Miscellaneous
Page 2
Good old Comment c'est fait... Maybe it's a male thing, but I can always watch programmes about how you actually make the ordinary objects that fill our lives. The immense care with which CDs are made inspires with the thought - thank God someone invented the mp3 ! It also occurs to me that I should really search out a series of cooking programmes on French TV. That would exercise our vocabulary, woudn't it ?
24H Buzz is a cheerful bit of nonsense where two over-excited presenters introduce a little documentary telling us how stars were spotted in the road, in hamburger joints, outside their schools. Considering the age at which some of these people are 'spotted' it surprises me that the head-hunters don't get arrested...
I always record discussions on the French language. This one was promising, between Daniel Pivot, Claude Hagège the haughty linguist, and Richard Bohringer. In the event, it was an odd discussion... you'll see why
Mid-July 2011 and French Television news is reporting with glee on the News of The World scandal in London. Here is John Hanley of the Guardian who is asked if this means that the gutter press is finished in Britain, and replies that no, despite these scandals, a country needs a free press to act as a contre-pouvoir to the men who run the country. Quis custodiet ipsos custodes, of course... not Rupert Murdoch, that's for sure.
Here's Comment c'est fait on the subject of airline food. Of course, they spend a long time explaining how carefully the business class meals are prepared, and then add casually, 'Of course, economy class doesn't get the same care'. You can say that again...
La chasse à courre, à cor et à cri, is what in Britain we call fox-hunting, and which was banned in 2004, not without opposition. "The unspeakable in full pursuit of the inedible" was what Oscar wittily called it, and it is interesting that the deputé Yves Cochet, who has espoused the cause of the anti-hunting lobby, describes the French version in much the same terms. He makes a distinction between the ordinary hunters, who hunt as men have done for millions of years, and the bourgeois - indeed aristocratic - ritual of hounding an exhausted animal to death. It makes for a nice piece for us, though
TF1 gave us Les 30 histoires les plus extraordinaires. I have to say I was disappointed, most of the stories being American, not French. And given that France recently gave us the unbelievable story of Dominique Strauss-Kahn, I would have thought that that would have been the easy winner... However, here's a nice obsessed Frenchman who devoted his life to searching for his American GI dad.
Here is Comment c'est fait on making the 3D prototypes which are the models for all the thousands of different parts which make up our hoovers, dishwashers, etc. I liked the reflection at the very end "les machines qui ont permis de fabriquer ces pièces sont elles-mêmes faites de différentes pièces réalisées de la même manière. C'est un cercle sans fin" We're made the same way, of course. Man is a machine for creating the parts to make another man.
Envoyé spécial is a current affairs programme which tries to get people all het up about the little corruptions that have always lain behind the world of politics and of business. Here is an enquiry about the Légion d'honneur which affects to be surprised that Jacques Chirac gave the distinction to his pals from his constituency of Corrèze, or that Nicolas Sarkozy gave it to people like Barbara Streisand and Dany Boon ... or his tailor
And I loved this honest remark from the President
Et puis moi, je suis pas obligé de décorer que des gens que je
ne connais pas
que des gens que j'apprécie pas
ou que des gens qui ont dit du mal de moi !
September, and it's la rentrée, which means that there are once more some programmes to watch on French TV. A welcome return is E=M6, which in this episode tells us about the difference between men and women. Popular science, unassuming, but really not bad at all.
As impressive as it gets... Viktor Vincent 'Mentaliste' works out the PIN code of the credit card of a hapless Parisian florist. This is from an occasional half hour series early Saturday evenings, on France Télévisions. It's a very good example of two types of listening difficulty - speed and clarity. In fact, if someone speaks clearly, speed is not a real difficulty. I found the speech of the florist at the end much harder to pick up. Oh... and if you can pick up the name of the flowers at the end... let me know
TF1 screened something called La plus mystérieuse histoire... This was the winner, a story of mysterious knockings from an intelligent entity in a house ... all of this recorded and attested to by the captain of the local police. Good one. Because the policeman is a local lad, his voice is not always that easy to follow
I don't often see the breakfast show TéléMatin, because it runs from 5.30 am to 8 am GMT, and enthusiasm has its limits. However, every so often I like to record a contribution from one of their chroniqueurs. Here is Frédérick Gersal, whose style is excitable. I was a little surprised by his choice - the Munich Olympic Games Massacre when Palestinian terrorists of the group Black September made an unwelcome appearance at the Games. It is today 21st September 2011, and Palestine is trying to get the UN to agree to the foundation of a Palestinian state. French TV is usually discreet about things like that. However, deciphering the unfinished sentences of M. Gersal is the interest here, not world politics.
Like everybody else these days I have too many channels, many of which don't appear in the TV guide. One that appeared recently is called simply 'Test 4'. I imagine it's going to become one of the Orange cinema channels. Anyway, I recorded a half hour on spec, and chanced on something called Cinéstyle. Excellent... the idea is to talk about the costume design of well-known films. This was on Charlie Chaplin, and I have to say it made for six minutes of real pleasure.
If I don't do a Comment c'est fait regularly I get withdrawal symptoms. So here's one on milk production. Happy cows looked after by computers. I think Charlie Chaplin would have appreciated this bovine version of Modern Times
