazy (much like his name).

Other tracks whose origins may be more familiar but which have been given the unmistakeable and often unexpected NV treatment to great effect are: 'Teenage Kicks',  'Guns Of Brixton', 'Love Will Tear Us Apart' and even 'Too Drunk To Fuck'…

Another personal favourite is their version of Depeche Mode’s 'Master and Servant', also sung by Mélanie Pain, along with Martin Gore.  Let’s play!

French connections, part one

Salut!  Quite by chance (well, you know, the usual ‘one thing leads to another’ scenario that happens when you start Googling stuff)  I’ve just come across ‘Dim Dam Dom’ – not a new Chinese takeaway dish or a comedy trio, but a TV series from France.  First broadcast in March 1965, it ran until 1970 and was an hour-long monthly Sunday variety/magazine programme, aimed mostly at women but definitely of some interest to men too (and there were certainly lots of attractive female presenters…)  The concept of the programme was used to create its catchy title: ‘Dim’ for dimanche, ‘Dam’ for dames and ‘Dom’ for d’hommes…(a little contrived, perhaps…)

Aiming to be both informative and light-hearted, it included plenty of music, not just popular French singers such as the pretty blonde France Gall and the sharply dressed Serge Gainsbourg, but also some interesting British bands: Manfred Mann, The Nice, Julie Driscoll, Brian Auger & the Trinity, the Jimi Hendrix Experience and Soft Machine…   Each programme was presented by a woman of note at the time, including Françoise Hardy, Sylvie Vartan, Jane Birkin and Romy Schneider.  And if you’re into yé-yé, it seems there’s plenty to be found on here.

With its set designs, choreography and particularly some of its choice of music, it’s a great little period piece from across la Manche.

Amazingly several of the clips from as early as 1967 are in colour.  We in the UK only had an extremely limited colour service which began on BBC2 in July '67 from just a handful of transmitters around the country.  Apparently even by December '68 only 25 hours of TV a week were in colour and it wasn’t until the following year that BBC1 and ITV were also regularly broadcasting in the full spectrum… 

I can remember when I was first aware that colour TV existed it seemed a real novelty and, before my parents finally got one several years later, I’d tried to imagine what ours might look like by staring at its monochrome screen through the tinted cellophane wrappers found around Quality Street chocolates. The bonus of this being that you had to eat the chocolate first  - and you could get a great purple image after you’d had the Brazil Nut Caramel, which just happened to be my favourite.  But it was purple only, which was a bit limiting… The first colour TVs also seemed to display their hues very luridly, but then again maybe that suited such colourful times?

Anyway, whilst my counterpart in France was perhaps spending some of her Sunday watching Jimi Hendrix in his gorgeous turquoise suit, sadly I was probably viewing ‘Dr Finlay’s Casebook’ through the bright yellow wrapper of a Toffee Penny.  Still, I suppose it did at least make its Scottish setting look permanently sunny - and that’s not something you can imagine too easily.

...Mais maintenant, je dois partir.  J’espère que je vous verrai bientôt…!

A movie émouvant

And from the shallows we swim into deeper waters.  Was very moved recently by the film Of Gods And Men (Des Hommes Et Des Dieux) by Xavier Beauvois. The subject matter (based on a true story) sounds unlikely perhaps: a group of French monks in an Algerian monastery dealing with the increasing threat of terrorist attack, but it was captivating in its depiction of rising tension and emotion as the monks dealt with their dilemma of ”should I stay or should I go?”.  So you know this film’s not going to be some kind of Carry On Up Yer Habit….although it was not without its humour and you do get to hear a monk say “fuck off” (in French).  However, it was a deep and thought-provoking film with an air of serenity about it much of the time in spite of the mood of escalating fear at its core. I was very impressed by its cinematic beauty - striking vistas, strong, expressive close-ups -  very much a visual film, with little dialogue really and an unhurried pace, aesthetically and psychologically satisfying. To me it evoked something of a nouvelle vague film in that way.   Felt quite privileged to see it at its first night of a trial of i-cinema too – according to the blurb at the local theatre: it was played via high-spec servers, live via satellite recorders through high definition projectors.  So basically not your ordinary 35mm film reel but like watching a film on a giant internet screen without the biscuit crumbs in your keyboard.

Michael Lonsdale, who played the monastery’s rather lovely old doctor, Luc, looked somewhat disconcertingly like Peter Blake.  And even more disconcerting is the fact that he had previously played the villain Hugo Drax in Moonraker.  Check out pictures.