La crise

As the building sector has been hit by the financial crisis, the knock on effects have finally reached the factory floor.

The investment company that bought us out a few years ago bought iur 2 billion debt as well. Not a wise move in hindsight. PIA now has 11 billion of debt.

It's not just us though, our competitors ovef the road are closing for 4 weeks over Christmas and next year will close 2 lines, one for 7 months and another for 5 months.

Like us, their sales are down and they have a park full of stock, so they have to cut back on production.

We are going to axe one of our 5 teams. To do this without firing any full time employees we will first let our temps go (bye-bye Sad Sack) and then offer early retirement to the guys who are close to 60/65.
Apart from Sad Sack, who is a miserable little shit, it's a real tough break for the temps, to get the push just before Christmas. "Jouyeux Noël et allez-vous faire enculer".

The plan will then to run the factory with a different line closed each shift. That should enable us to run at a lower turnover, with fewer staff and do more maintenance on the lines that are not running. Hopefully we can ride the thing out. PIA have announced that they do no forecast any improvement until the end of 2010.

Chris Alden the PDG of Paribas Affaires Industrielles said "A little garlic and parsley really help to bring out the flavour of an omelette aux morilles"


To cheer us all up here is a sketch by Patrick Bosso about Marseilles grammar. The Marseilles accent is the french equivalent of geordie.

Apparantly in Marseilles grammar they replace the comma with "putain", the full stop with "enculé" and instead of the conditional tense to indicate uncertainty thay grab their balls "couilles"

enjoy.

Grammaire_marseillaise
envoyé par chopin_du_21

Old & Warty

Wisewoman: When I fancy people, I sleep with them. Oh, I have to drug them first of course! Being so old and warty.

A classic line from Blackadder.

And now I find I am in the same predicament. Of course I don't have to drug the people I fancy, my smooth charm, quick wit and buns of steel still work their magic.

But I do have a wart.

So I've got some stuff called Cryogena. Its an aerosol of liquid nitrogen (I think). You fit a little foam pad into a a plastic key, push the key into the aerosol for a few seconds and then apply the super-cold foam pad to the wart.

The advert shoes a smiling laughing teenager with a skateboard, caring not a jot as his mum zapz his wart.

I did it and it bloody well hurt.

I know the blogosphere are on the edge of their collective seats to find out if the cure worked. I will post phtographic evidence of a wart-free well-toned thigh as proof. As soon as it is
a. wart-free
b. well toned

Callan does a wall flip

Callan gave up karate a while ago, and has taken up gymnastics. He taught himself how to somersault and backflip on the trampoline. He has been watching freerunning videos and wanted to learn to do a wall flip.
I told him I was sure he could do it, since he could already backflip on the trampoline.
A mattress on the lawn and me spotting for him and he was away. He should be doing it unaided soon, and then without the mattress. We've made him solomnly swear not to try it without me. I don't need a paraplegic son.
Here's a clip of today's first efforts.
Ignore the uncut lawn

tout en vrac

Spring seems to be coming early this year. The weather has been sunny and mild. The nights clear and frosty. The pigeons have been breeding, and they shouldn't be until well into spring.
Here are two pics of a pigeon just out of its egg. In fact its arse is still stuck in the half-shell. (sounds like something the French would eat actually - "arse of young pigeon in the half-shell")


Pigeons lay 2 eggs. The other egg in this nest hatched the next day and as of today (3 days later) they are still doing well. Still ugly. Only their mother could love something like that.

I took advantage of the good weather and the end of my shift cycle to walk the dogs down by the lake. There is a little spillway and the river goes under a bridge....





It was all very tranquil and peaceful, accompanied by the gentle music of distant chainsaws...

This week sees the 35th Annual Comic Book Festival at Angouleme. The guest of homour is José Muñoz. I have had an Alack Sinner book of his for years. We had to go to Angouleme to get some stuff done so I thought I'd track him down and get it autographed. This was Saturday - 2 days ago. I was surprised that traffic was ok and there was still quite a bit of parking in the underground car parks. The streets were crowded and there was a good atmosphere. Here's a pic of some stilted creatures that were walking the streets.

When we found where Muñoz was, it was too crowded, the kids were niggling and you had to pay to get in so, merde.
Alors, a mixed bag of stuff all in one post or, tout en vrac, as they say.

Great Tits

No, it's not a cheap shot to get traffic.
Feeling sorry for the garden birds during winter, we put up some bird food outside the kitchen window. It's really great to see the birds. The most common visitors are the mésange bleue (blue tit) and mésange charbonnière (great tit).

The cats are perplexed. The window is now their wide-screen hi-definition television and "Birdlife" is their favourite channel. They spend hours sitting and watching the birds. There are 2 feeders, and they sit there, swivelling their heads like spectators at a tennis match:

Reveillon nouvel an

The New Year's Eve celebrations caused agonies of decision making because of the price. Every year the owners of the cafe over the road do a New year's Eve bash in the Salle des Fetes. And this year they were charging 45 Euros a head.
Now in actual fact 45 Euros is not a lot when you consider the menu (later) and the wine included and the music. But with 4 adults (my in-laws are currently staying with us) and 2 kids it meant stumping up a bill of over 200 Euros, and after all the money spent on Chrimbo, that was quite an amount.
The Salles des Fetes is also over the road from us and last year we stayed at home and I could hear the noise of the people partying while we were Johnny-no-mates. I determined then that I was going to party New Year there come hell or high water.
After showing everyobody that other reveillons were costing up to 90 Euros each and after itemising the menu, everybody decided it was good value for money after all.
Kick off was 8:30, on a very cold and foggy night. Michel (cafe proprieter) had been teasing me that we would be seated next the village drunk and his companion. She plucks out all her eyebrows and then draws in new ones that make her look like a very suprised wasp (and paints her eyelids bright shiny blue).
I was relieved to find we were nowhere near them, and surrounded by french folk. the hall was undecorated but the tables nicely laid. The room smelled of delicious food and the band were already playing.
The menu:
Soup de Poisson
Fruits de mer (Oysters, prawns, bulots and half a langouste)
Melon & Foie Gras
Queues de Langoustinea a l'ail & cepes
Civet de ChevreuilPause Charentaise
Ostrich steak
Salade a Noix
Buche de Noel & Glace
Champagne
Cafe

The Band

First - whatever I may say to the contrary, the band was excellent. They were called Pha Si La Danser. Typical french play on words. The "Pha Si La" part is to do with french musical notation. They don't do ABCDEF like us they do Do Ray Me So like in Sound of Music. The whole name sounds like "Facile a Danser" or easy to dance.
Look at those splendid shiny shirts and pants with a stripe. They boy on sax was also the singer. he had heavily accnted french and a warbly voice that couldn't hold a note. He was brilliant. They played between every course of the meal and everybody danced. Waltzes and polkas and stuff. It was the only way to get through a meal of those proportions.
The fish soup was superb, and there was a nice Alcase white to go with it. (Did I mention that all the wine was included in the price?), and the next course, the fruits de mer was very generous. There were oysters and prawns, and big whelk-like things called bulots and a langouste cut in half. This had a tail bigger than a prawn, but smaller than a crayfish, and a claw about 10cm long. The claw was already cracked and contained delicious salmon-red meat. Many of my neighbours didn't like their whelks which were a bit rubbery, but had a peppery kick to them. They all ended up on my plate and I must have had more than 20 of the things.
Below is my father-in-law Byron and my son Callan busy with oysters.


I won't detail every dish, but they were all great and I would have been happy with any one of them alone for a normal meal.
At midnight balloons and streamers, hats, horns, poppers and pea-shooters were issued, and there was much kissing and good-wishing going on. Us men got to do the manly gallic kissing, the only time off the football field men are allowed to kiss each other. Briony took advantage of the red noses for a photo op.

and this is me fairly pissed, reloading a pea-shooter


We staggered home at about 3:00 am and we were in the first wave of leavers. Speaking to some of the guests afterwards, they were there dancing till after 4:00.

Family interlude, Spring etc.

This past week has been very hot. Although it's not yet May, it is already feeling like Summer, and yet the swallows still haven't arrived in any great number.
Fiona took the kids for a walk to the lake down the road and the picked spring flowers.
Here are the kids in hippy mode. Callan wil be nine in August and Briony will be seven at the end of November.




Because my wife, Fiona is such a creative genius, she had to make these sculptures for the garden. She's been working hard on her website, as well as another site for a client, and it was driving her crazy staring at a screen all day. So she banged stuff together in a catharsis of sculpure.