The HAT (Herault & Aude Times) February 2014

The Herault & Aude Times Free Monthly

THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE MAGAZINE

February 2014

ISSN: 2261-561X

www.theheraultandaudetimes.com www.theheraultandaudetimes.com

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The Herault & Aude Times

Editorial “Democracy is like a tambourine, not everyone can be trusted with it.”

John Oliver An enemy of the state or a comedian?

Editorial Feb

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o matter what your level of interest or opinion, if you follow English language media it is difficult to completely ignore what was once the ‘private’ life of President François Hollande taking on rather Clintonesque proportions over the past month. Secret scooter getaways, several girlfriends, rumours of pregnancies, relationship breakdowns; as Stephen Colbert puts it, ‘It seems that Hollande has been putting his baguette in a lot of ovens’. Unlike the prurient British and American press, thus encapsulated by Colbert’s comment, the French press remains resolutely focused on Hollande’s political direction whilst largely praising him for tackling the economy.

Well, if there is one thing that the recent airing of his personal affairs suggests, he is a man who is good at making promises but whether he can see them through is possibly cause for doubt.

Meanwhile, in this month’s issue, shown for the first time in Europe Dominique Aclange visits the ‘Arkas Collection’ at the Musée Fleury in Lodève; a selection of post-expressionist works, including Bonnard, Renoir and Vuillard (on until 30th March) .

Ruthie Segal explains why we should make the effort to learn Occitan; Theo King talks to the Civil Engineer François Pauly; we meet junior cycle-cross Fabio Remnant, winner of the Aude championship and the trophy regional Languedoc-Roussillon; Hugh MacCamley looks at modern French philosophy and who’s asking the questions today; Tim King has a close shave; and Bryony Rigal comes out of her closet. Add to this an abridged business interview with Jean-Claude Mas (the full interview will be online) and a new property section there is an opportunity for everyone to find a discussion point. And remember, the 14th February is that day when men and women gaze longingly and hopefully........

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The HAT The Herault & AudeTimes - 1 Grand Rue, St Thibery,34630 (11100) Publisher: Gatsby B - Editor : Emma F - Advertising Director: Tom B Advertising: Vicky M-B - Thomas Muhr Art Editor: Daisy B - Art: The-Green-Light.com EDITORIAL editor@theheraultandaudetimes.com PUBLISHER gatsby@theheraultandaudetimes.com gatsby@lapublishinggroup.com SUBSCRIPTIONS Online or contact us on gatsby@theheraultandaudetimes.com ADVERTISING For display advertising, print classifieds please call 0624 80 24 32 or mail advertising@theheraultandaudetimes.com For free classified online advertising please visit http://classifieds.theheraulttimes.com www.theheraultandaudetimes.comPYRIG HT AND DISCLAIMER

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WRITERS

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he writers and contributors are the stars of this magazine and without them I would have all of my hair and would not be drinking gin at 9am every day. Having said that, you should know more about them. All their bios can be found at www.theheraultandaudetimes.com. Please read them, they deserve to be recognised for their fantastic contribution and for being patient and generous to me.

IMPORTANT:

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his magazine is intended for the use of the individual(s) who picked it up.

This magazine may contain information that is helpful, opinionated and can at times be unsuitable for overly sensitive Persons with no cultural credibility.

If you are not sure then may we politely suggest that you pass it onto someone else as to continue reading is not recommended and may constitute an irritating social faux pas. No animals were harmed in the making of this magazine, and believe it or not one single opinion is definitive- period.

ISSN: 2261-561X 4

The Herault & Aude Times

CONTENTS

February 2014

08 My Place

A touch of the old and some say better days as we meet Monsieur Laurent, the barber in Montpellier.

10 Dieudonné

Is he an enemy of the state or just a comedian wanting free speech?

14 Modern French Philosophy Is it relevant?

18 The Vengeful Boar 19 Train Journeys from the HAT 28 Musée Fleury, Lodeve

An exhibition of rare insight and beauty in Lodève

34 The Business Interview

MD talks to Jean-Claude Mas about wine, tourism and business profiles.

47 Sport

Stuart Turpie talks Languedoc Sport

03 Editorial 06 Letters 08 My Place 09 And Another Thing 11 Restaurant Review 12 Wine Times 16 GTBY 20 Lifestyle 22 Music 23 History 24 Friperie Frolics 25 A French View 27 English for Expat Children 28 31 Art 32 Recipes 34 Business 38 Nature 38 In the Garden 40 Vet Advice 40 Subscribe 41 Occitan 42 E-male 42 - 46 Classified Ads 47 Sport

The Cover Story

W

e are proud to have the talents of Mr Barry Beckett producing the wonderful original covers that you currently see.

And online now you can purchase these beautiful images and have a piece of the Languedoc in your own home.

Prints and selected Limited Editions available.

Barry Beckett 2013 All rights reserved

dharmacamera@googlemail.com

www.theheraultandaudetimes.com

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Don’t Miss in February Workshop series: Body Percussion From Saturday 1st February to 28th June Gare du Nord, Pézenas Led by Cristobal DIAZ Six, 2 hour workshops (1st Feb, 1st Mar, 12th Apr, 17th May, 7th and 28th June) introducing ‘Body Percussion’ (percussion corporelles),where the body is used as a musical instrument. Body percussion helps to develop listening, concentration, coordination, rhythm and improvisation.

Workshop leader: Cristobal Diaz is a pianist and professor of music. After graduating in musicology, Cristobal trained in Body Percussion under Stéphane Grosjean from the Company Toumback with whom he continues to regularly collaborate. As well as running courses for both adults and children at the Ecole de musique, Frontignan, he regularly runs workshops in established music schools across France, including at the Ecole de Violencelle Suzuki.

Price: 33€ per workshop For further information and booking: 06 87 26 23 98 * 17th Annual Festival of British Film and Cinema 14th to 23rd February 2014, Nîmes Guests of honour Peter Lord, leading animation film director and co-founder of the award-winning Aardman Studios, perhaps best known for Wallace & Gromit; and the much-lauded Mike Leigh OBE, director of Another Year, Secrets and Lies, Vera Drake, and many more of his own creations.

Venues: Sémaphore Cinema, Bibliothèque Carré d’Art and Theatre Christian Liger (Centre Pablo Neruda), Nimes.

For more information: Bob Davis. Vice-Président Ecrans Britanniques. 04 66 21 98 03 www.ecransbritanniques.org * February 14th Valentine’s Dinner at Domaine la Baume, 20h Reservations: 0467 392941 06 22 72 19 39 Domaine la Baume, RN 9, Route de Pézenas, Servian 34290 * Montpellier Danse in February Olivier Dubois Open studio with Hooman Sharifi Open Studio Nacera Belaza Kaderattou ‘The Roots’ Aurélien Bory pour le groupe Acrobatique de Tanger www.montpellierdanse.com * Theatre sortieOuest in February Concert, Zé Luis ‘Serenata’ Trio Mozart :Isabelle Poulenard, Jean-Claude Saragosse, Corine Durous Mazut (dance, acrobatics, voice and rhythm) Press by Co. Dernière Minute (contemporary dance) www.sortieouest.fr 6

Welcome to the letters page

TEXT US Strewth.....

Re. A. Kennedy (Australia). Mate, you need to have a beer.

One of the great things about being an Aussie is that we have the good times, the bad times and s*** politicians a lot of the time just like everywhere else.

Luckily we are so far away from most people that nobody notices. Our economy is strong but not as strong as before and careful management of that is required.

Do we have the right people to do that?

I don’t think so but until we do why don’t we just get behind the boy and keep positive.

HT, Beziers Magazine I picked up your mag in a grocery in Aude at Villegly 11600.

I like it but not having a car I can’t go to your events and exhibitions advertised in the mag. However I’d love to receive any back numbers you have left.

And maybe, instead of becoming a regular

Do you have something to say? About the magazine? Ab

Letters

subscriber, I could just donate something to you every now and then for postage. I am disabled and don’t have much, in fact no contact with other expats, so that’s what attracts me to your paper. Katherine G Hi Katherine, Magazines on the way and if anyone in that part of the world wants to say ‘hello’ email us and we’ll pass on the details.

What’s in a name Dear Ed, Is your name really Ed? Or is it something like Trevor, or Kevin? If that’s the case, then why don’t people write letters to Trev, or Kev? I’ve never been able to comprehend that despite having a loud and rather authoritarian voice.

It’s one of those things which have dogged me from early childhood, when I inadvertently witnessed the master of the house, performing an act of exquisite strangeness with a gerbil in

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the warm glow of a roaring log fire.

On a furry hearth rug.

So, then, is it Trev or Kev? Own up or be damned man!

L.G. Palavas Well we get them all here don’t we? Serious answer, it isn’t about me it’s about where we live and the people we meet. No fawning adoration required thank you LG (aren’t you a fridge or a tv or something?).

And secondly, you need medical assistance my man..gerbil? Sounds like my school days!!

Editor, Am I the only one who hates Ryan Air more than aniseed and the Taliban?

Susan R. (Regular visitor from Cheshire) Dear Sir, If I tried balancing my drink on the side of the bath, as suggested by one of your writers I would probably end up with coq au vin.

Anon

Sport Would you please pass this letter of thanks on to your sports writer Stuart Turpie. Great information, well written and most of all he has helped me get a grasp of what is happening locally. Might even finally get to a couple of rugby matches this year! Keep it up.

Jules Barrioz Food Sir, to B and P Casteleyn I send a personal note of thanks. I spent a birthday at Les Deux M after reading their review in the January issue and it was a great success: Good food, wine and excellent service made a family event a little more special. And I had never even heard of the place before reading your review.

Thank you again.

J and C Evans Grumpy Come on grumpy old bugger Abse, still on the case of the Dutch not leaving their cars?

As if it’s so inspiring to hear your version of the year... Yawn.

Dutchie

bout life? Do you have a question or even a complaint? Send your letters to gatsby@theheraultandaudetimes.com

Foodies Hello Madam, We present our company ‘Candyfree’ the only store in France with products without sugar and would like to know if you could pass by the store in 27 rue Anatole France 34120 Pézenas. For us the store is a window because better than online shopping you can see and taste!!! Already English customers and others appreciate these products and are petitioning, this is why we would like to inform as many as possible world through your monthly magazine. With our anticipated thanks.

Cordially For Candy free Mrs GRAVINA Anne-Marie Yes I know, an advert in the letters page BUT as an afficianado of chocolate I say let it go.

The oldest Profession It is with a sense of foreboding that I see we have a growing prostitution problem in our borders. I was driving on the Pézenas to Béziers ‘old’ road recently and with the weather chilly at best I spotted a number of ladies of the night (as one often does) along the roadside. This is not a new phenomenon but what was new was one of these ladies lifting her skirt as cars (mine included) drove past. I am saddened to say that seeing these ladies is now an expected sight but to have one so obviously showing her ‘wares’ to the world is surely too much.

My fear is that as the weather

Letters

warms and the temperatures rise this may become the norm and with tourists and families visiting, often with young children this is surely not acceptable. What is being done about this? Answers please.

Duncan J, Beziers

The Oldest Profession II Sir, I am not against prostitution if the women do this work of choice. I do however have an issue with the women currently on the roads eminating from Béziers and going in directions including the beautiful towns of Pézenas and Narbonne. The women working here are getting more and more outrageous wearing next to nothing and I have heard of instances where it is nothing! Is this legal?

Witheld The Oldest Profession III I moved from Spain just over 4 years ago and the drive up the backroads was always an eye opener in more than one way.

Not only the great scenery but the amount of women offering services wearing almost nothing was frightening. And now it is here. Do we really want to be known as a red light area where prostitutes can walk down the side of the road wearing nothing but a belt and a smile? What is happening and why is this allowed?

Steve H, Montpellier

sortieOuest Hi team, Just a real quickie to say we went to your 2 for 1 concert at sortieOuest in Béziers. Absolutely brilliant. Loved the venue, loved the show (Kellylee Evans) and especially loved the half price offer.

What was really amazing though was that we have lived 9kms from Béziers for over 11 years and never even knew the place existed.

Well done and please please keep offering prizes. Olivia K Aude Ok, on one hand well done for a magazine that is enjoyable to read. On the second hand what is it with you and the Aude?

First you have a dig at Carcassonne and the festival, secondly you make it look like it is a place where everyone goes around setting fire to everything and then you make us look like mad animal activists. Anything good to say?

Val T , Carcassonne Hello Val, did you know there are 48 pages in this magazine? The mayor of Narbonne, fine dining, great wines, Cathar History, Limoux Festival and more....go on, read for more than 4 minutes at a time.

Leaving I am writing to inform you that as a regular reader who very much enjoyed my monthly dose of The Herault Times I will not be reading anymore.

It was with a heavy heart that I picked up your January issue to find it had been merged with the Aude. I like living in the Hérault and don’t want to travel miles to go to the Aude however great it may be. One reader who loves where he lives.

JL Capestang JL, you sent this in for me deliberately didn’t you? I know,....thank you for your letter, sorry you are leaving, da di da di da...hogwash.

You live in Capestang my man!

You are closer to Narbonne than half of the Hérault. Watch out, you nearly crossed the border there into the Aude. Oh dear.

You will (not) be sadly missed.

The New HAT I love this magazine. Well done all. I read both the Herault Times and the Aude times and this is much better. Wonderful, wonderful, wonderful.

Note to self, write a letter telling me I’m fantastic....check!

My Place My wife and me have eaten in the restaurant of My Place man Jean Claude Mas many times.

We would like to tell your readers that it is very good and it is good to visit as well.

Ivan L Montpellier Keep sending the letters please., I get so bored without them!

Ciao ciao.

Fou D’Anglais

IS MOVING TO MONTPELLIER 10, Rue Anatole France walking distance from Comédie and station Tram: St Denis Ligne 3 OPENING MID FEBRUARY www.foudanglais.fr t: 04 67 29 60 49 www.theheraultandaudetimes.com

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My Place

S

omething many visitors notice about French towns is the abundance of hairdressers, far outnumbering even cafés or boulangeries. In a sense that’s logical, apparaître is the first consideration for many in France. Almost all these hairdressers are mixtes, with an emphasis on the feminine. They are expert at colourising, crimping and curling, they’ll give you a perm to die for but are strangely limited when it comes to men’s hair. There’s a sort of uni-style for men’s hair: short, somewhat rigid, and usually trimmed once a week. I go to the hairdresser about once every three months, and,

The People that make up this part of the world coiffeur, barbier. Class. And, gazing in, neither mixte nor gay. No inferiority-inducing photos in the window, no fluorescent lights and – joy of joys -- no music. A real barber.

Laurent Garcia is a man with a passion for his job and for his customers. He’s won

Grant, Lino Ventura. Height-of-the-art. So refined.” He’s not being precious, simply one craftsman acknowledging the skill of others. “In the 1970’s men grew their hair long and that’s when women’s hairdressers went mixed. But women aren’t trained how to cut short hair properly, so they invented their own “men’s cut” – which is what we see everywhere today.”

Written and styled byTim King The first big difference chez Monsieur Laurent is the atmosphere. Even many national hairdressing championships, as a first-timer you feel you belong. In a was a proud member of the French team mixed salon I’m often aware of a tension, which beat the Italians. Yes, these events perhaps something to do with women and exist. But more than that, he has created a mirrors in the same room. Chez Monsieur haven where a Laurent there’s relaxed conversation about chap can relax subjects that matter: wine, truffles, motorwhile someone bikes. A man comes in, “Bonjour Monsieur who knows le Prefet,” said naturally. The high-ranking what they’re administrator sees the queue, arranges to doing cuts his come back in an hour. “Is he the Prefet de hair, sending l’Herault?” we ask, knowing M. Laurent him back out cuts the hair of everyone who’s anyone into the world in the prefecture. “No, the Prefet of the feeling......well, Loire. When he’s in Montpellier he usually after my first comes to see me.” Another regular lives in hair cut there the Périgord (hence the conversation about my son looked truffle-hunting). “Oh yes,” M. Laurent says, at me and said “it’s incredible where we get invited, I “Dad, that never imagined.....” then his legendary looks really discretion cuts in. I do know Jacques Chirac good! (Pause) was a customer.

Can I go?”

The speciality, as it says on the sign out“Cutting men’s side, is barbier. “Very few hairdressers know hair is more how to shave a man. My master taught me. complex than It’s important, a soin, a treatment, ten cutting women’s,” Monsieur Laurent told minutes total relaxation. Shaving’s an art, me. “The shorter the hair, the more difficult with its own ritual. Working up the right to do a faultless cut. With long hair you can lather is the key. Using the strop to whet hide a strand that’s wrong, but with short the razor, the first pass with the grain, hair there’s less volume to make something second lather, second pass sideways to the aesthetic. You see, a hair-cut is an infinite grain – hot towels, facial massage.” Before number of tiny cuts. The closer they are the Christmas I saw women queuing up to buy smoother the result. Look at Bogart, Cary gift vouchers for dad, boyfriend or husband.

A barber’s shave is something special, something many men have never experienced. And totally addictive. “Others come just to have their hair washed.

Again, it’s a moment of quiet relaxation, setting you up for the day.”

Monsieur Laurent started as an apprentice in this salon 26 years ago and now works alongside his wife Bénedicte. “My master taught me the job, and the importance of présentation. Having the heels of your shoes clean, for example That’s what the

Laurent Garcia

“A Close Shave”

each time, I rehearse my prepared speech: “Pas court, s’il vous plaît.” Not short. “And surtout not off the sides – my head is long, English (self-deprecatory laugh), so please take lots off the top (gesture for emphasis, fingers cutting), where it grows thicker and faster than my lawn in April, and very little off the sides. Merci beaucoup.” Each time the charming young woman nods gravely at me through the mirror then proceeds to give me the usual short sides and floppy top-knot. Every time, like an idiot, I thank her and tip her.

Every time my wife kindly reassures me it will grow again while my son leaves the room to spare my feelings.

So you will understand why, wandering through those still atmospheric back-streets of Montpellier, I stopped in my tracks at the tastefully retro façade of Monsieur Laurent, 8

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My Place customer looks at when he’s waiting.

You must be always discreet, hold back without being servile. It took me 8 years working hard before I felt I really knew the job.

No matter what head of hair walks through the door, Asian, African or European, I can give the customer what he wants.”

And when I walked through the door? “I thought, What a shame. There’s a fine looking man, tall, with a great head of hair but he doesn’t know how to use it. Like a man with a Porsche in his garage which he only uses to do the shopping. I had to break that long, thin symmetry.”At last, a hairdresser who understands! “The aesthetic aspect of a man is important. Your hair was a problem because it was too short. You thought cutting it would cure the problem. It made it worse.”

He put his finger exactly where I knew the problem was. What I had forgotten, though, is how good it feels to have a barnet in good shape. The French are right: apparaître is important.

Now, where did I leave the keys of the Porsche?

“And another thing..”

Artist, Philosopher and grumpy old bugger..

Abse shares his thoughts and mindless wanderings

Winter...No thanks

harsh winters and they do not bring back good memories: driving a transit van on ice into a tree, sitting on a freezing broken down train somewhere between Birmingham and London for god knows how many hours, being snowed in to my student house in Wolverhampton in 1982.

I do remember though being entertained that year by the daily revelation on local TV news of the discovery of another hermit coming out of their hole for the first time in 20 years because of the extreme cold and snow.

So where is this all leading? Sadly our beautiful dog Buffy died a month ago from virulent cancer. For New Year we decided to

I

don’t like winter. It’s cold. It’s often wet.

Cold white wet stuff comes out of the sky. Water freezes. Wind blows. Fog falls.

Wearing shorts and Hawaiian shirts isn’t an option, instead it’s thick socks, jumpers, coats. No convertibles, just heat up on full in the car. Brrrrr.

I’m not too keen on winter sport either.

Never have I been interested in watching the winter Olympics on TV, or watching Ski Sunday - it all just looks too cold, and who likes feeling cold? Not me. I have never been skiing (discouraged by my father’s sage advice: “You’ll break a leg”, and my one experience of ice-skating was so awful it left permanent scars. When I was 4 years old my mum took me and my two older sisters ice skating at the Queens rink in London.

She and my sisters skated off in to the middle of the rink whilst I was left holding onto the rail at the side, with my ankles bent inwards painfully and the skate blades lying on their sides. As they normally did in those days, after 20 minutes the rink was cleared for professionals to put on a short show. But my mum forgot to come back for me and I was stranded on the side of the rink, crying my eyes out as adopt a new dog from the wonderful the announcer bellowed over the PA: “WILL Carcassonne SPA, but unfortunately the dog THE LITTLE BOY PLEASE GET OFF THE ICE!!” we chose had been named “Winter”! There My mum ran onto the ice to pick me up and was no way I could let this lie and now he’s carry me off as the tears streamed down my called Fender. As I said, I can’t stand cold weather - perhaps it’s my middle-eastern cheeks. I have never been ice-skating since.

As I got older I was keen on football and ancestry that makes me pine for the desert.

“What are you, a lizard?” asked a friend rugby, but I always especially enjoyed playof mine. ing football in the summer when everyone Maybe I am, maybe I am... slowed down to my natural pace.

I never much enjoyed other winter pursuits either; I never liked sledging, snow- www.davidabse.com ball fights or even building snowmen. To Cultivating Compassion be a five day retreat with honest, Living in London meant that those sort of opportunities were few and far between in reality, and not much fun - with at Lerab Ling (20 min from Lodève) snowballs Wed 5 to Sun 9 March 2014 often laced with rocks Language: English/French or lumps of ice.

Fee: €175 As an adult I have experienced some More information and online booking:

Patrick Gaffney

www.lerabling.org | 04 67 88 46 09

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Plus ça change….

Looking for scapegoats

O

ver the course of recent months, we can detect a massive national row that has been developing over a single person who is attributed with the potential to turn the country into a maelstrom of violent hatred for a particular minority group. The Independent pitched in recently venturing into a veritable field of caltrops when it headlined, “Le responsable du MJS 66 soutient la liberté d’expression de Dieudonné contre Valls” (“The person in charge of MJS 66 supports liberty of expression of Dieudonné against Valls”).

The MJS is the Movement of Young Socialists in the département of Pyrénées Orientales (66). The person referred to was uncomfortable with the socialist Interior Minister Manual Valls banning a comedian entertainer called Dieudonné M’Bala M’Bala for perceived racist humour. He preferred the nationally much espoused freedom of expression to state repression.Local keyboards rattled furiously.

Yet again, this month we find another headline, “Le spectacle de Dieudonné à Nantes pourrait bien être interdit” (“Dieudonné’s show in Nantes could be forbidden”). This was followed barely 10 hours later by another article “Affaire Dieudonné:acte II de l’offensive, le minister Valls mobilise ses préfets” (“Dieudonné affair: act II of the offensive, minster Valls mobilises his prefects”).

Added later were accusations of money-laundering and eviction from his lieu of work.

For those who are more familiar with the actual substance of the case against M.Dieudonné it has been ongoing for some time and has a particular cohort following at rented premises, “La main d’or”, in the XIe arrondissement as well as on his own website and Youtube. However, it is only in recent months M.Dieudonné has become a figure of state-censuring proportions.

While this brouhaha is going on, it cannot escape one’s notice as we look around France at the moment, in both the rural and urban areas, the country appears to be slipping into a recessional economic and mental condition. The president and his cabinet team are extremely unpopular to an extent never seen before in a time of peace. Unemployment at 11% officially has become of a structural type and difficult to reverse. No one in the socialist government apparently has any answers to offer a beleaguered nation as prices rise with incomes remaining static and most certainly declining in value. Worryingly, output is stagnant.

Unfortunately, there are also trends characterising a government

that has lost its way and seeks smoke-screens behind which it may buy some much needed time to reorganise its forces, hoping to re-establish a credible authority through a restoration of economic fortunes.

In such situations, it is essential heads remain cool and misplaced reactions are avoided where individuals and groups are singled out for public ridicule and worse still persecution. They ought to read Holly Sklar’s useful book entitled “Chaos or Community?

Seeking Solutions, Not Scapegoats for Bad Economics”. Sensibly, she emphasised, “We need vigorous debate over how to reshape economic policy in the public interest- not the pseudo debate of false campaign promises, negative political ads and talk radio hatemongering.”

Across The Aude while public officials resist this poisoned chalice, there are bloggers who think it is unimaginable that politicians, exploiting a docile media, continue to delude the public into believing that the Franks are suddenly going to pour out onto the streets in a frenzy of hatred against minority tribal factions because a comedian, or anyone else for that matter, is making ridiculous noises and signs on stage to select audiences. One stated, “…French people are intelligent enough to be able to tell the difference…”

Aude cybernauts note too that trumpeting noisily the target of state ire has now made Dieudonné known to all those in this region who have never heard of or know little about the polemical comedian: oh for the oxygen of publicity! One Narbonnaise asked about this issue replied that until last month she knew nothing about it.

One local e-mailer claims censorship is in danger of becoming a regular feature of political life here implying the need for regional resistance: the latent traditional concern by Audois about Parisian interference is aroused once more. One news-media blogger asked the Interior Minister how it was that in Marseilles there have been 20 murders recently but no arrests, yet so much priority given over

to this affair. Another contributor asked if this government didn’t have a problem with Dieu (God): Dieudonné and Dépardieu?

Comments made by tweeters here allude to the concern by one very important political leader, who refused live on French TV to respond to questions put to her about this issue, citing the statistics for unemployment, poverty and health neglect amongst the Franks as worthier of due consideration.

While many in the region would agree, not everyone in Paris does, apparently.

Gnaeus

The Herault & Aude Times

Les Grands Buffets

Restaurant Review Real opinions - real views

Rond point de la Liberté.Espace de Liberté 11100 Narbonne Tel (+33) (0)4.68.42.20.01 Price €29.90 + drinks

The Vision, the Passion & Fine Dining

S

o here is the quandary.

How do you write a review of a restaurant where you sample 4 starters, 3 mains and 6 deserts as well as trying 3 of the finest wines the region has to offer and a desert wine to boot? The answer is you can’t. You can however wax lyrical about a mouth watering dining experience in what can only be described as a stunning environment, which combines innovation in terms of the concept, excellence and very good service; a unique culinary experience not only in the region but in France. The surrounds of Les Grands Buffets are not in truth inviting. The entrance is next to the Narbonne public swimming pool, the concrete exterior of a leisure complex. However, once you enter the restaurant a cleverly designed corridor of plants quietly leads you into the heart of this temple of traditional French cuisine. We are early, so it is still quiet. So successful is this restaurant that last year it served 240 000 covers with diners travelling from all over the region and from further afield.

We are greeted warmly by our waiter, who already knows our names and are shown to our table. The walls are lined with pastels by Alain Bellanger, on the terrace there are sculptures by Hervè di Rosa, I am told that from May onward they nestle among an explosion of flowers, the rose tree is still tended by one of France’s most eminent rose experts – it’s a labour or love and a show of affection for Louis Privat wife, founder of Les Grand Buffets. The format is simple. With over 200 dishes to choose from, representing the best of traditional festive French cuisine, the multifarious dishes are laid out as a buffet. But this is no ordinary buffet. In the ergonomically designed kitchens culinary artisans create the dishes. There are tables dedicated to seafood – I tried the fresh oysters, pickled herrings, salmon mousse, the best smoked salmon I have eaten for years for my starters – to charcuterie, salads, award winning breads, soup; there is the newly installed rotisserie offering a daily menu of different meats and fish cooked before you just how you like it; entrées of cotes de veau, lapin chasseur, pintade aux olives, the list goes on, dishes to be sampled; an impressive array of local cheeses; a huge chocolate fountain, patisserie, icecreams… And if

you are struggling to choose, attentive serving staff are there to guide or explain what wonders lie beneath the different cloches.

The wine list numbers an impressive 70 labels, all carefully selected from the Languedoc, any of which can be ordered by the glass or the bottle at the same price charged by the producer. Another highly innovative aspect of the restaurant, conceived to support vignerons and showcase the excellent wines available in our region.

Despite the number of diners, the atmosphere is remarkably calm and we feel no pressure to eat and be on our way. On the contrary, this was a truly sensory experience which we look forward to repeating, and not in the too distant future. www.lesgrandsbuffets.com

Snowshoeing

Come snowshoeing in the Pyrénées!

Great exercise & fresh air in stunning scenery.

Mountain and Maps run trips for all grades with a qualified guide, equipment provided, good accommodation and food, plus transport from Beziers: Feb 19-23, 23 Feb - 1 March, April 4-8.

Group bookings available Merv or Jane at info@mountainsandmaps.com or 04 67 25 09 48 for more information.

www.theheraultandaudetimes.com

11

Wine Times

Rosemary George

What makes a wine taste the way it does?

H

Rosemary George Rosemary George was lured into the wine trade by a glass of the Wine Society’s champagne at a job interview and subsequently became one of the first women to become a Master of Wine, back in 1979.

She has been a freelance wine writer since 1981 and is the author of eleven books. Both her first and last books were both about Chablis. Others include The Wines of New Zealand, two books on Tuscany, the most recent being Treading Grapes; Walking through the Vineyards of Tuscany, as well as The Wines of the South of France which covers the vineyards between from Banyuls and Bellet, from the Spanish to the Italian border, and also Corsica.

She also contributes to various magazines such as Decanter, India Sommelier, www.zesterdaily.com and writes a blog on the Languedoc: www tastelanguedoc.blogspot.com

ave you ever wondered what it is that makes a wine taste the way it does? It is after all extraordinary that grapes can produce so many different flavours. There is no other fruit with quite that flavour range.

Essentially the taste of wine is determined by four factors. The grape variety or blend of grape varieties is just one of the four. There are well over 1000 different grape varieties used for wine growing – if you want an exact figure, the definitive book on grape varieties gives 1368 different grapes, and the authors recognise that the list is incomplete. And of those, the red appellations of the Hérault use just five, namely Syrah, Grenache, Mourvèdre, Carignan and Cinsaut.

You then have to consider the soil, or what the French call terroir, which includes not just dirt, but also factors such as altitude and aspect. Grapes on a south-east facing slope will taste quite different from those ripened on a north facing slope. And a higher altitude will make for cooler conditions. As for soil itself, that of the Languedoc is quite varied.

Faugères is grown on schist; as is Cabrières.

St. Chinian also has clay and limestone. Near Pézenas you find basalt, and galets roulées.

There are umpteen permutations.

Climate is very significant. The same grape variety grown in contrasting weather conditions will taste quite different. Chardonnay grown in Chablis and Chardonnay grown in the Languedoc are worlds apart. The warm sunny conditions of the Hérault make for ripe grapes most years, but none the less there are annual variations, which add to the interest.

Rainfall or lack of it may be an issue, as is hail.

Some years, such as 2013, the harvest is later than others, And finally there is the human hand. The winemaker is presented with numerous choices in both vineyard and cellar. Any serious wine grower will tell you that it is their work in the vineyard that is the most important. Care in the vineyard will give you excellent grapes, and then, they say, the winemaking is easy.

Maybe. But there are also choices in the

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Thai massages, Reflexology, Neck and face massage, Reiki, Oil massage.

Susannah 0652752445 / 0467243142 Based in Ceps / Cazedarnes 12

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cellar. Many of the Languedoc wines are blends and it is the wine grower who determines the precise proportions of the blend, depending on their taste buds. They can also decide how long to leave the grape juice on the skins; and whether to age the wine in oak barrels, and if so, what size of oak barrels. A talented wine grower can make something great in a difficult vintage, and a heavy hand can spoil good grapes. For that reason, I find my decision of what to drink depends more often on who made the wine, rather than where it comes from. So here are a couple of cheerful reds for winter days from a couple of my current favourite wine growers.

2010 Domaine des Trinités, Faugères Le Portail - 6.50€ This is a classic Faugères blend of 65% Syrah, 10% Mourvèdre and Grenache 25%. Medium depth of colour, and on the nose, lots of black fruit, with rounded ripe spicy notes. A medium weight palate, with ripe, silky fruit. Soft tannins, and a touch of pepper with a fresh elegant finish. Just the thing for a winter’s evening with a warming casserole.

2012 Domaine des Deux Rocs Rouge, Cabrières - 7.90€ This is a new estate in Cabrières, run by JeanClaude Zabalia, who used to make the wine at Château St. Martin de la Garrigue. And now he is doing his own thing, with 2012 his first vintage. You can find his wines in a welcoming shop in the old town of Pézenas, at 10 rue de la Foire. This is a blend of 60% Syrah and 40% Grenache, aged in vat rather than barrel.

There is some dry peppery fruit on the nose and the palate is ripe with supple tannins and a fresh finish. There is some very appealing spice, with lots of nuances and a satisfying finish. A lovely glass of wine.

Rosemary George M.W/ / December 2013 www.tastelanguedocblogspot.com

Wine Times

Laurence Turetti

The wine of obliteration and the wines of remembrance…

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here are sad wines and there are joyous wines; those from 1914 are the colour of blood and mourning. By way of exception, this month is a somewhat somber column which evokes the bitter wine of the war. The current commemorations of 14-18 bring to mind the dreadful images of the trenches and the miserable life of millions of soldiers, the historic tragedy of a sacrificed generation. The jargon derisively describes in a desperate humour the daily life of the ‘poilus’ (the French soldiers of WWI): those men imprisoned in the mud, cold and rain, the lice and the vermin, where death was ever present. Only a bad wine known as ‘pinard’, diluted with water and bromide could have emerged from the muddy trenches of Artois and Argonne.

The daily rationed quart of August 1914 had doubled by 1916. 12 million hectoliters (1.2b litres) were drunk on the front in 1917.

At the moment of an attack, the water of life, ‘gnole’ (hooch), would be generously distributed . But it was above all behind the lines that wine was consumed. Much to the chagrin of the second lieutenant the soldiers resting in the second line were so intoxicated: “For five days all of my heroes have been drunk, they run to the neighbouring villages, nicking wine, falling into ditches, losing themselves there until they’re awarded their war medals,” writes Henri Jacquelin, a professor in civilian life; whilst philosopher André Bridoux states, “A man, just like a bag, only stands up when he is full.” L’Assommation or alcoholic drinking places.

Inebriation was not a social marker and equally affected the officers, as artisan Louis Barthas came to experience.

In the countryside, women replaced the men who had been mobilized to work in the vines. Children left school early to “help with the ‘bêchage’, ‘soufrage’ and ‘sulfatage’ and all other jobs relating to work in the vineyards,” writes a school child from Sainte-Valière, north of Narbonne . One of the truest accounts of the daily life of the ‘poilus’ is that of Louis Barthas, a cooper by trade from Peyrac-Minervois. In autumn 1917 he set out again after home leave with a heavy heart: “From the train station I could see once again all of my people har-

vesting the grapes in a near corner of the vineyard, and I asked myself if next year I’d be able to join them, stay here, this horrific war over, to relieve my elderly father from this harsh work. ” The country men who made up the 196e Regiment remained nostalgic for Minervois and Olonzac, the ‘land of good wine’.

In direct contrast to ‘pinard’, the unique virtue of which was the alcohol volume, the ‘wines of remembrance’ embody culture and know-how, transmitting the joy of good, well-made, well-drunk wine. They pay homage to times past, to the varieties planted and techniques used by those before. Clos Centeilles, in Siran, prioritises forgotten grape varieties. The C of Centeilles is a red wine comprising Piquepoul, Riverenc, Morastel and Œillade. It possesses aromas of red fruits (raspberry and morello cherry) with a hint of licorice.

At Félines-Minervois, the Grenaches of Borie de Maurel are among the oldest appellations: the ancient twisted vines yield a marvelous juice which enchants the taste buds. Belle de Nuit is a superb vintage, honest, balanced and wonderfully seductive. Further south, on the hillside terraces of Banyuls overlooking the Mediterranean, classed as a world heritage site

by Unesco, the Domaine de la Tour Vieille produces a rare wine using a little known tradition: a dry white, made from white Grenache picked at the peak of its maturity, then left to slowly ferment in oak barrels, with periodic topping up to avoid excessive oxidisation (known as élevage d’abandon). The vintage Mémoire d’automne pays homage to past practices when a portion of the grapes were removed before the remainder from the harvest. A surprising wine, atypical, it has aromas of shells and stones of nuts and dried fruit. As an aperitif, with anchovy toasts or ripened cheeses, it takes one on a journey in time. For a sweeter experience that pairs well with a dessert of fruits or frangipane is Solera from the Domaine des Schistes.

Solera is a sweet wine, produced in an oxidative atmosphere, which contains many vintages: the oldest being 20 years. Every year a quantity of the new harvest is www.theheraultandaudetimes.com

Laurence Turetti Laurence Turetti is a historian who has a ph.D. from the University of Metz. Born in the Aude into a family of vignerons, she returned to her home more than ten years ago. Head of a wine boutique in the centre of Limoux, l’Atelier des Vignerons, she continues her search of discovery across Languedoc-Roussillon for the pearls of the vineyards. added. It is therefore a wine which perpetually links the years. The notes of dried fruit with characteristics of tobacco and honey from the old Rivesaltes make this a wine of meditation.

One hundred years after the Great War, these wines of Languedoc-Roussillon, while fulfilling the pacifist hopes of Louis Barthas and the soldiers of 14-18, continue to connect people and refined conversation between cultures.

1 Gilbert Garrier, Histoire culturelle du vin, Larousse, 1998, p. 362 onwards.

2 Nicolas Morot, Tous unis dans la tranchée ? Seuil, 2013 Rémy Cazals dir. Années cruelles, Atelier du gué, 1983 Les Carnets de guerre de Louis Barthas tonnelier, 1914-1918, éd. La découverte/Poche, rééd. 2014.

CARNET D’ADRESSES :

Clos Centeilles, Siran, www.closcenteilles.com Borie de Maurel, Félines Minervois, www.boriedemaurel.fr Domaine de la Tour Vieille, Collioure, tel. 04 68 82 44 82 Domaine des Schistes, Estagel, www.domaine-des-schistes.com L’Atelier des Vignerons, 2 place de la République, 11300 Limoux, 04 68 20 12 42 (ouvert 7 jours sur 7)

Boutique en ligne : www.languedocwineshop.com

13

Modern French Philosophy Whither the French philosopher?

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part from French wine, food and art,one of the features of the Franco-phonic journey that can draw one eastwards from the Isles of Albion is to befound in the considerable French philosophical tradition.

Already, the scholasticism of Peter Abelard from the 11th and 12th centuries and his revival of Aristotelian logic, laid down a method for rational explanation. Later, Michel Eyquem de Montaigne (1533–1592) developed an anti-dogmatic style of radical scepticism influential with what are seen as the modern philosophers of the following century.

From the 17th to the 19th centuries France produced a wealth of great philosophers many of whom are widely known even if not completely understood in terms of their ideas. Déscartes, Malbranche, Charles de Secondat (baron de Montesquieu) Voltaire, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Denis Diderot, Auguste Comte who came from Montpellier founding Sociology and Positivism, Ferdinand de Saussure and Henri Bergson, who died in 1941 and had an immense influence on French 20th century philosophers.

In the last century, modern French philosophy developed around five main threads of thought. Briefly, the first, existentialism, is preoccupied with the human condition, exploring notions such as purpose, liberty and the experience of the “other”.

Jean-Paul Sartre, Albert Camus and Simone de Beauvoir come from this element of thinking although there are differences in their conceptualisations.

A second, ‘Phenomenology’ from Emmanuel Lévinas and Maurice Merleau-Ponty focus on descriptive explanations of phenomena as consciousness perceives them and how consciousness is given them. A key characteristic is in its avoidance of imposing explanations. This particular strand of philosophy still exerts great influence on philosophy today and on existentialism.

‘Structuralism’, ‘post-structuralism’ and ‘postmodernism’ were of major significance after the Second World War. The first of these analysed the underlying structures which make up, limit and affect society, language and the human mind. It has made its mark on Psychology, Sociology, Anthropology and the Social Sciences. We find it in the work of Claude Levi-Strauss, Roland Barthes and Jacques Lacan. Strauss’ studies include the dreams of tribes; Barthes analysed the meanings of signs and symbols in society (semiology) and Lacan was a psychiatrist who became a psychoanalyst of the Freudian school, seeking to explain the mind as a series of structures.

Today, it is arguable of course, that we live in the ‘post-structuralistpostmodernist’ period of philosophy in France. In the first place, many of the philosophers around the country are often difficult to categorise. Some would argue we over-presume our claim of being in a ‘post-modern’ society at all.

Another factor which we ought to note here is that early in the 20th Century, philosophy clearly divided itself into two distinct types: ‘analytic philosophy’ and ‘continental philosophy’. The French have moved towards the latter. This tends to concentrate on broad issues without using logical-steps approaches of the analytical school exemplified in Bertrand Russell’s On Denoting in 1905.

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Therefore, the phenomenologists would never agree with focussing on single issues and following prescribed logics to resolve them. In fact, it is not even sure how much continental philosophers work to resolve issues objectively since they generally reject the natural sciences as the best way of understanding phenomena.

Other key features of the continental school reject analytics, and, therefore, supposed logical reasoning. There is also a rejection of ‘scientism’ which believes that the natural sciences are the most accurate way of explaining phenomena. In addition, this school adopts ‘historicism’ in its means of contextualising human experiences, determined partly by variable factors such as context, space, time, language, culture, or history. The analytic school insists these are discrete and individual not requiring

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this approach necessarily. Also, theory and practice are unitary in that philosophical enquiry should be related to a transformation of some kind be it moral, political or individual: philosophers do not only interpret the world but they try to change it.

Finally, here, the continental type emphasises what is known as ‘metaphilosophy’ which is the study of the nature, objectives and methodology of philosophy. This can be found in France in phenomenology, existentialism, structuralism, post-structuralism (Jean Baudrillard, Michel Foucault & Jacques Derrida), western Marxism (Louis Althusser) and French feminism

(Simone de Beauvoir and Julia Kristeva).

Another striking development has been the tendency to move the emphasis from ‘ontology’ or the study of the nature of being, becoming, existence and reality, towards ‘epistemology’ or the study of the nature or theory of knowledge, its acquisition with a penchant for looking at the nature of truth, belief and justification.Obviously, the potential for polemics is a marked one in this regard as politics, economics, religion, culture and the arts are frequently attached.

A criticism of French philosophy suggests that since the 1960s it has a homogeneous nature as a result of the education system.

Most major French philosophers of the 20th century were graduates of the super-elite École Normale Supérieure. As this has a relatively narrow curricular focus, teachers of philosophy and their students have a view of their subject tailored according to the requirements of the examinations.This restricts its cultural focus.

With regard to ‘metaphilosophy’, analytic philosophy can propose solutions, whereas continental tends to focus more on limit cases with little hope of conceivability. For example, the postmodernists and existentialists are stuck with both facts and values being relative, not absolute, in any case. As was stated earlier, they do not impose explanations. They are hampered by obscure metaphysical claims and limiting political assumptions (especially Marxist ones).

Jacques Derrida deconstructs issues and leaves them there, while Deleuze invents new terms such as ‘déterritorialisation’ which have extremely tenuous subjective meanings.

Alain Badiou whose presence is particularly marked at present, has become baffling with his own ideas expressed in ambiguous terms, to the point of meaninglessness. Commentators have likened it to conceptual poetry making anything associate with anything else, for example, religion and philosophy being the same; Maths is ontology and so on. Rhetorical questions are used to excess while almost any combination of verbiage is possible.

‘Impossible’ is a word readily springing to mind here, together with presumptions of validity or truth for every theory stated.

With the willingness to draw philosophy into any curricular context and to strip it of any underlying conceptual framework, this has opened it up to the vagaries and misuses of the post-modern media machine and its acolytes. All too frequently, it has been pointed out, we have highly influential public figures using ethical, moral and quasi-religious argument couched in philosophical sounding language.

A striking instance of this tendency lies with the French role in the so-called “Arab Spring” and in other polemically fraught politico-religious situations. Take for instance Bernard-Henri Levy, a reputed philosopher though often seen only as a journalist, who has used his evident influence in France and overseas to make a philosophical case that insisted France arm militant Islamist anti-government groups who are in reality diametrically opposed to western democratic cultures.

As indicated by some political commentators, underpinning his arguments lie politico-religious ideologies which are more at ease with polemics than they are with philosophy. Jade Lindgaard and Xavier de la Porte have co-written a book, The Imposter (2011) in which they refer to Levy as a “pseudo-philosopher” and “propagandist”.

Thus, it is perhaps with some justification Jean Baudrillard claimed that the French philosopher, as he used to be known, is extinct.

Clearly, he is not but in fact it is the content of the message and the manner of conveying it which appear increasingly non-philosophical.

www.theheraultandaudetimes.com

Hugh MacCamley 15

G T B Y

Name: Occupation:

François Pauly Civil engineer

Income:

€50,000 a year

Hours / week: Never less than 45 a week, usually more.

Holidays:

5 weeks plus 12 days RTT

Good To Be Young

Written by young journalists Young journalist Theo King’s column ‘My Way’.

Interviews with professionals about how they got to where they are today, the rewards and the frustrations.

François Pauly -- Civil engineer Born in Toulouse 1952 Diplôme de génie civil et d’urbanisme.

the engineer’s school, took me. The great thing about the Institut national des Sciences Appliqués de Toulouse is there are so many options: chemical engineer, mechanical engineer, electronics, construction, aeronautics, acoustic. You can see what interests you and what Up to 18: When I was young I told everyone I was doesn’t. I wanted to be a chemistry going to be an engineer. My father was engineer, but actually the smell was awa forestry engineer and at the time we ful. Perhaps a ridiculous reason for changdidn’t really question what we wanted to ing career, but by nature I am an ecologist do. At school you just worked, and if you and I couldn’t spend my life working with were any good you went into the Science bad smells. So I went into civil engineerSection. But in my head, yes I wanted to ing, which I’d never heard of before, but it looked interesting. Now it’s the most be an engineer. popular section. So after two years doing Studying: 18 to 25 a bit of everything I specialised, and after After school I had a simple choice: either three years of that I got my diploma. a classe préparatoire for a grande école, The job: or an école d’ingenieur, which take Well I work in a bureau de contrôle and we students straight after the bacc. My first control everything – from the architect’s choice was the classe prépa, but they first drawings to the finished building beturned me down. That was a great ing handed over.

Walking through town disappointment. But my second choice, everything – supermarkets, houses, Fabien Cordiez discotheques, theatre, restaurants – Avocat à la Cour has been controlled (Qualified French Lawyer) by an engineer like myself. You see, putSolicitor of England and Wales ting up a building is French property law, French succession and an extremely cominheritance matters. plicated business. I 12 rue de l’Ancienne Madeleine advise the head of a 13100 Aix-en-Provence particular project – T. (0)486 688 968 / UK 02071 485 563 / IRL 01-431-1301 normally that’s the cordiez@solicitor.fr www.solicitor.fr 16

The Herault & Aude Times

owner of the building. He employs an architect, who in turn employs the builders, plumbers, electricians, plasterers, tilers, roofers, glaziers. On the theatre at Sète there were nearly three hundred people working. And for every construction there are thousands of regulations – for earthquakes, energy conservation, acoustics, fire, the handicapped, lighting levels, air change. They fill volumes of the Code de la Construction – and then there are the international norms. But of course nobody respects all of them. So in France you have these bureaux de contrôle, and our job is to make sure every rule and regulation is respected by all the hundreds of people working on the building.

The theatre at Sète was a really interesting job. The building was run down and didn’t pass the fire or security regulations. Also when it was built 100 years ago they could afford dozens of stage hands, which we can’t now. So Sète town hall had the choice: either leave the theatre empty or install ultra-modern stage machinery, computer-controlled lighting, all of that, while at the same time, because it’s a listed building, keeping all the historic details. It was very complex. The foundations had to be consolidated to take the new, specially-made scenery lifting machinery. But the theatre’s built on sand, so first we had to underpin it, using very new technology. The architect was extremely good -- he’s restoring (cont.)

Fabio Remnant Born. 17 July 2004 in Narbonne (Age 11) Nationality. British Club. Vélo Sprint Narbonnais Category. Pupille Age. 9 Years Occupation. Student in CM1 Ecole de Bize-Minervois

How I Started

I started out watching my dad racing and wanted to have a go. I rode my first race when I was 4 years old and I won! This made me want ride more and that summer I rode three races.

At the rentrée I joined the Vélo Sprint Narbonnais école de vélo.

Ecole de Vélo

At école de vélo we do different types of competition: road, cyclo-cross and jeux d’adresse (Gymkhana). We train every Saturday and on Sundays we race on the road in summer and cyclocross in the winter. There are different categories depending on your age. In the club I have a good bunch of friends and we travel all over the Languedoc Roussillon region for competitions and I have made friends from other clubs all over the region. In 2013 I even travelled to Vichy (Auvergne) and Aubange (Provence) to race. As well as learning to race and ride our bikes properly (last year I raced in a peloton with 77 riders!!) We also learn road safety and how to maintain our bikes.

Races I enjoy

(cont.) the St Petersburg opera, the biggest in Europe. Working with people like that’s a real pleasure.

How I work

You spend a lot of time on site, discussing with people, convincing them to improve their work (that’s the longest part). Often around the Mediterranean building quality is mediocre, so you have to persuade people that your way is better. It’s not easy. It takes time. After that you’ve got letters to write, reports. Usually I start at 8:30, but it’s hard to predict when I finish.

Satisfaction

To participate in a beautiful building, for example the theatre at Sète. You look at it and, yes, you’re proud. But there’s also the pleasure of working with people. It’s a team effort, we don’t do anything alone.

What pisses me off

What we do is in the background. Nobody sees it or really understands it. We’re neither a design consultancy nor a building company. We spend our time advising people without ever doing the deciding.

Also, construction creates family

problems, it’s a sector which eats time.

What are the opportunities for the young?

Construction is something we French do well, so there are openings for young engineers, opportunities to work anywhere in the world. You have to like getting out and about, seeing people.

If you want to spend your life behind a desk it’s not for you.

In France the word ingénieur has different connotations to the English engineer.

Yes, it’s a hard word to translate. The word comes from the Latin ingenium, meaning both knowledge and action, and for us an ingénieur embodies both. It’s the root of “genius”, “ingenious”. For Jules Verne for example, and for anyone in the 19th century, an ingénieur was a man of action.

Someone who knew a vast amount about a wide range of things but who could use his knowledge in a practical, useful way, often to help people, to improve their lives. Unlike, say, an academic. www.theheraultandaudetimes.com

Cyclo-cross the most because it’s fast, technical, off-road and most of all it’s FUN and it’s HARD!!! This season (2013/14) I’ve had my best ever cyclocross season. I won the championship of the Aude and the trophy regional Languedoc-Roussillon and was second in the regional championship. I had 5 wins in all. I was on the podium 13 times in 15 races.

Last road season I rode 22 races. I also rode 2 mountain bike races and 2 track meetings on the vélodrome just like Bradley Wiggins and Chris Hoy. Riding on the vélodrome is great fun because of the banked corners.

Le Tour de France

Every year I go to the Pyrenees to watch the Tour de France. Last year for the first time I rode two of the cols.

I did have a bit of help!! We watch the publicity caravan then the riders.

It is great fun. One day I would like to ride the Tour de France but most of all I want to win the world cyclo-cross championship!!

The immediate future

Before I ride the tour or the worlds however I have a few more races to do locally!! The road season starts in March. This year my objectives are championships of the Aude and the Languedoc Roussillon and to help my team win the regional team championship. And of course to win as many races as I can!!

17

The Vengeful Boar

by Lorraine Davison

A

few years ago it would appear that a strange game of cat and mouse was playing out in the mountains around the village of Héric in the Parc naturel régional du Haut-Languedoc. An old male wild boar had long eluded a hunter from the village, and their frequent arm’s length encounters - hunt after hunt - had taken on the air of a grudge match. They knew each other in the way that perhaps only hunter and prey really can, locked in a struggle whose end was inevitable - armed as the hunter was with his large gun and superior brain power. And so it was, one day the hunter found his target. The boar, although mortally wounded, ran off into the trees in a slingshot of adrenalin. The hunter strode off to claim his kill. But the boar was nowhere to be seen.

Sometime later a lady in the village was loading up her car when she heard a strange pounding noise.

Startled, she turned around just in time to see a huge shape charging towards her: she had no time to save herself. By the time she realized that it was a wild boar, she had been knocked so high in the air that it was only the bonnet of her car that broke her fall.

Unfortunately for her the hunted had turned hunter. Sliding off the bonnet, she lay helpless on the ground, and the boar scented victory. Lowering its head, it charged towards her and ripped open her left thigh with its tusks. Her chilling screams had now alerted her neighbours to her plight, and they ran to her aid; however, the boar seemed totally focused on his prey and charged again and again. Finally, he ran off back into the hills, terrifying a group of walkers before collapsing, exhausted and close to death.

The cries of pain and terror had reached the hunter who ran back to the village where he

18

found his mother so badly injured that it was only a rapidly mobilised air lift to the hospital at Montpellier that saved her life.

No one was in any doubt. The boar knew that he was in his dying moments and, unable to confront his enemy directly, he decided to kill his Isadora mother. “Revenge!” exclaimed the local paper.

This story was very impressive to someone from Yorkshire whose own personal most chilling encounter with the realm of “red in tooth and claw” was being mugged for her battered haddockby a seagull on Bridlington harbour. I also once had a neighbour who was traumatised when an overly familiar squirrel (that she had been ill-advisedly hand- feeding) ran up her leg. I was, however, at this point unaware that I would soon be in a position to verify details from this story, including details such as, is it possible for a badly wounded boar to run at speed?

As you probably know, wild boar hunts take place with great regularity in the hills and smallish mountains of Hérault. I knew this too. What I didn’t know is that occasionally huge mega- hunts, or culls, are organised when the boar numbers get so high that they are literally claiming squatters’ rights in peoples’ gardens and stripping the vines of grapes. I know this because one day I had the misfortune to wander in to the middle of one.

One Sunday morning, strolling insouciantly with my dog towards the village of Ceps on the narrow, rocky woodland path carved perilously out of the side of the mountain, I heard a strange pounding noise. It was a very loud noise because it stood out against the

backdrop of gunfire to which I had become accustomed since moving to the Languedoc.

The sound seemed to be galloping hooves.

My brain, struggling to put this sound together with the most likely local culprit, came up with the picture of a galloping donkey. “Why would a donkey be running here?” I wondered, and no sooner had this thought flitted lightly Duncan across my uncomprehending neurones than a figure surged from the woodland darkness in front of us: a figure that was unmistakably more boar-like than donkey-likeand it was heading straight for us. A belated flash of comprehension loosened my tongue, and I screamed at the dog to run, but, with a cliff overhanging the river at one side and a steep hillside on the other, I had nowhere to go. Yet, miraculously as it seemed to me, the boar charged past me and carried on along the path behind us. When the chips are down, in the choice between fight or flight there is no contest, and I started to run in the opposite direction. Then I became aware that we were running towards the gunfire, and it was getting very loud indeed. I stopped and had decided that we must turn back when I looked down and saw that the ground was unmistakeably spotted with blood. The boar was injured. At this point I had two things in mind - the vengeful boar of Héric, and the ghoulish glint in the eyes of local hunters as they proclaim, “boars aren’t dangerous, unless, of course,” dramatic pause, “they’re wounded.” What were we to do? Should we go back towards the injured boar or forward towards the guns? Perhaps foolishly, I chose rifle over tusk on the grounds that there was a fair chance that the rifle would be attached to a reasonably well-developed frontal cortex. Eventually, we emerged from the woods into the vineyards and into what I can only describe as a scene that was a mutant hybrid between the Wild West and Afghanistan.

You were once wild here, don’t let them tame you

The Herault & Aude Times

By train to Spain

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hereas we probably merit the criticism that we are following in the footsteps of Michael Portillo; for anyone wanting to visit the many resorts covered in his recent ‘Continental Railway Journeys’ programmes they do not get the benefit of the help and advice of the many railway companies that are listed in the credits that flash past at the end of every programme.

So what we propose in these articles is to provide train times and fares, leaving the reader to decide when to travel and to book a hotel on line as is now the fashion.

Our first destination is like Michael P’s first, namely Madrid, Seville and Granada.

These destinations are the obvious choice especially as since 15th December there are now several high speed trains that cross the frontier in both directions.

Just to be a little difficult and not to choose Montpellier as the departure point we have chosen Béziers. Not all of these new trains stop in Béziers, but there are easy connections with a change either in Narbonne or in

Perpignan.

The 0718 early morning Spanish RENFE AVE (alte velocida espagnol) from Marseilles to Madrid does however stop in Béziers at 0918 and calls at Narbonne, Perpignan, Figueres, Girona, Barcelona and arrives Madrid Atocha at 1413 Madrid merits a three day stop and if you have a little more time then take the high speed train to Spain’s ancient former capital Toledo. You need to reserve a seat on this train albeit the journey is relative short just 33 minutes and in great demand.

Be sure to visit to the ‘Prado Gallery’ in Madrid.

Madrid’s Atocha station is worth an hour or so just taking in the wonderful exotic garden with its palm trees, birds, butterflies and small reptiles. When the high speed trains from Madrid to Seville were introduced some 20 years ago, it was realised that the existing Madrid Atocha station was too small so an extension was built leaving the former ‘train shed’ to be converted into a shopping mall and tropical garden.

The trains for Seville also leave from Madrid Atocha and the journey takes little more than two and a half hours. Once again both tickets and seats must be booked in advance albeit just an hour or so before departure.

Once in the deep south of Spain one has the choice of travelling north east to Granada or south west to Jerez de la Frontera, trains to Jerez take a little over an hour and most depart at 15 minutes before the hour i.e. 0945, 1145 etc. Jerez is the home of sherry an aperitif a little out of fashion today . Granada and its Alhambra gardens are well worth the diversion. There are few direct trains the best being the 11.55 departure arriving in Granada at 1507.

There is the option of changing at

(cont) Under an azure sky, Taliban-style pick-up trucks and men with guns littered the yellow ochre vineyards of late September: it was terrifyingly beautiful. A man I didn’t recognize approached me and started shouting that I had no right to be there until one of the local hunters came and rescued me, explaining that hunters had come from as far afield as Béziers for the cull and that they did not have the good manners and refinement of our local chaps. By this time the cull was winding down and the bodies of wild boar lay all around. A couple of the

Antequera there are more trains both from Seville and on from Antequera to Granada. Keep a look out for the extra smartly dressed station master with his scarlet red cap on Antequera Estacion For the journey home and if you are into dreaming of journeys on the Orient Express then you can take the overnight sleeper express from Granada to Barcelona which leaves Granada at 2130 and arrives in Barcelona at 08.39 just in time for chorros chocolate and a café solo for breakfast. ares. If you have a French SNCF ‘Carte Senior’ then you will get a reduction. For travelling inside Spain you are strongly advised to buy ‘Una Tarjeta Dorada’, this is in effect a senior card and only costs 5.05 euros for the 12 months. To buy one you need to present your passport at any RENFE ticket office. For other travellers prices, like all forms of transport, depend on the train, day of the week and time of departure. At the time of writing there are special offers on all cross frontier high speed trains.

SNCF quote Béziers to Madrid €90.80 economica (Spanish tourist class) RENFE quote Madrid to Sevilla 75.50 € tourist class

men insisted that I come and admire their kill. Lying lifeless in the back of a pickup, it looked both pathetic and strange and magnificent.

I was overwhelmed by sadness as I thought about the boar in the woods. I had been terrified of him, but I willed him to stay alive.

There is a word that I love that they use in the Yorkshire Dales to describe people “not from round ‘ere” - offcumden. I have never felt more like an offcumden than I did that day: not just an offcumden because I’m a foreigner living in a foreign land, but also www.theheraultandaudetimes.com

Seville to Granada 29.00 € Seville to Jerez 10.70 € Granada to Barcelona 59.80 € tourist class seat, to 190.80 in a single sleeper cabin A word of caution, trains times tend to differ by a few minutes, all times are printed on your tickets.

All of the above times are based one the timetable from the 15th December until July 2014. www.voyages-sncf.com, www.renfe.com

Chris Elliott; author of ‘The Lost Railway Lines of l’Hérault’ and joint author of ‘Night Ferry 1936 – 1980’

a foreigner to nature; to her real ebbs and flows and to the visceral realities of life and death. I read an article recently that argued that, due to the corporate and technological pressures that we are under, we are perhaps the last generation of wild humans. I find it deeply disturbing to contemplate the possibility that in the not too distant future no one will know what it is like to be locked in a fight to the death with a wild boar or understand in their bones that even abstract things like vengeance somehow well up from the very depths of nature herself.

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www.lerabling.org

HT Life Style in partnership with

Lerab Ling Buddhist Centre

Osteopathy for Back Pain

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ost of us over twenty have experienced some kind of pain or discomfort in our backs, necks or heads. Back pain is a very common problem, either as acute episodes or as a chronic constant companion. We live with our upright postures in gravity, which when misaligned, can lead to wear and tear.

And then there are many other different reasons for back pain. The onset can often be traced back to an accident or trauma, even one that occurred many years earlier.

Developed over 135 years ago, Osteopathy is one of the oldest and most respected forms of complementary therapy (predating physiotherapy and chiropractic).

Osteopaths are extensively trained to be skilled in assessing the mechanics of the whole body and to treat it using a variety of manual techniques. These mostly very gentle methods restore a state of balance and ease to the movement and function of the spine, and to the body as a whole. This relieves the pain and discomfort and reduces wear and tear on the spine that might otherwise lead to arthritis.

Other symptoms may be brought on if our backs are in stress, such as fatigue, mood swings or depression, disturbed sleep, headaches, digestive or period problems, as well as recurrent infections due to a depleted immune system.

Many of these can improve during a course of osteopathic treatment.

For Osteopathy to be most effective, it is important to have a good understanding of the root of the problem.

Often it is necessary to release the stresses retained from past injuries in order to relieve the current back pain, and reduce the chances of it recurring.

Here are some of the most common types of injury that are behind back pain: • Occupational strain - habitual bad posture such as poor seating position at computers

Alexander Technique Wendy McKnight, STAT-certified (London)

Lessons offered in Lodève 06 38 88 27 79 - wcantor@earthlink.net www.alexandertechniqueherault.com 20

The Herault & Aude Times

By Annette Beckett • Lifting strains - such as lifting heavy items, or even lifting children and shopping • Falls - causing twisting, compression and whiplash as in falling on ice • Direct injury - such as a direct blow, as in martial arts or in play grounds • Blows to the head - such as on door frames or during horse riding, which disrupt minute movements of the skull bones and spinal mechanics • Childbirth strains - distortions in the mothers pelvis, postural changes from caesarian scars • Dental trauma - an uneven bite, bridges, braces and extractions can all affect spinal mechanics • Car accidents - even at low speed the body may be thrown about violently in many different directions from the sudden deceleration forces, causing whiplash.

Osteopaths are often able to feel the components of the directional stresses locked into the body after such an accident.

The whole body is affected, not just the neck, and unless these strains are treated, they may cause more symptoms later on.

Your Osteopath should be fully trained at one of the recognized European schools.

You can consult an Osteopath at any time and at any age! Prevention is always better than cure. So if possible, consult an Osteopath before your back pain becomes your problem.

Annette Beckett qualified at The British School of Osteopathy in 1992. She is a teacher and co-founder of an Osteopathic centre in Berlin, and of the Centre d’Ostéopathie et d’Intégration Structurelle in Lodève. lorbergbeckett@gmail.com

www.lerabling.org

HT Life Style in partnership with

Lerab Ling Buddhist Centre Maggie’s Column

Maggie is a coach and hypnotherapist.

Contact Maggie on

maggie@maggieminter.co.uk In order to check in with ourselves, to see where we can make changes to get a better result, we need to pay attention to all the different aspects of our life. How much energy and focus are we putting into our work at the expense of our family, or our social life at the expense of our health.

One way to do this is to draw a circle and split it into segments, each depicting an important part of your life. For example, Family/Friends, Work, Health, Spouse / Partner / Relationships, Run / Recreation,

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New Year can give us an opportunity to reflect back on the past year: to see what we’ve achieved, to see what challenges we’ve overcome, and what changes, or not, we’ve made. Whatever 2013 has brought you, what can you learn from your experiences that you can take forward into 2014 feeling positive and in control. January is a great time for reflection, to regroup and to make sure we’re not simply going blindly forward without knowing what to expect.

Money, Physical Environment, Me/Personal Growth. Then, think of each one in turn and rank your satisfaction in that area between 0 (not at all satisfied) and 10 (totally satisfied), and plot it onto the circle.

If any part is off balance, by taking a ‘helicopter view’ of everything that makes up your life, you can identify the areas that may need special attention to bring things back into balance.

Once this is done, we can see the individual areas where we need to make changes, and

how one impacts on another. For example, if our physical environment needs some work, how does money, health or our spouse impact on any decisions we may make and what different outcomes can we expect.

In this way, we are able to understand what we can do to take back control and begin to focus on the important things that can give us the life we really want for ourselves.

Maggie is a coach and hypnotherapist. If you wish to contact her personally, email: maggie@maggieminter.co.uk

The ‘HAT’ property Section Canalside Properties

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e fell for the charm and magic of the Canal du Midi when we moved from the UK to this region 10 years ago, and were fortunate enough to find our current home within walking distance of it. This marvel of seventeenth century engineering, designed by Pierre-Paul Riquet, runs principally from Toulouse to Séte on the Mediterranean coast. It has become one of the Languedoc’s major tourist attractions - it alone accounts for one fifth of French river tourism - and was designated a UNESCO World Heritage site in 1996.

In the Aude and Herault, it passes through a number of picturesque villages, as well as town and cities like Carcasonne, Narbonne and Bèziers, all very popular with tourist and house hunters alike, due to its presence.

As agents, we are always being asked what villages we would recommend and our favourite villages are mainly canalside ones between Trébes and Bèziers, like La Redorte, Ventenac en Minervois, Le Somail, Salléles D’Aude, Argeliers, Capestang and Poilhes. To us, the advantages of a canalside property are four-fold - firstly, canalside villages are often livelier, with more amenities, bars and restaurants 300,000€ Charming multilevel village house in sought after location, right on the banks of the Canal, offering 209 m² of habitable space comprising 4/5 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms, garden with pool and 2 large terraces with stunning views of the Canal, the countryside and Pyrenees beyond.

to cater for tourism on the Canal, especially in the summer; secondly, the views (something that is on the wish list of most buyers) along the Canal are simply stunning, with its treelined towpath, stone bridges, locks, pretty houses and surrounding countryside; thirdly, it is protected from unsightly change or development, thanks to its World Heritage site status and; fourthly, the Canal does not overflow its banks, so there is no flooding risk!

Unsurprisingly, properties along the banks of the Canal are rare and extremely sought after and therefore more expensive than their central village counterparts. Properties with views of the Canal but perhaps not right on the Canal are just as popular but are more available and tend to be slightly lower in price.

In general, properties whether on the banks of the canal or in canalside villages will always be popular, and thus can be seen as good investments, with good re-sale values.

Here are a cross section of houses for sale this month on the banks of the canal or with views of the Canal.

Info: Richard and Chitra Pullen richardandchitrapullen@wanadoo.fr +33 (0)6 76 64 10 10 +33 (0)6 87 72 17 32

170, 650€ Village house to renovate, on the banks of the Canal, with 150m² of habitable space comprising 3/4 bedrooms, terrace of approximately 50m², small garden overlooking the Canal, large garage and a large attic. Great potential!

399,600€ Magnificent house forming part of a 17th century Chateau, in a stunning position on the banks of the Canal, offering 360 m² of habitable space comprising 5/6 bedrooms, a tower, pool and gardens of approximately 600 m² sloping down towards the Canal du Midi. Amazing views

The HAt Property section is limited to professionals that can offer a professional and consistent service to clients and guarantee the following: 1. An English speaking representative 2. A reply to all enquiries within 24hrs 3. A first class professional service at all times.

A listing from these organisations can be found on the website www.theherailtandaudetimes.com This site is also available for private lettings and sales. www.theheraultandaudetimes.com

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The Music Page - In partnership with:

‘Family Trees’ RichardOn Pullen Music

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n Januaryʼs column I introduced the idea of musical family trees and when I went to see Albin de la Simone at the Sortie Ouest , Bèziers ( www.sortieouest.fr 04 67 28 37 32 ) I didnʼt anticipate that there would be much tree talk but it seems that Albin has been busy collaborating with Susheela Ramen , our favourite Tamil female jazz singer ( listen to“ Salt Rain “ from 2001) , heʼs duetted with Vanessa Paradis ( “ Joe le Taxi “ ,”Coco” by Chanel and relationships with Lenny Kravitz and Johnny Depp ) and played piano for Iggy Pop !

Albin is a slightly dishevelled , wistful , gentle , quiet soul who played such beautiful little songs on an old electric keyboard, sometimes singing acapella , and sometimes with Anne Gouverneur on violin and Maeva Le Berre on cello; the acoustics are so good in the big top that there was no PA system to detract from the intimacy - go Youtube and Spotify him Sortie Ouest continues to attract interesting jazz musicians with the arrival of Susanna Sheiman on Saturday 1 February - we heard her recently when in Barcelona for New Year celebrations - check out “ Just one of those things “ on Youtube On the 20th of February at the Domaine dʼ O in Montpellier (www.domaine-do-34.eu tel: 04 67 67 31 00) you can see Mulatu Astatké , the father of “ Ethio-Jazz” ( his music featured in Jim Jarmuschʼs excellent film “ Broken Flowers “ and he has also been extensively sampled by such luminaries as Damian Marley and Kanye West) Best new release this month is Angélique Kidjoʼs “ Eve “ .Angélique is from Benin and you should try to hear the variety of stuff that is available as it ranges from “Lion King“ type Susheela Ramen afrikana to the sublime Black Ivory Soul”.

Supporting her on the new album is Christian McBride who has played stand up bass with everybody from Chick Corea to Chris Botti , and Lionel Loueke ,also from Benin ,on guitar who when you start delving provides great family tree material as he is the new hot guitarslinger from the Blue Note stable in New York- find him with his trio of Berklee alumni playing a 30 minute version of “ Nefertitti “ by Wayne Shorter or you can hear him on another new release this month (“ Times Tales “ on Okeh Records ) by drummer Jeff Ballard ( Jeff has played the field a bit and has been heard bashing the pots and pans behind January Family Treesʼ star pianist Brad Mehldau - donʼt you just love it when two family trees are entwined ? ) Endgame - In 2013 we lost Richie Havens (see his muscular and entrancing performance of “Freedom” when opening

Susana Sheiman

the Woodstock Festival in 1969 ) , not one but two of the Temptations ( impossible to choose so start with “ Runaway Child , Running Wild “ ) Cleotha Staples ( not as famous as her sister Mavis but still anybody with that surname deserves our love so find “Respect Youself “ and play it until you feel the spirit) , a favourite guitarist Jim Hall ( listen to anything acoustic with Pat Metheny ) and finally little Junior Murvin who gave us “ Police and Thieves “ who went back to his roots .

May they all rest in peace and may you wish me luck getting Carla Bruni tickets at Zinga Zanga in Béziers ( zingazanga@ville-beziers.fr tel: 04 67 36 44 45 ; imagine the family tree ……….?

Mulatu Astatke will be playing at Chateau d’O

For a Calendar of events in English visit : www.theheraultandaudetimes.com or scan the QR code 22

The Herault & Aude Times

What’s in a name....

Sue Hicks continues her look into history through Street names

Armand Barbes Armand Barbes lived through tumultuous times – born during the First Empire of Napoleon Bonaparte, he was a school-boy during the restoration of one king Louis XVIII, saw the overthrow of two others which finally ended the French monarchy and died just before the end of the Second Empire of

Napoleon III in 1870. A period when heady ideas of republicanism, socialism, communism and pressure for electoral reform were gaining ground. Popular protests, often caused by poor harvests and consequent food shortages and by unemployment, were savagely repressed. Barbes, a charismatic, courageous, republican became known as the “peerless conspirator” who spent many years in prison as a result of his actions and his ideas.

Born in 1809 in Guadeloupe where his father was a regimental surgeon, Armand Barbes grew up in a comfortable family home at Villalier, near Carcassonne. He made his revolutionary debut in 1830 where he led the local National Guard battalion during the short lived July revolution which resulted in the abdication of the king Charles X. Barbes moved to Paris to study medicine which he quickly gave up, disliking the sight of blood, in favour of law. He became financially independent on the death of his father in 1834 and from then on Barbes devoted himself to the overthrow of the July monarchy. Barbes was a leading member of the Society for the Rights of Man which became a banned organization and spent some months in prison.

He defended in court many republican insurgents and helped some of them escape from

prison. He began his long and tumultuous friendship with Louis Blanqui with whom he was caught loading ammunition and they were both imprisoned. On his release Barbes spent some time at the family home where he wrote the pamphlet A Few Words to those Who Possess in Favour of Proletarians Without Work which concluded “we so ardently desire to see the owning classes consecrate a part of its superfluity for the relief of poverty” He devised yet another secret society and spent a month in prison for the “outrageous way in which he addressed the magistrate”.

Returning to Paris in 1838, he and Blanqui were key members of the newly formed republican secret ‘Society of Seasons’ which had a hierarchy of cells which would be copied by many underground organisations, including the Resistance, in the future. This group with around nine hundred members attempted a coup d’état on 12 May 1839 in Paris managing to seize the National Assembly, the city hall and the Palace of Justice for a few hours. Several were killed and injured on both sides and Barbes was charged with murdering a lieutenant of the National Guard. Although he did not fire the fatal shot, Barbes, perhaps wanting to be a martyr, accepted responsibility as the leader of the insurrectionary group. Barbes and Blanqui fell out when it was suspected that Blanqui had betrayed his fellow conspirators and splits among left wing groups continued to influence these groupings for many years.

Barbes was sentenced to death but this was commuted to life imprisonment on the eve of the execution after the intervention of powerful friends including a poem by Victor Hugo addressed and delivered to the King. During this fourth period of imprisonment, Barbes fought with others against the rigours of solitary confinement by maintaining a continuous din and was eventually moved to a section of the prison where he

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was completely in view of the warders. An escape attempt in the fog in 1842 failed when Barbes injured himself in a fall and as his health deteriorated he was moved to prison in Nimes the following year.

1848 was Year of Revolutions throughout Europe with public protests in major cities including Germany, Italy, Austria and Hungary. In France, Louis Philippe abdicated and fled to England in February and Barbes was amongst the many political prisoners who were released. Barbes formed the Club of the Revolution and Blanqui the Central Republican Society. Barbes became a colonel of the National Guard in Paris and in April was elected to the Constituent Assembly as a representative for the Aude. Radicals were quickly disappointed by the actions of the moderate government and their failure to support popular revolutions going on elsewhere in Europe, particularly Poland, and on 15 May a group of protestors invaded the Assembly. Barbes rushed to the front of the march, some say to upstage his old rival Blanqui, took over the leadership of the protest, sparked a riot and declared a new republic which was short lived when the National Guard arrived and Barbes and others were arrested. Karl Marx called Barbes “the scourge of the establishment” and wrote “the proletariat sought in vain to recapture its revolutionary influence and only delivered up its energetic leaders to the jailers of the bourgeoisie”. Barbes was sentenced to life imprisonment. The spirit of this age is caught in fiction in Sentimental Education

by Gustave Flaubert who is thought to have based one of his leading characters on Armand Barbes.

Released from prison by Napoleon III in 1854 under an amnesty which Barbes refused to accept, he withdrew into voluntary exile at The Hague. Armand Barbes died in June 1870 weeks before the outbreak of the Franco -Prussian war which led to the end of second empire and the declaration of the Third Republic in September. There are numerous street names commemorating Armand Barbes in the Hérault and in the Aude and he is also celebrated at the Paris metro station Barbes-Rochechouart.

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Friperie Frolicks

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er under the rusty eaves of the not so elegant Emmaus; a figure hugging, black velvet original Miss Selfridge dress with bright orange star buttons (promised to my eldest daughter) which mysteriously found its way into a vintage shop in Carcassonne; hats, belts, bags (including a traditional 1940s Moroccan leather bag in mint condition); three Hermès silk scarves, various cashmere and angora mix sweaters and several dresses dating from the 1950s to the present from an equally eclectic range of lucky finds…

It’s not a matter of being parsimonious.

To my mind and eye, the range of colours, the intricacy of stitches, the weight and feel of fabric and even the shapes, are markedly more interesting than so much of the poorly made, mass-produced bland stuff hanging on high street shop rails. And let’s face it what could be better than not only the thrill of the

Frock, La French Friperie Boutique “Combing and whittling the art of mode, little black dresses, photo, magique, social media, lingerie, attitude, bathing costumes and les pompes…”

Where? La Poste Mons la Trivalle 34390, Tel: 0684452084 When? Whenever you like, of course!

And as in all fairy tales it was just truly meant to be.

We, the dope fashion women, will not rest until the Languedoc is covered in polka dots, tweed, dentelle, frills, pantofles and general modern whacky wears!

Call before passing by as we may be ‘Out Hunting’ for the next big Frock Thing Our motto: ‘Everyone wants to be a cat.’

or beleaguered shoppers wanting to take back fashion there can be nothing more satisfying and fun than combing the rails of vintage clothing shops, vide greniers, brocantes and thrift shops, and rediscovering the durable and timeless qualities of second hand clothing.

I like clothes.

If there is a heaven there would be an enormous wardrobe on the other side of those pearly gates filled with all manner of cuts, colours and textiles, through which you could wander and help yourself to at will. But whilst bound to earthly constraints of clothes shopping I have a confession to make; most of the clothes in my wardrobe were once worn by someone else: A Nicole Farhi black silk jacket and a lace evening skirt, stumbled upon by chance at the back of a retro clothes shop in Montpellier; a Valentino lavender blue jacket obscured under a pile of hand knits at a vide grenier; an Edwardian lace underskirt (which once belonged to my great auntie Vera); a beautifully tailored wool checked pencil skirt which once hung in the closet of an elegant lady in Paris only to find itself four decades lat-

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chase as well as the gratification of purchasing unique garments for considerably less, and for the conscientious amongst you that’s one less thing for the déchetterie!

Here’s a pertinent quote from The Lady (18 January 1934), “It is the easiest thing in the world to get tired of our clothes before they get tired of us, so to speak.” Quite!

The Herault & Aude Times

La Changerie: 3 rue Ancien Courrier, Montpellier Tel: 04 67 60 42 97 ; Le Poisson Rouge: 7 rue Vieille, Montpellier Tel: 04 67 04 10 36 Ariane: 13 rue Solférino, Béziers Tel: 04 67 28 51 41 Anne Hettier : 1 rue Jean Jacques Rousseau, Clermont-l’Hérault Tel: 04 67 88 21 92 Cosmo Boutique: Espace Commercial Fréjorgues Ouest 121 rue Roland Garros, Mauguio Tel: 04 67 99 64 34 Emma et Adrien: 4 quai Adolphe Merle, Sète Tel: 04 67 74 25 47 Top Fripes : 17 rue des Entrepreneurs, Sauvian Tel: 04 30 41 50 86 La Remise : 1 rue des Artisans, Gruissan Tel :06 13 75 11 36 La Récré: 38 rue de la République, Carcassonne Tel: 04 68 71 63 85 Otra Vez: 50 rue Doct Albert Tomey, Carcassonne Tel: 04 68 47 84 76 Troc Bout’Chou : 38 avenue Pierre Sémard, Narbonne Tel: 04 68 41 33 05 Troc Chic: 1 rue Parerie, Narbonne Tel: 04 68 41 28 14 Fornet, Karine: 29 rue Parerie, Narbonne Tel: 06 13 75 11 36 Bleu Indigo: 54 rue de la Mairie, Limoux Tel: 04 68 74 15 33

The French VIEW _ Translation by Alison Reid

The First Lady of France

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side from their sensationalism and their controversy, the recent revelations of alleged liaisons between President of the Republic, François Hollande, and actress, Julie Gayet, followed by the hospitalisation – the ‘consequent’ hospitalisation, according to the media – of Valérie Trierweiler, have once again provoked certain questions about the status of ‘France’s First Lady’.

Indeed, for several years voices from the Left as well as the Right have been demanding clarification of the role and the attributions of the First Lady. Contrary to the constitutional monarchies of neighbouring countries, or to past non-republican regimes in France – which made the role of the Queen or the Empress clear – there are no legal rules defining the First Lady’s role.

It is not the marital status causing the problem

For many years, this situation has not presented any difficulties, as the First Ladies have behaved as model wives and have remained quietly in the shade of their prestigious husbands.

Yet conjugal mischief has always existed, and the phenomenon is certainly nothing new.

For example, Napoléon Bonaparte’s divorce on the 15th December 1809, in which he left Joséphine de Beauharnais (officially infertile) for Marie-Louise of Austria, was both politically and morally shocking. But the progressive change in principles has led to a large-scale trivialisation of such behaviour, which is now thankfully relegated to the rank of ‘private life’.

The death of Félix Faure in the arms of his mistress in 1899, or the marriage of Gaston Doumergue in the middle of his term in 1931, did not provoke any memorable indignation in public opinion, as the wives concerned were considered only in their domestic role.

So it is not the marital status, but in fact the role of these wives that is causing the problem – particularly when it edges in on the role of the President and leads to the use of the State’s resources.

Cécilia Sarkozy: a real turning point The role of these women has indeed risen dramatically since 1958, irrespective of the scandals and the mischief. They have typically involved themselves with the activities of associations or charities, following the examples of their foreign counterparts. It is entirely reasonable that, in this role, they should be given simple police protection (‘protection of public figures’ as it is called).

Danielle Mitterrand and Bernadette Chirac lived thus free from the media, all the time continuing their strictly charitable work (the fight for Human Rights and the ‘small coins’ collection for Parisian hospitals, respectively).

The real turning point was in 2007.

Indeed, it was then that Cécilia Sarkozy was seen to give herself an office in the Elysée, as well as a chauffeur and co-workers, so as to participate, more or less directly in certain presidential affairs. The First Lady, still without an official role, became a sort of ‘plenipotentiary’ of the Republic, freely applying decisions that

came directly from the Elysée.

The case of the liberation of Bulgarian nurses was shocking for this very reason, as Cécilia Sarkozy was neither elected nor appointed, and was therefore neither liable nor responsible. She was a pure manifestation of presidential power, ‘an extension’, one might say, and as such, possessed a double helping of political irresponsibility. Her two successors have certainly maintained the advantages and the prerogatives of the role.

First Lady, an indefinable role

So what to do? For several years, the public and certain ministers have been calling for the clarification of this role, and this is a fair request. However, the adoption of a judicial status, not founded as it was previously on heterosexual marriage (modernity must), presents a certain amount of judicial difficulties, incompatible with the highly political and even social notion of the First Lady. These difficulties can be presented in the form of a simple paradox.

If the status is created as a framing of the current role – that is to say without a precise function – this ‘First Lady’ or ‘First Man’ of France will owe their place uniquely to the love the Head of State holds for them. In this case, the appointment would be entirely discretional, allowing for all sorts of insalubrious presidential repudiations.

If, however, a real function was attributed to the role – necessarily a political role, as the Republic is not supposed to support one sort of charitable activity more than another – this character would simply constitute another co-worker or minister, and in this case no shared life or sentiments would be necessary. The position of First Lady would become a veritable job – that of a representative, conditioned by political responsibility.

The role is thus no closer to being defined. It remains, however, both controversial and problematic…

Introducing Arthur Goldhammer

A

shrewd and highly knowledgeable observer of French politics since 1968, Arthur Goldhammer is a writer and translator who has translated more than 120 books from the French, covering fields ranging from history to economics and including novels and biographies. is translation of Thomas Piketty’s Capital in the 21st Century will appear in the US this spring. For his work he has been honored numerous times by the French-American Foundation, the Florence Gould Foundation, the American Translators Association, and the Académie Française. He chairs the seminar for visiting scholars at Harvard’s Center for European Studies and serves on the editorial boards of The ocqueville Review and French Politics, Culture, and Society. He has written and lectured widely on French culture and politics and has been blogging about French politics since 2007.

He is also the author of a novel, Shooting War (Amazon ISBN-10:1480224391)

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T

To subscribe to his regular blogs on French politics go to the HAT website or direct at: artgoldhammer.blogspot.com

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Written by Arnaud Dilloard Edited by Hélène Decommer

www.theheraultandaudetimes.com

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Un Certain Regard:

Continuing: A journey through French cinema - Through the 1950s.

Screenplay by: Karl Leonie

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n last month’s article on the history of the French cinema it was pointed out how French film directors with some government assistance were able to respond to scarcities inflicted by the

War together with considerable competition from the American and Italian film industries. Audiences were in decline but numbers of films increased.

Generally speaking, French film directors established a certain production of film genres that were at once high quality but which avoided risk-taking in order to maintain audience numbers. Large studios had evolved with a standard cinematographic template.

The industry appeared to be lodged in a particular trend out of which it was unwilling to move.

The review Cahiers du cinéma was created in 1951

by Joseph-Marie Lo Duca and Jacques Doniol-Valcroze. This in essence replaced the earlier cinema review La Revue du cinéma of Jean George Auriol which went out of production in 1949.

Significantly, from the second edition of the Cahiers a certain well-known, influential film theorist and critic began contributing. André Bazin had already stimulated debate about the cinema, processes in film26

making and its content. He had worked with the growing number of ciné-clubs about which more will be said in a later edition.

He had also contributed to conferences and given courses. His objectives included encouraging a popular enthusiasm for the cinema in France (the cinéphile).

Also, involved with the film review, apart from such critics as Léonide Keigel, came the eventual arrival of François Truffaut, Éric Rohmer (Maurice Schérer), Jacques Rivette, Claude Chabrol et Jean-Luc Godard who had their own perspectives made known in the Cahiers. For example, in 1954, Truffaut pinpointed “a particular trend in French cinema” which he labelled la qualité française. He criticised directors as servants to the script rather than paving the way forward with new ideas. He opposed such directors of this trend as Jean Delannoy and Claude-Autant Lara while defending the German cineaste Max Ophüls who had developed a stylish character to his own films within the parameters of the qualité type.

Therefore, we can perceive the gradual development of a new approach to filmmaking where the director assumes the role of author as opposed one of script facilitator as Truffaut and his supporters

saw it. However, it would be naïve and mistaken to imagine that the critics were about to suddenly overthrow one style of The Herault & Aude Times

film for another. Rather, a new trend was gradually emerging built on the experience of la qualité française which was to become known as French New Wave (la nouvelle vague) - this will be analysed in greater depth next month.

Some of the key moments in French cinema in the 1950s began in the last edition. As the 1950s progressed other important films worth watching cover similar themes but idiosyncratic features appear associated with individual directors and embracing the issues above.

Jacques Tati, Jacques Becker, Jean-Pierre Melville and Robert Bresson are those who moved in towards the new approach advo-

cated by Truffaut et al. Bresson following his “Diary of a Country Priest” mentioned last month, brought out what is certainly his finest film in 1956 Un condamné à mort s’est échappé (A Man Escaped). It has an austere atmosphere and is appropriately introspective for a real life prison escape. It lacked all the florid theatricality of most contemporary films.

His film Pickpocket (1959) has a silent intensity and artistry exploring a Dostoyevskian narrative when a young well-healed man turns to crime justifying it by his social class status.

In this period, an economical Jacques Tati followed a tradition set down by Chaplin and Keaton with his comical masterpieces Les Vacances de Monsieur Hulot (1953) and Mon oncle (My Uncle, 1958).

The latter is a satirical piece on the bemusing effects of technology on both working class and the nouveaux riches alike. It is a sequel, as it were, to “The Holidays of Mr Hulot”.

English for Expat Children - An indispensable guide

The Power of MUSIC

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Jacques Becker lies somewhere between la qualité française and la nouvelle vague as Casque d’or (Golden Marie, 1952), Touchez pas au grisbi (Hands off the Loot, 1954) and his late chef-d’œuvre, Le Trou (The Hole, 1960) attest.

Henri-Georges Clouzot is also like Becker in his character as a director cutting his own path with suspense thrillers such as Le Salaire de la peur (1953) and Les Diaboliques (The Devils, 1955) which is a highly audience-manipulating journey into fear with some black humour to match.

In 1959, Georges Franju who co-founded the Cinématheque Française directed Les Yeux sans visage (Eyes Without a Face) This is a horror film of rare lyrical and terrifying quality. Another notable film was directed by Roger Vadim, Et Dieu... créa la femme (And God… created woman, 1956), the film that sexually deified Brigitte Bardot. What more can we say about that! Another film worth considering is the policier by Jules Dassin, “Du rififi chez les homes (Rififi, 1955). It is a landmark film of the genre since it uses a realism and violence hitherto unexplored by previous film directors. It also used real locations and raw-edged naturalism.

The police genre would never be the same again.

Which brings us to the excitement of 1959 and the next edition.

Top to Bottom: Et dieu crea la femme 1956 Robert Bresson Bresson, Un hommes s’est Repos du guerrie ( Bardot, Vadim) Jacques Tati- Les vacances de Monsieur Hulot

pending time with your child to help support their English can be understandably difficult to fit into any schedule. Add to this the possible intimidation factors of where to begin and how to continue, many people find themselves putting it off. Let me assure you that you really can’t go wrong; reading together at bedtime, singing nursery rhymes and playing games are all potent ways to engage your child and build confidence in any language.

Music is a fantastic memory aid for all ages and an excellent motivator to expand vocabulary and encourage reading. Lyrics are sometimes tricky to hear, so it really dissipates the expectation on the child to understand everything when the adults around are also straining to distinguish words.

Rap is even more challenging, incorporating poetry and rhymes often at high speed! You can try reciting tongue-twisters and riddles like ‘Round the Ragged Rock’. Some complex language and phonetic sounds can be neatly packaged as play which is the very best case scenario for learning at any age.

Younger learners can be initiated through Nursery Rhymes and Action Songs. Developing their memory through music is a huge step in the direction of reading as you build memory skills and vocabulary. You are also often exposing them to some pretty archaic language and culture (‘Ring ‘O’ Roses for example) which really deepens language understanding and fluency. Hand clapping songs or games, heads, shoulders, knees and toes. A quick

www.theheraultandaudetimes.com

online search will throw up hundreds of possibilities.

An Activity to try out....

• Karaoke: Children love this activity which lends itself so completely to your child’s taste and preferences.

While the reading is intense and fast-paced, the pressure is of the pleasurable kind. There are all sorts of specific materials on YouTube (a range of children’s Beatles hits for instance), but you can also print out lyrics to sing along to music videos just as effectively. Do it together and let your children laugh as you stumble over the words too!

Don’t forget that all these principles and techniques are equally useful in helping your child learn French; you may find it helpful yourself! Allow for the fact that all children develop at different rates and have different interests; of course some children arrive in France and start using French within minutes, but for the majority it takes considerably longer. Try to accept the pace of your child’s language acquisition and find ways to support areas in which they are struggling. Don’t stress out if they are perceived to be falling behind classmates; positive encouragement is ALWAYS more valuable to your child’s confidence than a negative reaction.

Laura Smith has a BA Hons) in English and a background which includes nannying, arts’ groups for children, supporting early readers, teaching English as foreign language in Spanish and Italian schools and examining children for the Cambridge Examining board.

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Bonnard, Renoir, Vuillard…

Chefs-d’œuvre de la collection Arkas

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he Collection Arkas is the richest Turkish art collection internationally and was started about 15 years ago. Lucien Arkas belongs to a family who moved from Marseille to Izmir in 1710. His loyalty towards a past cultural heritage encouraged him to build his collection around two main themes: ‘Turkish painting’ and the ‘Post-impressionist period’.

Shown for the first time in Europe and taken from the Arkas collection at Izmir, the post-impressionist paintings on display at Musée Fleury, Lodève, after GleizesMetzinger du Cubisme et après, provide another ravishing surprise. Lucien Arkas chose to focus his attention on that period of art to raise public awareness.

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The Herault & Aude Times

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This exhibition offers the privilege of discovering new paintings by Renoir and Bonnard in an intimate context appropriate to their artistic style. It also gives the benefit of hindsight as to what post-impressionism is about. A thematic selection of about 60 master-pieces has been made out of more than a thousand paintings from the collection: women’s portraits, intimacy, landscapes and painting life. Indeed, women have the best part in the show. Portrait de Gabrielle Cot by William Bouguereau (1890) which is the oldest portrait in the collection and represents painter PierreAuguste Cot’s daughter is only an example.

Intimacy gives pride of place to the female nude. My favourite in this series is: La

femme enfilant son bas (Suzanne Valadon)

by Edmond Heuze (Woman putting on her stocking, Suzanne Valadon, 1912). Suzanne posed as a model for Degas, Puvis de Chavannes, Renoir and Lautrec with whom she had a relationship for about two years.

She was herself a painter. This portrait reveals well her strong personality. In return Catherine nue, allongée sur une peau de panthère (Catherine naked, lying on a panther skin, 1923) is one of her works. The subject and colours are crude and I agree with art critic Gustave Coquiot’s comment at the time: ‘she bends to no concession; Sometimes she prefers obvious vulgarity to the lovely expression she does not want to be subjected to’.

A homogenous display of landscape paintings by Maximilien Luce, Henri Moret, Alfred Sisley or Henri Martin will please the enthusiasts of this genre: ports, cliffs, sunsets, bridges, cities and rain.

Life scenes complete the exhibition showing works by Toulouse-Lautrec: La ravaudeuse, 1882 (The mender); Maurice Denis: Le bain, (The bath, 1906) which depicts his wife Marthe bathing their baby girl; André L’hote, and the remarkable portrait of French writer André Gide by Jacques-Emile Blanche: André Gide à 21 ans (André Gide aged 21, 1890) or again Louis Anquetin.

The Arkas Collection represents an edifying selection and a visual treat; a lesson of post-impressionism, life, and beauty.

Musée Fleury, Lodève Until 30 March 2014

www.theheraultandaudetimes.com

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ARt

Claude SIMON Photographies. Écriture et image Until 08 March 2014

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laude Simon (1913-2005) spent his childhood in Perpignan before entering secondary school in Paris.

There he also followed painting classes and explored the art of photography. In 1939 he was called to the front line and was made a prisoner of war in 1940. He managed to escape from Germany the same year and upon return completed his first novel Le Tricheur (The Cheat), which was published in 1945.

While pursuing a fruitful career as a writer, Claude Simon’s interest for photography was constant throughout his life and the subject of various exhibitions.In 1992 a book on his photographic work was

published: Claude Simon Photographies poetry and (ed. Maeght), with his own texts illustrating literature. The 107 photographs.

Paul Valery The exhibition mirrors Simon’s artistic Museum in work from 1937 to 1970. His photographic Sète also dedicates a permanent space to technique uses strong contrasts of black this author so that, together with La and white, recalling the style of Japanese Maison des Mémoires, his legacy is photographer Daido Moriyama. The images witness a love for people. The poor he met while travelling: children and families living in the street; graffiti engraved in stone or female nudes are his subjects of predilection.

Over 60 of his photographs have been selected for this exhibition.

Author of 19 books, Claude Simon’s eye on the world of his time is poignant with realism. In reference to the freedom he experienced during his childhood, his series of graffiti is particularly interesting to look at as ‘primitive street art’, before spray paint existed. Finally there is a series of Simon’s portraits

by Yvonne Ducuing from the 1950’s, which convey a real tenderness with their pastel tones.

The exhibition is extended in the honoured and safely preserved.

Center’s permanent exhibition: the visit of Joë Bousquet’s bedroom and a display of Centre Joë Bousquet et son Temps his writings, books and personal Maison des Mémoires-Maison souvenirs. Joë Bousquet (1897- Joë Bousquet 1950) was a French surrealist 53 rue de Verdun – 11000 Carcassonne poet born in Narbonne. He was Tel./Fax : 04 68 72 50 83 wounded in 1918 and paralyzed Free entry as a result. He maintained a

By Dominique Aclange correspondence with other writers such as Louis Aragon, André Gide, Maison des Mémoires, Paul Eluard and became Centre Joë Bousquet, Carcassonne friends with the surrealists amongst The aim of the Maison des Mémoires, whom was Salvador situated in the heart of Carcassonne, is Dali. He later returned to create a relationship between art and to Carcassonne to retire and met literature. There is a permanent exhibiphilosopher Claude tion dedicated to Joë Bousquet and the Louis Estève with whom writer’s room, as well as a temporary he discoursed and exhibition programme wrote about philosophy,

The HAT recommends…

Galerie AL/MA, Montpellier 14 rue Aristide Ollivier, Montpellier.

Jean-Marc CERINO / Nicolas DAUBANES “IMAGO” Until 15 February 2014 Cerino’s work is often drawn from anonymous photos, these paintings, closest to their ‘object’ only appear like ‘an ultimate avatar of their reality’. Daubanes uses silicone or filing to express a certain definition of ‘confinement’. Both artists have black and white in common but express it differently and in a complementary way. * 30

Galerie Toiles de Mer, Sabine Jeangeorges Rue du four, 11440 Peyriac-de-mer.

Sabine On going In 2007, Comedienne Sabine created La Galerie Toiles de Mer: ‘To show her paintings, her textile creations but also to share her love for the work of other artists’.

Well worth visiting.

Open: Wed, Thur, Fri 15h/19h Sat/Sun 10h30/12h30 & 15h/19h or by appointment, Tel. 06 09 84 65 41 www.galerietoilesdemersabinejeangeorges.com

The Herault & Aude Times

‘The Supercilious Lesser Spotted Art Dealer’

I once closed my eyes so tight that the blood vessels in my neck pulsated and I went dizzy due to the effort involved.

And what for.......

I WANT TO SEE AN ART DEALER Oh you can laugh but have you seen them? So powerful, so knowledgeable and so attractive to the media and us that they often hide from us just to toy with our desperate need to spot one.

And so I give the guide on this most difficult of creatures to understand.

SHRINKING HABITATION The connected world has put all of your art online. Like a bulldozer in a rainforest we don’t have to go to a gallery to view old masters or new fashions, we just sit at home in slippers and browse through all aspects of art.

Websites of artists, sculptors, graphic designers, installation artists (?) and every gallery you have and haven’t heard of plus museums da di da. So how will you spot one of these exotic beasts?

EVOLUTION The Art Dealer has used the evolutionary process to its advantage. First it realized that if it had a more ostentatious nesting area it could attract its favoured dietary choice, namely people with a trust fund or a designer watch and a sports star friend. Look around all major cities and you’ll see these nesting boxes with names such as White and Cube and Gagosian and Gallery. But evolution brings false dawns and a bigger and better plumage was required to really attract the lemmings to the party and lo and behold.......the Art Fair arrived.

The WILDLIFE RESERVE “I was there you know”.

Ah, the statement of youthful

exuberance given with a puffed out chest and a voice slightly louder than a Take That concert as he takes on a serious frown and goes on to describe Frieze number 1 (and 2 and 3 and 4).

But those days of being seen are no more. These Grande dames of the pantomime Art Fairs are no longer about artists......oh no they aren’t!!

Art dealers can’t rely on you coming to their galleries anymore. So they bring their galleries to you.

And so you travel to these hallowed grounds where you hope to see a collection of dealers in their very own wildlife reserve and you sit and you watch and you wait.

THE MATING CEREMONY If you look carefully you can spot a dealer with a little practice.

The males are quite simple looking, normally as a result of inheriting too much money. They look sideways a lot, almost hoping that you’ll approach because they want to be domesticated but aren’t sure if you are of the right stature to be with them.

The females are a lot stronger and deadly. They usually come with a little black cocktail dress or a pvc coat and killer nails and phone that is waved about threatening violence if you get too close.

Both the mail and the female of the species will hover around the fair and as in days gone past child bearing hips may have been attractive now it is the column inches and the size of house / mansion that is attractive.

If you appear to be a prospect than you will be circled and quiet conversation will begin to ascertain the ability to provide networking opportunities.

Do not think for a moment that the art is important at this time, it is not. What is important that you can partake of the foreplay of discussing art...... talk about

Contemporary Art Center, Bédarieux, 19 avenue Abbé Tarroux – 34600 Bédarieux LA COLLECTION 17 January-29 March 2014 The Contemporary Art Center of Bédarieux shows for the first time 43 pieces from its collection fund, obtained since 2003. Dating from the 60’s to today, The Collection, which also includes some sculptures, represents naïve, abstract and semi-figurative paintings. Local and national artists are represented. For a more detailed review see www.the-green-light.com Tue14h-18h/Wed/Thur/Fri 9h30-12h 14h-18h, Sat 14h-18h Tel. 04 67 95 48 27/ e-mail: culture@bedarieux.fr *

the serra exhibition in New York and London and you can snuggle up but talk Hirst and all you’ll remember is the slap of PVC as it slaps you and vanishes from whence it came.

But make it to the cosy second base and the real reason for a dealers existence comes into place. Picture it, champagne, hushed conversations and furtive glances into each other’s eyes and then the Art Dealer will glance furtively about, take a swallow and look at you and mouth the words.....I was just last week talking to Tom Cruise / Jay Z / Sandra Bullock and then it is the moment of truth.

THE HUNTER OR THE HUNTED This is it, the moment you dreamt of, can you catch a dealer.

If you can reply “Well I just spoke to Tom Cruise / Jay Z / Sandra Bullock this morning’ then you have it. The little noose tightens around the neck and the dealer is caught. If you can’t reply with ‘A’ list celebrities then the hook has slipped and you are left floundering with no way back.

You see, art dealers don’t need the money. They have plenty and if an artwork of standing is for sale they have a little club anyway. So new and upcoming artists then you cry? Yeah right.

Art fairs bring in millions of dollars in sales but it isn’t important to the Art Dealer, he is in it for the contacts and the prestige that can bring him.

And now you have the chance to see the real side of the Art Dealer.

They are a group breed but they rarely protect their own (maybe the inflated prices, but not their own).

You have passed the mating game and now the other dealers smell column inches and favourable publicity and they circle like buzzards. Voices are now a little louder as each uses its sirens call to entice you into their address

book.

They don’t mix well, the plumage and testosterone in the males is almost tangible and the females begin to hiss and act more like cuckoos ready to jump into another’s nest if the egg is enticing enough.

And then it is done.

The marking of the dealer and it’s hypnotic qualities will permeate into you and after time you will be interested in the celebrities more than the art.

And even if you fail you fail, because you want to be a celebrity even if it is for just one day And so it is my strong belief that if you visit an art fair to see many artists and many works in situ and not just on a screen then you have a fantastic time but know something.

Like the search for extra-terrestrial life, if you are hoping to engage with an Art Dealer the odds say they are there but I doubt they’ll Atticus pick up your signal.

Restaurant café-culture le Minuscule, 27 Grand Rue, 34700 Lodève Chimères Teo Libardo, paintings 9 January/3 April 2014 Abstract paintings by Teo Libardo with a touch of calligraphy. For all abstract painting lovers.

The restaurant is open only lunch time except Thursday where you can dine with live music. Tel. 04 67 88 50 35 * Librairie Un point-Un trait, 23 rue de la République, 34700 Lodève Artemise, watercolors - Watercolors by Artemise, come and discover this medium at Un point-Un trait, close to Musee Fleury, this place regularly lends its walls to painters and likes to associate with both art and literature. Tel. 04 67 88 11 27

www.theheraultandaudetimes.com

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Recipe Times

With Chitra Pullen

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he Vindaloo, a curry from the region of Goa in south west India has its roots in a Portuguese stew called ‘Carne de vinha d’alhos’ meat with wine and garlic - which was introduced by Portuguese colonists to the region. The addition of Indian spices and chilies has transformed this dish into a quintessential Indian dish and a staple of Goan cuisine.

An authentic Vindaloo is a subtle blend of spices, hot and tangy in taste, and nothing like the fiery meat and potato version served up in curry houses in the UK. Traditionally, the meat used in a Vindaloo is pork, favoured by the Christian community in India, but as the dish gained popularity in India, versions using different meats such as lamb, beef, chicken, prawns or just vegetarian, sprang up. Feel free to experiment with your favourite!

T

he Vindaloo, a curry from the region of Goa in south west India has its roots in a Portuguese stew called ‘Carne de vinha d’alhos’ - meat with wine and garlic - which was introduced by Portuguese colonists to the region. The addition of Indian spices and chilies has transformed this dish into a quintessential Indian dish and a staple of Goan cuisine.

An authentic Vindaloo is a subtle blend of spices, hot and tangy in taste, and nothing like the fiery meat and potato version served up in curry houses in the UK. Traditionally, the meat used in a Vindaloo is pork, favoured by the Christian community in India, but as the dish gained popularity in India, versions using different meats such as lamb, beef, chicken, prawns or just vegetarian, sprang up. Feel free to experiment with your favourite!

Pork Vindaloo - Serves 4 - 6 persons Ingredients: 800g of pork shoulder, cubed into bite size pieces 2 large onions, quartered and sliced 50ml of red wine vinegar 4 tbsp colza or sunflower oil 6 cloves garlic, peeled 2cm piece of ginger, peeled and roughly chopped 1 tbsp muscovado/brown sugar Masala ingredients: 6-7 dried kashmiri chilies (quite mild, so if using a different sort of dried chilli, reduce/increase accordingly) 1 tsp coriander seeds 1 tsp cumin seeds 4cm cinnamon sticks , broken 5-6 cloves 3-4 green cardomon pods 1 tsp peppercorn 1 dried bay leave ½ tsp brown/black mustard seeds 32

Method: 1. Begin by making the ‘masala’. Gently roast the masala spices in cast iron pan over a low heat, swirling the pan occasionally to prevent the spices from burning. Once the spices have taken some colour and start popping (about 2 minutes), take off the heat and leave to cool for a few minutes before grinding to a fine powder in a coffee grinder or with a pestle and mortar. You will need about 3 tablespoons of the powder.

2. Next, put the ginger, garlic and red wine vinegar in a food processor and blitz to a fine purée.

3. In a large glass bowl, combine well the pork with the purée and the masala powder (about 3 tablespoons). Cover and marinade in the fridge overnight, or for at least 4 hours.

4. Heat the oil on a medium flame in a deep frying pan or wok (or karahi, if you have one). Add the onion and fry for about 10 minutes until golden brown.

5. Add the marinaded meat, mix well, cover and cook over a medium/ low heat for about 30 minutes, stirring from time to time to prevent the meat sticking to the bottom of the pan and burning. If it looks like the dish is drying up, add a little water.

6. Add the turmeric and sugar, stir well and leave to continue cooking for another half an hour or so.

7. Remove from heat once the meat is tender. There should no water left in the pan (this is a ‘dry’ curry) and the mix should have started to exude oil.

8. Serve with steamed rice or coconut rice.

Notes: This dish tastes even better served the next day, as the vinegar and spices soak into the meat and improve the flavour. * Whilst you can serve the vindaloo with plain rice, I prefer Coconut rice because the sweetness of the rice contrasts well with the tanginess of the Vindaloo.

The Herault & Aude Times

Whilst you can serve the vindaloo with plain rice, I prefer Coconut rice because the sweetness of the rice contrasts well with the tanginess of the Vindaloo.

Coconut Rice

- Serves 6

Ingredients: 300g basmati rice, rinsed well until water runs clear 250ml coconut milk About 7 whole peppercorns 1 teaspoon finely chopped ginger 1 tablespoon chopped coriander Salt to taste Method: 1. Place the rice and other ingredients in a saucepan.

2. Add enough cold water to cover the rice up to the first joint of your middle finger*.

3. Bring the rice to the boil on a high heat.

4. Immediately turn down the heat to low and put a lid on the saucepan, so that the rice steam cooks, for about 15 minutes.

Check once towards the end of the cooking time, adding a little water if necessary.

5. Take off the heat as soon as the rice is cooked.

6. Fluff up the rice with a fork and garnish with chopped coriander before serving. *When you place your middle finger vertically on the top of the rice, the liquid should come up to the first joint of your finger.

Whilst you can serve the vindaloo with plain rice, I prefer Coconut rice because the sweetness of the rice contrasts well with the tanginess of the Vindaloo.

Coconut and Rosewater Burfi Makes about 25 pieces

Indian meals do not include desserts as such; a meal is usually finished with fresh fruit rather than a dessert. However, Indians are great lovers of sweets, called ‘mithai’ which are served at festive occassions or as snacks with a cup of chai ( spiced tea ) .

Colourful and jewel-like and often extremely sweet, I like to serve them at the end of a meal as petit-fours, with a strong cup of coffee or mint tea.

Ingredients: 200g caster sugar about 100ml water 200g fresh grated coconut, or dried coconut, rehydrated (see note below) ½ teaspoon cardomon seeds, ground to a fine powder 5 tablespoons of rosewater a drop or two of red food colouring handful of shelled pistachios, roughly chopped (optional) Method: 1. Grease a tray with a little sunflower oil or butter.

2. Next make a syrup by boiling the sugar and water together in a saucepan, until the syrup is at single strand consistency * 3. Add the rose water and colouring to the syrup, stir well to combine, then add the coconut.

4. Mix well and keep stirring until all the water is absorbed and the mixture comes away easily from the pan (around 30 minutes).

5. Quickly tip it onto the prepared tray, smooth the top with the back of a spoon or piece of foil.

6. Whilst warm, cut into squares/diamonds. Place a pistachio on each piece and leave to cool.

7. Once cool, store in an airtight container for up to a week, or longer in the fridge. * Single strand consistency - if you put a drop of syrup between your index finger and thumb, it should form a single strand between both fingers when they are pulled apart slightly.

Notes: • To rehydrate the dried coconut, soak in 250ml of coconut milk for at least half an hour to about an hour. Then purée the mixture in a blender or food processor.

• You can buy rosewater at Grand Frais (Narbonne) or any Arab grocery shop. www.theheraultandaudetimes.com

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Business The HAT Business.

Business just got bigger. On these pages are a selection of articles and information brought to you for your perusal.

This month we ask Daphne Foulkes from Spectrum IFA Group exactly what she does and we talk to Jean-Claude Mas about business in France.

Business Interviews, rhetoric and opinion.

Michael D’Artag writes, interviews or comments on topics that impact you.

Newsflash France is no longer insular In a wonderful about turn, Francois Hollande’s France has embraced the cross border regulations that they have been accused of avoiding to keep the upper hand in Europe and the western world.

Hollande himself has embraced the charisma and oompah of such international luminaries of ex US President Clinton, the letch of Italy Silvio Burlusconi and the adorable Uk politician David Blunkett.

A spokesman was not quoted as saying ‘President Hollande has decided to open up the stuffiness and difficulties associated with France and has decided to follow in the footsteps of these wonderful and dominant leaders in showing no qualms about coming across as a man in power with average sex appeal”.

We asked one of the women in his life what it was about the average looking leader of his country that was so appealing to her.

But you have to ask?

With his popularity falling and his economic plans in tatters is this just a clever ploy?

Most people in France DO believe that the President’s personal life should be private. There is even a groundswell of sympathy for the inconvenience being caused by his having to answer questions not about his questionable management of the economy but how a man who has never been married (shocking I know) has to defend how he trades in one partner after another in the spotlight of politics.

And what of his latest ex?

Trierweiller is not popular in France. Opinionated, outspoken and a journalist.

Funny how a woman with a mind can be cast aside isn’t it?

You know what? France used to behead it’s Kings.

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Daphne Foulkes A Personal Introduction

D

aphne started her financial services career in 1975 and is now a partner with The Spectrum IFA Group, one of Europe’s leading independent intermediaries.

Her role is to create and provide solutions for expatriates by way of a broad range of products and services. Her broad experience from her years of advising both individual and corporate clients demonstrates that she is able to address the unique financial planning needs of expatriates and those with crossborder interests.

Having access to many of the world’s most respected international banking, investment management and insurance institutions and by using tax-efficient structures, she provides advice on asset building, asset protection and ultimately, retirement and estate planning. She ensures that her clients’ investment needs are met in a tax-efficient way, taking into account the importance of cross-border financial planning, where necessary.

Other services include currency exchange, offshore bank accounts and medical insurance. Clients seeking mortgage advice are referred to Spectrum’s mortgage department to receive expert advice in this area.

Daphne works with clients of all ages, wealth and financial experience. The advice is regulated and the process starts with an initial confidential consultation to: • Evaluate your existing savings/investments, pension and protection (insurance)

provision.

• Identify any inheritance issues, particularly as concerns protection of the survivor and mitigation of French inheritance taxes.

• Prioritise your financial objectives (short, medium and long-term).

• Identify how to reach those objectives, on the basis of resources that you can comfortably afford and taking into account your attitude to investment risk.

Subsequently, a bespoke report is prepared recommending investment solutions matching your particular requirements and this will include any relevant product brochures, key features and illustrations of projected benefits/investment returns to enable an informed decision to be made. Time is then spent carefully discussing the report and the recommendations, ensuring that the solutions recommended are understood and fully meet your needs.

Crucially, Spectrum advisers are not agents for any particular company and their clients are advised from an unbiased position of independence.

There are no consulting fees for providing the advice or for the on-going service. The Spectrum IFA Group receives industry-standard fees directly from the financial institutions with which they place their clients’ business and not directly from their clients, as can be seen from our Client Charter at www.spectrum-ifa.com/spectrum-ifa-client-charter/

Contact: Email: daphne.foulkes @spectrum-ifa.com

Tel: + 33 (0)4 68 20 30 17 Mob: +33 (0)7 86 00 76 51 www.spectrum-ifa.com

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Free advice and testimonials offered Call us on 0468 87 18 30 For more information visit our website www.skydigi.fr The Herault & Aude Times

D

French Tax Changes 2014

uring December 2013, the following legislation has entered into force: * the Loi de Finances 2014; * the Loi de Finances Rectificative 2013(I); and * The Loi de Financement de la Sécurité Sociale 2014.

Shown below is a summary of our understanding of the principle changes: * The barème scale, which is applicable to the taxation of income and to gains from financial assets has been revalued. * The décote - which is the tax deduction granted to low taxpaying households - has been increased. * An ‘exceptional solidarity tax’ for high earners has been introduced for a two year period. This will apply in respect of taxpayers who are in receipt of a ‘salary package’ of at least €1 million.

This extra tax will be payable by the employer (rather than the employee * The taxation of capital gains arising from financial assets will now be taxed at the progressive rates set out in the barème scale and a new system of taper relief has been introduced. * The government’s proposal to abolish taper relief, in respect of the taxation of gains arising from the sale of building land, was censored by the Constitutional Council. Therefore, the following will apply: o For second properties and building land, there is a new system of taper relief and the gain will become exempt from capital gains tax after 22 years of ownership and from social

contributions after 30 years of ownership. o To encourage activity in the property market, an exceptional reduction of 25% of the taxable gain will be allowed for sales of properties (but not building land) completed during the period from 1st September 2013 to 31st August 2014. o New rules have been introduced for non-residents selling a property in France, which provide for the possibility to claim some exemption from capital gains tax, subject to certain conditions. * The limit on the amount that can be invested in a “classic” Plan d’Epargne en Actions (PEA) has been increased and to encourage investment in small and medium enterprises, the “PEAPME has been created. * As concerns assurance vie: * Some changes to the taxation of the benefits payable on the death of the policyholder have been introduced for cases where the beneficiary receives more than €700,000. * A new type of assurance vie contract has been introduced, which aims to encourage investment in small and medium enterprises. * Old assurance vie contracts, which were set up prior to 1997, will now be liable to the full rate of social contributions on any gains in the policy. * Reporting requirements relating to bank accounts and investments established outside of France have been strengthened.

Failure to report will be subject to penalties and amounts

France’s Fight Against Tax Evasion

A

s part of France’s continuing efforts to combat fiscal fraud, the ‘loi contre la fraude fiscale et la grande délinquance économique et financière’ was adopted by the National Assembly on 5th November 2013.

Once enacted into law, this will have far-reaching effects, including  Criminal sanctions for serious cases of fiscal fraud.  Taxation at very high rates on monies discovered outside of France, whereby the taxpayer cannot prove the provenance.  Increased penalty for those who evade wealth tax by illegitimately ‘hiding’ assets outside of France.  A lengthening of the period during which the tax authority can take action to prosecute.  The fine for non-disclosure of relevant trusts is to be increased to €20,000 or if greater, 12.5% of the total assets of the trust.

In addition, a public register of trusts is to be created, which

invested from abroad into undeclared contracts will be treated as taxable income in the year that the payment was made.

To read more on the actual details of the tax changes, please visit the Business Pages section of The Herault & Aude Times and our own website at http://www.spectrum-ifa.com/ french-tax-changes-2014/ We are also now planning for our Spring Client Seminars.

There is no charge for any of our seminars and the speakers’ presentations are followed by a buffet lunch, so places must be

www.theheraultandaudetimes.com

will require the names of all beneficiaries to be recorded (even those who are not French resident).

France, like many other countries, is targeting tax evasion more and more and tax authorities around the world are exchanging information. Hiding assets or pretending not to be resident is not a good idea. One way or another, the taxman always finds out and the penalties can be very costly. There are legitimate ways to avoid paying unnecessary taxes and people would be wise to seek advice on this subject.

To read the full version of this article, please visit the Business Pages section of The Herault Times. In addition, if you would like to have a confidential discussion about your own situation, or on any other aspect of financial planning, please contact me or by e-mail at daphne. foulkes@spectrum-ifa.com or by telephone on 04 68 20 30 17. booked in advance. The planned dates for the next local events are:  21st May at Castelnaudary  22nd May at Perpignan  23rd May at Montpellier As the seminars are always very popular, early booking is recommended. If you would like to discuss how the French tax changes may affect you or you wish to attend one of the seminars, please contact me or by e-mail at daphne.foulkes@spectrum-ifa.com or by telephone on 04 68 20 30 17.

35

The Business Interview Jean-Claude Mas W

hat is it that makes a business a success in France?

Beureacracy is definitely a problem but France still has innovative companies and individuals aplenty. We talk to prominent businesses and individuals and and ask the questions...

H

ello Jean-Claude. Can we just start with a few facts and figures?

I read your turnover last year was 39m€?

JC: Taking into account the consolidation of companies, more like 40.1/40.2m Euros.

And you employ 107 staff?

JC: Yes, 107 full-time, but all together its around 115- 120.

How many wine varieties do you produce?

JC : They come under two different labels… one for restaurants, one for supermarkets.

Today with the new acquisitions we produce 96 different wines, don’t quote me on the exact number, it might be 94, it might be 98…

And how many bottles do you produce?

JC: Last year the volume of 75 cl bottles was 18.4m, something like that.

What is your business model?

JC: Basically, the business model that I have created is based on the story of a family who were grape growers, viticulteurs, but who went on to become producers, vignerons.

Knowing that the main concern of a grower is to grow grapes, I have taken it to the next level of being a vigneron where you need to master the know how of growing grapes, the know how of vinification, you need to master the know how of aging and blending and bottling and in marketing. That is basically the foundation of the Domaine Paul Mas. I inherited my luck. I was born on a farm and I was encouraged to go away to became a doctor, or a lawyer, or whatever. But I came back to this business after seeing the world, because I believed it was a business that is very beautiful, you came into contact with the best things… the best wine, the best music, the best art.

I saw that my family had some assets and we were not turning them the right way; I had in my mind already what I needed to produce in order to satisfy the customers, but at the time I didn’t know how to produce it. Once I knew what a Dutch person or an English person, someone who’d never been in wine making, wanted with their wine… basically to see what the market required. I came back to identify if the type of grapes, the type of soil and climate, etc. here could yield that type of wine I wanted to make. That’s 36

basically the business model of Domaine Paul Mas. Rather than being totally biased by a big … pollution, product… wines, forcing me to produce this type of wine then have to sell it no, I had a sense of nature about wine growing because of my father and a sense of wine tasting having learnt it as a consumer; then I went back to my father’s job and learnt stage by stage what I needed to do from the production of grapes, down to the bottling in order to make wines that satisfy the consumers.

Did you find that you could be that consumer’ because of your history?

JC: Yes, that was the second big chance.

I decided to do it the Languedoc… in the Languedoc I discovered that wine making here is a very easy job because nature serves you as best you can expect and you get good grapes to make good wine.

And if we are honest about it, the economics mean that you can buy a lot more hectares here than elsewhere?

JC: The cost of entry into the real wine business here is cheaper. What I did here with no money, compared to trying to do that in say Champagne, well you would need to have serious investors to start. It’s a different pressure.

There is a difference there because your methodology is more ‘New World’ production, you are producing efficiently?

JC: The New World taught me is that the consumer is the most important. You have to produce wines that match expectation and want.

It’s very unFrench!

JC: You know in France there is a big problem with marketing. It’s a big taboo. When I say you need to market it, people say I’m doing bad things in order to sell at a premium.

They are totally confused. Marketing is a very noble science that is worth books and books and books written by some very clever people. It’s a bit insulting when you are true marketing; the essence of marketing is the product, then how you price it, how you present it, how you sell it, how you distribute it. How you promote it, it’s another story.

You know when you see people that, no matter what the guy does… if you go to see a grower who is unshaven with jeans, with holes and so on, he is marketing… when you go to Chateau M, they do marketing, different obviously… black tie marketing. So everybody has got his attitude, but they don’t know it and we need to talk to them about marketing. It is about serving the wants and needs of the consumers. That’s the New World approach.

Secondly, what the New World has brought, that was a fashion of Australian winemakers who I had the luck to work with, was the idea that a winery has to be like a food company, it has to be very clean and very white capped. That’s essential to making The Herault & Aude Times

good wine. Because the so called terroir, the taste that can come from ‘dirty’ wine, I am not interested in it.

How many bottles did you export last year to the UK? JC: 2 ½ million.

I read something that was quoted to you, where you said that the Languedoc needs to change from quantity to quality…

JC: It’s not only a question of numbers; it’s about the philosophy, the mentality. We have to realise that selling so many bottles of premium wine is as important as selling so many millions of bottles at a cheap price. We have to integrate that in all the system.

Does that mean that your mentality and your business model was to go in to a country, create a brand, then educate, then introduce your finer wines? Or was it purely, “there is a market, that’s the one we’ll get market share of before introducing our finer range?

JC: That’s what I identified, the style of wine that existed in such and such a market.

I produce it, because I do. I have the resources to produce it. This is why I managed to start in Japan first, then Germany. Then I expanded by creating a new style of wine. This new style of wine found a market in America, England and Australia. So it’s both ways. To start a brand you need to have a correct wine for the market you have identified as liking this kind of wine. I am not going to force myself to say ‘look this wine that I produce is successful in Japan and I want to send you the same wine’, when in fact what I’ve done is say I’ll taste this wine and then go back and see whether the vineyards could produce this type of wine. But don’t forget one element in this kind of wine, there is a price. For each style of wine there is a price; and each market segment requires such a style.

Who makes those decisions?

JC: I do.

Are you autocratic? Do you make the decisions across the board, or do you have a management team?

JC: Now I have a management team, I have to. But until recently I was dealing with

everything. Now my only little autocratic field is the restaurant. From the beginning I always imposed the menu, etc. This is why the chefs can come and go but the menu will stay the same.

That puts a lot of pressure on you, up until last year Paul Mas actually relied on the key man, you?

JC: Yes. You can’t do everything and I realized you have to spread it which is why I announced 9 months ago that I split it into 6 top managers, each one of whom is part of what we are doing.

You have opened your restaurant Cote Mas and have expansion plans, you mentioned London and you are also working with wine tourism…is this the future?

JC: Basically, yes I think that the new model of business today is that when you grow, obviously you can’t integrate everything, so you have to grow as your business demands. My business demands today that our kind of customers are integrated in to a world of history, I need to go into wine tourism, I need to have beautiful places where I can work on people, I need to have beautiful restaurants, I need to have a place where I can share my wines because I can’t expect to be just a wine producer; I can’t be just a grower because this is not our philosophy, so we have to integrate wine and a style of life which calls for wine tourism, which calls for relationships with artists. May be one day we can create things around wine; we have to integrate the wine with art, beautiful food and so on. Look at the coffee business… from growing beans to coffee machines, to today with shops, that’s the model today.

When you have a product which calls for emotion from what you taste, from what you see, then you have to put it into a model which enlarges this emotion.

Does your business model have a stop point? Where you have to move in another direction?

JC: The stop point is the management of people. One of the things I’ve been doing in my company is that I don’t always go about creating a particular position for hiring a person. I’ve met people who have impressed me and I have created a position in the company for them.

One other aspect is that if you manage a lot of real estate you have to give life to it.

To do this there is only one way to go, it’s to turn it into private, welcoming places.

Out of your turnover, what percentage of your business is utilized for beautification and also for the redevelopment?

JC: It’s very big. It’s nonstop. I invest all the time into real estate and beautification. If you saw pictures of here for example, from 15 years ago you would be scared!

Give me a percentage?

JC: I can tell you that in the past three years we have invested in beautification and improvements – not construction of buildings, you are talking about €6m. So, about 8% of the turnover.

And how much do you spend on marketing?

JC: Marketing, in terms of the turnover it’s not that big. We market a lot of the product, but in terms of advertising, spending a lot of money in marketing studies and so on… non non. I would say that the total would be 2m€, not more.

For the US, out of that 2m€ we invest 300k€ for marketing. Compared to France, the US is the one that we invest the most in terms of marketing.

Staying on food, I have been hugely disappointed in French food and gastronomy in the last 7 + years?

JC: Yes, same problem as the wine business. Since I have had a restaurant I have been lucky enough to be able to talk to some important chefs and all of them have the same opinion which is to get out of France so that they can do what they want to do. It’s a question of improving the environment.

France at the moment is locked from within and externally due to bureaucracy, the fear of change and interference.

Do you believe this statement or is it a stereotype?

JC: France is a big problem, the mentalities that we have created. Any society needs to evolve, its needs to change from time to time. The trouble with France for the past 30-40 years is because the politicians’ words are constantly changing – all of these people say how much we need to change, then nothing changes. We the French people are risk averse and change averse in such a big way that when we change we call it a revolution. (...)

But how is this going to take place? At present there are not many people who think like you in France?

JC: It’s a question of balance. It’s not a flip over that will happen at a certain moment, I have a big belief that this flip over can be developed by entrepreneurs, managers; there are many people who think the way I do, certain companies who have been very successful, especially when it comes to people in their company. So I think we will change the mentality gradually so that you have the ink effect…you know you hope that your people will pass it on to their children…

If you had the chance to make specific changes for business, what changes would you make for the entrepreneurs, for the businessmen and women of this country?

JC: Lead by example.

Give me one more.

JC: Leading by example is one of the most important things. Then probably by giving people in the real world the ability to be more involved in politics.

Do you have a 3/5/7/10 year plan, excluding the wine tourism?

JC: Next stage is to show a certain range of wines, 5,6,7 vintage year olds, that’s one step. It’s a fact that I produce wines that are better when they are 5 years old www.theheraultandaudetimes.com

than when they are two years old. But as well as developing the wines I also plan to produce sparkling wine.

Sparkling wine?

JC: There is a very strong sparkling wine future.

Really? From here?

JC: Yes. It will be ready in almost one year. The grapes are picked by hand and so on. So I will recreate a new economy.

We will need pickers, etc.

Paul Mas did have a local reputation for producing mass-produced, cheaper level wine from those here who were perhaps jealous of your success. What about now?

JC: Now they have respect for me because I have applied a win win strategy and all the people who have been working with me cannot say bad things about me – except may be my architect!!

Do you have a direct competitor in France?

JC: Locally I won’t say that I have any competitors. Red wine, yes I have plenty of competitors. I like to say that sometimes it can be a company from Chile who is a competitor; I like to see that people in Spain are competitors; I like to see that people from other regions in France are competitors. I like to say that, but I won’t say that I have a direct competitor who is looking at what I do…

Where do you think France stands currently in a list of good wine producing nations of the world?

JC: I would say that there are some very good wines; I would say there is a nice come back. If you had asked me that question 6-7 years ago I would have said that we were backward. But now there are interesting things coming out. If you come from Burgundy or Bordeaux, or Loire or Rhone I think they are fighting back. For me I think that Italy remains the no.1. On average, when it comes to luxurious wine I think that France is number 1, but for the world of wine I think that Italy is no.1.

It’s a question of segments, it’s like if you are asking the question about fashion – if you asked about Haute Couture I would say France is no. 1 but if it is high street fashion then Italy is no. 1. **

MD 2014

The full interview with Jean-Claude Mas can be read online from 05/02 www.theheraultandaudetimes.com/ #!the-business-column/c1ez5 37

Nature Notes The Coypu

K

nown in France as le ragondin, the coypu, myocastor coypus, is a large rodent, native to South America, which was introduced to Europe, and other continents, from late in the nineteenth century until the middle of the twentieth century, to be farmed, primarily for the fur trade, but also for food in some countries, as coypu meat is low in cholesterol and has been marketed as a healthy alternative to other meat. Releases and numerous escapes from enclosures meant that wild populations spread where suitable habitat was available.

The coypu looks rather like a very large rat, except that it has longish brown outer fur which covers soft grey fur beneath, prominent orange incisors, and webbed hind feet.

Coypus are largely aquatic. They can be found in brackish and salt water swamps, but they favour freshwater marshes and sluggish rivers, where they make burrows in banks alongside the water. They are voracious consumers of

Text: Alan Kennedy

river plants but they also destroy much more vegetation than they consume.

Coypus reach sexual maturity within a few months of birth. The gestation period is quite long, around 130 days, but females can become pregnant again immediately after giving birth.

The offspring, up to a dozen in a litter, are born in a more advanced condition than many other rodents, although they are usually nursed for the first seven or eight weeks of their lives. Coypus are gregarious and groups of related females, their offspring, and a large male, comprising as many as thirteen individuals, generally remain

In The Garden

with Gill Pound

F

ebruary can still be a quiet time of the year in the garden but as the weather starts to warm up and the days lengthen there are a number of tasks that one can be getting on with to prepare for the coming season:

Above: Rosemary Below: Helleborus corsicus Top Right: Teucriumfruticans Right: Coronillaglauca

38

together in the one area throughout their lives. Although coypus in captivity can live for several more years, they do not often survive past three years in the wild.

Wild coypus are destructive of the environments which they colonise. Research suggests

• General weeding, digging and mulching of flower beds • Check that stakes are holding firm with the winter winds • Turn some organic material (compost, rotted manure etc) into your flower beds and perhaps add some general organic fertiliser • Towards the end of the month start to cut back ornamental grasses, other perennials and sub shrubs such as Salvia microphylla and it’s cultivars, Perovskia, etc • Deadhead winter flowering pansies to encourage repeat flowering.

• Check on the watering requirements of container grown plants, even at this time of the year they can dry out.

• During February or March prune summer flowering shrubs (eg Lavatera, Buddleia) that flower on the current year’s growth, prune winter flowering shrubs such as winter jasmine and Mahonia after flowering. Start to prune roses.

• Planting and moving plants The Herault & Aude Times

• If you haven’t yet done so, prune woody climbers such as Wisteria, Kiwis and Campsis back to two or three buds on sideshoots. Late flowering clematis should also be pruned now, as can Virginia creeper • Make sure that you have finished pruning hedges before the bird nesting season begins, hedges are ideal nesting areas for many garden birds. Nesting boxes can also still be put up in February.

• Keep an eye on the weather forecast and protect tender plants if severe cold is forecast • Start to sow seeds As the days start to lengthen and to warm up a number of spring flowering shrubs and trees will start to flower. Coronilla glauca is an indigenous shrub, and thus very drought resistant, with wonderfully scented flowers during February and March. Teucrium fruticans, a good hedging plant, has pretty little blue flowers. Rosemary is in flower this month too and Helleborus argutiflorus will be brightening up areas of dry shade.

At La Petite Pépinière we continue to receive positive feedback about our programme of gardening courses and this is our programme for the spring of 2014. Our courses are aimed at gardeners in the Languedoc and our intention is to provide information and promote

Nature Notes

Text: Alan Kennedy

that their feeding habits can cause severe depletion in wetland vegetation and contribute to the eventual conversion of some wetlands to open water. It seems also that coypu burrows, sometimes comprising networks of passages several metres long, may erode river banks and damage drainage and irrigation systems. In consequence there have been attempts to eradicate the rodent from some areas which it has colonised, principally in the United States, and in Great Britain, where an eradication program seems to have been successful.

Coypus have not adjusted to seasonal breeding in northern Europe and it is thought that for this reason there no longer exist wild populations in Scandinavia. The wild coypu remains common in temperate Europe, however, particularly in France, despite regular culls, and can be seen in some numbers in the Camargue and in the rivers of the Languedoc, even in urban contexts, wherever suitable vegetation survives along the river banks.

it may be possible to tailor make a course to meet your needs; if this is of interest to a club/ society/group of friends that you belong to then do get in touch indicating your area(s) of interest.

discussion in a relaxed and informal atmosphere which will help those interested in creating interesting, easy to maintain and colourful ornamental gardens. The courses detailed below will be held at La Petite Pépinière in Caunes-Minervois (11160) and will be tutored by Gill Pound, nursery proprietor. All courses are designed for a group of seven to eleven participants. Course fees quoted include coffees, teas etc and you are asked to bring a packed lunch.

For further information contact Gill Pound at La Petite Pépinière de Caunes (shrubs and perennials, unusual plants and plants for dry climates), 21, Avenue de la Montagne Noire, 11160, CaunesMinervois.

An Introduction to Pruning Wednesday 12th March, 10am to 4pm

and the adaptations shown by plants. We will then visit an area of garrigue countryside near Caunes for a 2/3km walk looking at native plants and their potential for the garden before returning to Caunes for further discussion about the use of native trees, shrubs etc in our gardens.

Course fee: 45€

Gardening with Mediterranean native plants –Friday 4th April, 10 am to 4pm

If you are interested in either of the above and the dates are inconvenient do get in touch anyway, it may be possible to change dates or to run an additional course.

This will be an introduction to the principles and practice of pruning, why, when and how.

Practical work in the garden here will be included and we will focus on pruning practices relating to plants frequently found in gardens in the region.

Course fee: 45€

There is increasing interest in gardening with Med basin native plants - as those most likely to be drought tolerant and to be good for wildlife gardening. This course will include a discussion relating to the Mediterranean climate

Tel: 04 68 78 43 81, email Gill@lapetitepepiniere.com www.lapetitepepiniere.com

Tailor made courses:

For groups of six/seven people www.theheraultandaudetimes.com

39

The Theatre Molière in Sète reopens its doors

Text translated by Marie Zamler

T

he Théatre Molière first opened on April 12, 1904 in Cette (Sète changed its name several times. Cette became Sète in 1927). The work, started in 1898, was led by Cette’s Architect Antoine Gour.

The first show was The Favorite, an opera in four acts by Gaetano Donizetti with a French libretto by Alphonse Royer and Gustave Vaëz. 1041 spectators attended this first show.

The Théatre Molière is a théatre à l’italienne (the first opera houses were built in Italy in the 16th century and became the model for the subsequent theatres throughout Europe).

It has a stage separated from the audience by a proscenium arch (part of stage in front of the curtain). Shows à l’italienne offer both the best conditions of visibility and acoustics. It allows also all scenic transformations that the action may require.

Registered as a historical monument since 2003, the Théatre Molière closed its doors in June 2011 and reopened in November 2013.

The theatre’s vibrant programme includes dance, music, cabaret and theatre.

M

Shows to look out for in February and March: * Bestiaire d’amour, starring Isabelle Rossellini (14th Feb) * El Rango, Suite Flamenco, Company Antonio Gadès (14th March) * La Face cache de la lune (The Dark Side of the Moon), Pink Floyd, by Thierry Balasse (4th February) For more information and booking: www.scenenationale-sete-bassindethau.com

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oving your whole life, family and pets to live in a foreign country is hard enough without having to worry about contacting a vet and speaking a different language over the telephone if one of your pets becomes unwell.

We can all speak French to get by in our daily lives but in times of stress and worry finding the right words is difficult, especially with technical medical words that are not used in daily life. Trying to describe what is wrong with your pet in a different language can be scary, that is if you can actually get hold of a vet to speak to.

Any pet owner knows and understands how worrying it can be if your pet’s health and wellbeing may not be 100%, especially if you are unable to get hold of your trusted vet.

You may be unsure if your pet really needs to visit a vet and don’t want to waste a journey, your time or upset and stress your beloved pet further.

There may be something you can do yourself to help them at home without the need to visit a vet and being able to speak to someone who is qualified, speaks your own language and understands what you are going through is a lifeline.

What does Aude based Vet Advice 24/7 offer an English speaking expat pet owner?

Vet Advice 24/7 offers membership to a 24 hour telephone service, similar to the old NHS Direct, but for pets. Our team of registered, English veterinary nurses offer advice at any time of day for general queries, emergency or urgent advice when it is most needed, usually after hours

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when your regular vet may not be on call or doesn’t offer an out of hours service.

Experience shows us that an out of hours visit to a vet can be costly if you are able to get hold of them and sometimes a trip to the vets is not always necessary. As a member of vet Advice 24/7 you can call the number anytime, day or night, 365 days a year. We are staffed exclusively by UK, English speaking, Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons, qualified and registered veterinary nurses with years of experience.

If you have a concern about your pet, the quicker you call, receive the advice and act on the advice, the quicker your pet will receive the correct care and treatment. This provides you with the knowledge and peace of mind that you have done everything you can as quick as you can as well as saving you time, money and heartache.

Rebecca Walsh – Aude wanted to share her experience of the Vetadvice 24/7 service.

“I have three house rabbits and a dog. I signed up for VetAdvice 24/7 as in my experience, vets in France are not as rabbit savvy as those in the UK. Not long after signing up, one of my girls stopped eating and was just not herself. I rang the Advice line and answered a few questions about her symptoms and behaviour. The diagnosis was almost immediate and I was advised to take her to the vets ASAP as she was in the early stages of gut stasis. This can be fatal if left undetected. Thanks to the expert advice by the registered veterinary nurse, Blackberry has now fully recovered.”

Visit www.vetadvice247.com

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The Herault & Aude Times

W

hat I ask you, is an English woman not in the first flush of youth, doing studying Occitan? I moved to France in December 1999, and subsequently started living in the beautiful village of Lauroux in Hérault in September 2006. The first couple of years in Lauroux, I walked my dogs and did some self-hypnosis to learn French more easily, as I came here with only schoolgirl French.

When I felt more confident, I joined and became an active member of

Why Learn Occitan?

By Ruthie Segul

the Foyer Rural in my village. The Foyer Rural is very active in supporting the resurgence of the ancient local language of Occitan and there is a weekly study group in the village. It seemed a natural progression to join my new friends in this group, especially as I love language and communication. I had learned Latin at school, have a knowledge of Italian, and with my blossoming French, I managed to follow the Occitan conversation. Of course, along with the language come the culture; the history; the writing and poetry, and the music. I find the culture absolutely fascinating, and that has kept me involved.

Occitan, also called Langue d’Oc was historically the Romance language of the southern provinces of France and is a mixture of French, Spanish, Portugese and Latin. Occitan is closely related to Catalan and its phonology and grammar are more closely related to Spanish than to French. In the Middle Ages it was the language of the Troubadors and also used as an administrative and judicial language rather than Latin. Written texts in Occitan appeared in the 10th century, but the spoken dialects of Occitan date back to the 8th century. In Occitania, French was not spoken, but in the 13th to 15th centuries all the southern provinces were gradually annexed to the north, and the French Kings did their utmost to minimalise Occitan. The Royals were jealous of the tremendous cultural heritage, wealth and knowledge of the south which the Troubadors kept alive with their verses, songs, news and political items, and spread far and wide. Langue d’Oeil, the basis of modern French has only been spoken in all French regions since the 19th century. Between the French Kings and the Catholic Church, the people of Occitania suffered torture and books and people were put to the flame.

In more recent times, in the 19th century, school children in Occitania were forbidden to write or speak their local language in schools. This was with the aim of bolstering a national French identity.

Of course the language continued to be spoken at home, but retained a stigma. Many of the older villagers alive today can speak the language but cannot write it.

Nowadays the Occitan speaking area encompasses the southern half of France, as well as Monaco, small parts of Italy (Occitan Valleys, Guardia Piemontese) and Spain (Aran Valley). In 1990 Occitan gained official status in the Aran Valley and since 2006 has been the official

language of Catalonia. In France, the second article of the constitution, modified in 1992, states that French is the only language of the State and therefore Occitan has no official status.

Out of 16 million people in Occitania, approximately half a million have a proficient knowledge of Occitan. There are 6 main regional dialects: Limousin; Auvergnat; Provençal Alpine; Provençal Maritime; Languedocian and Gascon. English and Occitan both have approximately the same number of words, and 60% of English is Latin based, despite being a West Germanic language. Here are some examples of Occitan compared to English, French, Spanish and Italian.

ENGLISH OCCITAN FRENCH SPANISH ITALIAN to sing cantar chanter cantar cantare language lenga langue lengua lingua night nuèch nuit noche notte cheese formatge fromage queso formaggio In Languedoc, the final ‘a’ of words is pronounced as an ‘o’, whereas in Marseille for example it is pronounced as an ‘a’. Over 200 words in English that end in ‘tion’ or ‘sion’ are the same in French but with a different pronunciation. All these words are practically the same in Occitan but are pronounced like this: position - posicion – posiSEEYOU; pronounciation - prononciacion – prononciaSEEYOU. This is just a tiny taste of the language and if one is interested, there is a lot of information on the internet. There is now a large movement in the South of France to keep Occitan alive as a vibrant language. Occitan is taught in bilingual associative schools (Calandretas), in state-run primary schools, in high schools as well as Universities. There is an Occitan teacher training course at Montpellier University. Every year in June throughout Occitania, there is the cultural festival of Total Festum, and throughout the year many other events take place organized by local groups. For those of you with Celtic backgrounds, you will find Occitan music and instruments very reminiscent of Celtic music.

Will these children who will be able to read and write Occitan use it in everyday life? My personal view is that with the generation gap – the parents don’t speak it although the grandparents do, it will be difficult for the youngsters to practice it as an everyday language. Hopefully a solution will be found.

Living in the Languedoc, a knowledge of the historical context of local culture and language helps to enrich our understanding of our French neighbours and our chosen environment. That’s why I have been learning Occitan!

For more information contact: ruthie.segal@orange.fr

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41

Classified Ad The Geek we call ‘E-Male’

Facebook. What did I say to uncle Mike?

W

owsers as Inspector Gadget would say.

It has been announced that global smartphone sales topped 1 billion for the first time in a calendar year.

So what you ask?

Well, what is surprising is that if you pop along to your local Orange, SFR or other shop the price of these handsets is still big, often €200 + even with a contract tying you in to a 12, 18 or 24 month contract.

But the push hasn’t come from europe, it is the emerging markets of India and China that have grown so much recently and the handsets doing the damage cost around 150$.

So what does this mean for us? Lower prices on your favourite iPhone or big chunky Samsung?

I’m afraid not. The european market although not growing as quickly is still driven by size and marketing and therefore the prices hold on to the upper end of the scale.

The next question is why people buy the iPhone at all anymore?

I had the first, second, third, third + and fourth iPhone. Dropped most of them and they broke of course which is the norm for Apple but that isn’t my point.

I spoke to an Apple executive end of last year and the light had gone off.

Normally it is like meeting a me in a candyshop, eyes full of excitement and the nervous twitch of wanting to get back to try out more innovations and mind blowing features but alas there is a lull in the candymaking.

Now don’t get me wrong, 42

Apple shipped record units by volume in the last quarter thanks to the hugely disappointing 5c and 5s but this tied into the lowest year on year increase of growth of all the major players.

Samsung of course dominated due in many parts to a marketing budget that blew away the rest. But even they still have problems with margins as we have discussed before.

And so what happens next?

Well Apple are in China and that could / should help them with numbers and profits (as if needed). They do still however need a new breakout product.

Samsung will keep throwing money at market share and in this market that is a winner.

The fear is for the likes of LG, Lenovo and Huawei as Samsung and Apple produce cheaper products in emerging markets then the margins are squeezed and the obvious happens.

See Nokia and Blackberry for further information.

Although in truth I’m not sure about Nokia. If Microsoft can figure out what they want to do instead of playing catch up then the truly remarkable Windows phone (in some instances) does have the potential to upset the apple cart (excuse the pun).

Consumers may decide the end game though as Apple is still the hip, cool kid on the block and as my dear friend used to say when I emerged from 38 hour coding lock in...’ Hey, who looks handsome now?’

Sometimes cool and hip beats the most practical and superior product!

The Herault & Aude Times

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Close to Pézenas 2 Bedroom House to Rent.

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The Church of England at St. Pargoire, Holy Communion 2nd Sunday each month at 1030 am.

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45

FOR SALE

2000 Toyota Celica 1.8VVT-i 6,500 Euros, Right hand drive, Imported to France 2007.

130,000 miles, One owner, Alzonne, Peter Hindley, Tel: 04 68 76 95 30 **

FOR SALE Velux Window GGL3000 with flashing M08 78 x140 EDW M08 €75.00 to clear. t: 0681 02 65 07 Hérault ** BOOKS

English Bookshop - Pézenas Please call in for a chat plus your favourite English foods.

Delightful & unusual gifts for family, friends and you! A wide selection of English books. Rue St Jean ** English Books and Cards available at The English Bookstall: These markets; Monday - Bedarieux, Tuesday - Marseillan Ville, Wednesday Clermont l’Hérault, Saturday - Lodève. Kerith 0467 96 68 87 ** Le Bookshop - Librairie Anglophone / café 8 rue du Bras de Fer - Montpellier Tel. /Fax : 04 67 66 22 90 contact@lebookshop.com www.lebookshop.com ** English Books at the Bourse, Pézenas.

First Sunday of every month from 10 to 12. The Café de la Bourse is next to the Hotel Moliere in Pézenas. All books are 1 Euro or less. Excellent coffee and company. Want to book a table?

Call Carole on 0467905910 **

Fostering

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here possible the SPA Carcassonne prefers to place some of their rescue dogs in foster homes which enables them to assess how they react to different situations and work on their house- training and socialisation where required. This also makes the transition for dogs much less stressful when they are finally adopted and gives adopters more confidence as to the character of their new family member. We have a network of foster carers but we are always in need of more.

As a fosterer you will play an

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Shenanigan’s Irish owned and run, family pub and restaurant. Come and join us for the best prices in the Languedoc.

All rugby, Gaelic and Hurling shown live. Guinness & Bulmers Home cooked food, prepared daily.Plate of the day 10e with a glass of wine. Taxi available.

Open all year.

Vias centre – 0430 17 83 87.

**

Markets I

n every village and every town the Hérault and Aude has a chance for you to visit and explore the magnificent produce and wares that it offers. Below is a selection, please visit www.theheraulttimes.com for a complete listing

AUDE

Carcassonne every morning (except Sunday) in Les Halles; Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday morning, Place Carnot Narbonne every morning in Les Halles Restaurant L’Amindine inc. Sunday; Thursday morning 3 Place du 14 juillet, 34450, Vias opposite the hospital, clothes In the historic centre of Vias and diverse until 16h by the village, traditional, family canal; Saturday morning, restaurant, serving fresh local Organic market, place Forum produce & quality wines Lézignan-Corbières Open daily for lunch & dinner English Spoken Wednesday mornings Tel: 04.67.30.29.78. (centre); Grand Foire every ** first Wednesday in the month until 16h Castelnaudary Monday morning (Place La Charnière Bar Restaurant Verdun-Cours de la RépubA newly opened bar / Restaurant in Beziers Aiming to combine the lique) Bram serving of top class food with a Wednesday morning special rugby ambiance.

Espéraza Place Jean Jaurés, Beziers t: 0467 36 83 10 Thursday and Sunday morning ** Gruissan Monday, Wed & Saturday extremely valuable role in morning reintegrating our dogs into a Limoux - Friday morning normal loving family environOlonzac ment. In our experience rescue Tuesday morning dogs have a much smoother Port La Nouvelle transition into their permanent homes if they have received care Saturday (place de l’église) and Wednesday morning and rehabilitation from a comSigean mitted foster home.

We can supply fosterers with Tuesday and Friday morning dog food, bedding, bowls colQuillan lars/leads etc, and all vet Wednesday and Saturday treatments are covered, providmorning ing you live in Carcassonne or Trèbes near enough to visit our vet.

If you think you would like to Sunday morning help please contact Julie and we Saint Pierre la mer Every morning can arrange for you to meet us and some of our lovely dogs.

The Herault & Aude Times

Hérault AGDE – Thursday morning.

Covered market every morning, except Monday BEZIERS Friday morning: Flower market in the Allèes Paul Riquet Saturday morning: vegetables in the Allèes Paul Riquet; organic produce by Les Halles/ Sunday morning:large general market CESSENON-SUR-ORB Tuesday morning Produce / Saturday morning: various LODEVE – Saturday morning MEZE – Thursday and Sunday morning MONS-LA-TRIVALLE Thursday morning MONTPELLIER – Historic centre, Monday to Thursday 7h to 13h30, Friday and Saturday from 7h to 1800h (full list of Montpellier markets on HT PEZENAS Saturday morning SAINT-CHINIAN – Thursday and Sunday SETE – Monday morning: regional produce/Wednesday morning: various/Thursday morning: organic and regional produce/Friday morning: regional produce.

HAT Sport In Partnership with

Sports by Stuart Turpie

T

Comité Sport Tambourin Hérault

here are some strong rivalries in regional sport but two spring to mind. Béziers and Narbonne in the 15 a side rugby code and FC Lezignan v AS Carcassonne in the 13 a side game.

Narbonne edged a win against their rivals during December

ble. When they play against ASC or FCL the games are considered to be ‘derbies’ but the rivalry is generally tough but fair. This is less the case when the Canaries of Carcassonne meet FC Lezignan who have a more bitter relationship.This season has been

and are hovering in the play off places. The HAT anticipated that Racing Narbonne would be the strongest of the region’s 3 XVs in the Pro B this season and we have been shown to be correct.

Béziers have not quite lived up to our billing though and are in the bottom half of the table, unable to grab many points away.

Even worse Carcassonne are at the foot of the league. We have to wait till May 3rd for the Narbonne v Béziers battle that may decide promotion prospects for Racing.

The 3 Rugby League clubs in the Elite 1 in Aude are all rivals.

As we predicted Limoux Grizzlies are in great form and top the ta-

business as usual as the two 13s are level pegging in 4th place.

To make things even more ‘interesting’ the clubs were drawn against each other in the French Cup ( the Coupe Lord Derby in January ).

Lezignan supporters were less than confident even though drawn at home at the Stade du Moulin. Their new recruits have struggled to blend in to the side.

Prop Ryan O’Hara , signed from Hull KR has been unimpressive after a late start. Should he have been risked after a full season out with a serious injury? The Tongan Pulu , also a prop, has also been ineffective and looks to be inexperienced. In Griffi

CAN YOU HELP? -SPA CARCASSONNE

B

raquou arrived at the refuge with a dogrescuecarcassonne.co.uk/ very badly damaged back leg. Unfortunately Braquou’s operation was not a success.

As a consequence he drags his back leg behind him. He loves his walks and and is very strong on the lead. He is not always good with other males, but is castrated

and Ancely, FCL already had 2 entertaining. In local football decent props and perhaps more the attention is on FC Sète who creative leaders were needed. have reached the last 32 of the Aussie backrower Cooper seems Coupe de France. Their fate is to drift through the games. In not known at the time of gothe cup match though the home ing to press but the HAT wishes side gave their all and led 10-8 at them well. Christophe Rouve, half time. Carcassonne’s brilliant still playing at 43, scored a goal half back Gresque took charge in the previous round in front of late in the match and when Maz- 4500 fans at the Stade Louis Miard scored in the corner, a try chel. The biggest crowd seen for converted by Gresque, to make a number of years in Sète. Montthe score 26-20, FCL looked to pellier are the only other Aude have let things slip. A late rally Hérault side left in but may be saw them cross the line near the wiser to concentrate on mainposts to force extra time. The taining their Ligue 1 place. referee initially signalled a try In the Division Honneur but then inexplicably ruled it out Fabregues are keeping up the for problems with the ground- standard and promotion to the ing. Since he was less than 5 ms CFA2 is likely. In rugby unions away at the time this seemed Federal 3 Vendres-Lespignan bizarre. ASC held on to win the are the HATs tip for promotion. match. The game had been Enjoy your sport and try to back punctuated by controversy. A your local 11, 13 or 15. A great violent late hit on FCL’s kicker way to get involved with the Benausse led to a 10 minute local community. sin binning when a red card could have been justified.

The same player was fouled The 1m short of the line and the Herault & Aude Times possibility of a penalty try is proud to be was raised only for the home side to have to settle for partnered with: the 2 points. The home fans were naturally furious when a number of other close calls when against them. It was that sort of match and some brilliant rugby league was played. Indeed, a FCL v ASC ‘Derby’ to remember with Carcassonne just having the edge when it mattered.

Lets hope the Racing Narbonne v Béziers game is as www.midicricket.com

and if handled correctly could probably live with other animals, providing introductions are made properly. Braquou was born in January 2006, He is castrated, and fully vaccinated.

He is a French pointer.

He is fine with children, and adores the time out of his

Midi Cricket Club

kennel. Great supporter of the refuge, Didi, has offered to pay his adoption fee. So as long as the home is good, this boy can leave for free!

Please help Braquou find a new home. This is his 3rd winter at the SPA. Had he been able bodied, he would surely have left a lot sooner.

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