Miscellaneous
Page 3
One of the very best programmes on FranceTélévisions at the moment is Un jour un destin presented by Laurent Delahousse. It presents the biographies of stars but without the mawkish sentimentality of a lot of these programmes. This one was on Simone Signoret, a very great lady of French cinema. This clip describes the success she and Yves Montand had in New York, when they finally woke up to the idea that communism wasn't a good idea and went to the States. Signoret was the first French actress ever to win an Oscar .
You will note that she got the award for her role in what is described as 'a little English film' which she had happened to make. Three times we hear about this 'little English film'. Well, it was Room at the Top, with Laurence Harvey, my friends and it wasn't so little...
M6's weeken popular science programme E=M6 did a piece on compulsive behaviour. French is more logical than English and we learn that when a pulsion(= urge) is unhealthy, it becomes a compulsion. Naturally I hoped we were going to hear all about Dominique Strauss-Kahn as a text book example.. but they weren't that brave
Echappées belles is a nice little series from France 5 where broadcasters visit regions of France and other countries to discover 'the local colour'. This one was on the region of Bourgogne, where we meet a group of feminist winegrowers. A bit odd, but good fun
The popular science programme E=M6 instructs us on the reason for cramps and what the French call chair de poule. In Britain we call it goosebumps - is that perhaps because it's colder here and the bumps are bigger...?
Yesterday evening was the Miss France competition on TF1. No point in being snobbish about this sort of event, which in France is done with a certain elegance. The girls are students, pretty, more intelligent and considerably taller than the presenter, Jean-Pierre Foucault, who next to them looked strangely furtive. One of these seven won the competition. I'll give you a clue, it wasn't the first, Miss Languedoc - but it should have been !
Both France 5 and LCP, La chaîne parlémentaire have discovered how to make political interviews palatable to the viewing public. The days when Jean-Pierre Elkabbach and Alain Duhamel interviewed George Marchais are gone. Now the interviewers are highly intelligent, articulate and extremely pretty young women. C politique, fronted by Géraldine Muhlmann is a case in point. Here she is gently putting Eric Besson off his stride
Here's the other presenter who makes it possible for me to watch LCP's evening round-up of French political news. Sonia Mabrouk is her name and she appears along with her faithful dwarf, Jean-Louis Gombeaud. M. Gombeaud is an economist, which must be one of the most uncomfortable professions possible in a country which has a traditional distrust of money and financial precision. Here he attempts to explain the Socialist Party's position on the age of retirement, and he quotes Cardinal Retz "On ne sort de l'ambiguïté qu'à son détriment". It does rather sum up French politics...
We end December with an extract from a Des Racines et des Ailes on Paris, in which we met Victor and Melina who every day live in the 1950's. I loved Victor .. this strange micture of gentleman anglais, and Parisian pimp. A nice little piece, not always easy to follow
