Wednesday, August 19, 2009

Is it cheating?

Returning, very briefly, to the idea that the Brits might be more "aspirational" than the French, the two countries certainly have different codes of behaviour when it comes to things sportif.

So, for example, in beating Paris to secure the right to host the next Olympic Games, London clearly cheated. How? Because Lord Coe and his team - "perfide Albion" to the French - lobbied behind the scenes.

They did what? Um, yes, they went out of their way to chat up the presidents of the other Olympic committees.

Then, during the last Tour de France, the British cyclist Mark Cavendish, who won six stages on French territory, was guilty of something very close to cheating in French eyes.

What did Cavendish do? He took drugs? No. But his experience as a youngster as a track cyclist - where it’s possible to develop a very explosive style - gave Cavendish an unfair advantage in the mass sprint finishes that characterised this year’s Tour de France. And, what’s more, he had the best team on his side.

I’ve given up trying to put the Brit point of view: that, in both of the above cases, it’s the professionalism of Coe and Cavendish that helped them secure their prizes. You can’t win races on skill and innate talent alone - you have to have aspirations to go beyond what you were born with. In a sense, it’s your duty to do everything you can - legally - to win, isn’t it, if you’re in the position of professionals such as Coe and Cavendish?

“Ah”, reply my French friends, “but you don’t have more skill than us, just more money…”

Tuesday, August 18, 2009

Hairy, club-carrying and wood-dwelling

As well as unearthing the story of Florence Nightingale, my current work for Culturissima and English Heritage has been introducing me to a handful of historical figures whom I was previously only dimly aware of.

One of my favourite discoveries is General Augustus Pitt Rivers (1827-1900), a soldier and archaeologist extra-ordinaire. Widely considered the father of modern British archaeology, the General was also a committed philanthropist: from the early 1890s onwards he set about designing Larmer Tree Gardens,"an extraordinary example of Victorian extravagance and vision" set in the heart of Dorset, south-west England.

Pitt Rivers created Larmer for the delectation and delight of the general public, and, as well as admiring the parkland, pagodas and free-flying parrots, it’s also possible to visit some of the ancient burial sites and villages unearthed by Pitt Rivers. A modern equivalent of Pitt Rivers is Martin Green, one of Dorset’s foremost field archaeologists, whose private museum at Down Farm houses the archaeological remains that Green has excavated on his land over the past 40 years.

Sir Robert Walpole (1676-1745) is another of the colourful characters who has been populating my working life (and dreams!) over the past couple of weeks. Walploe is a British politician who dominated parliament for over two decades; in fact, he’s generally regarded as Britain's first prime minister.

Born at Houghton Hall in Norfolk, one of England’s grandest country houses, and later educated at Eton and Cambridge, Walpole was the first prime minister to live and work at 10 Downing Street. Life wasn’t always so easy for Sir Bob, though: ridiculed as Sir Blustering by his enemies, he sailed closed to corruption on more than one occasion and even spent six months marooned in the Tower of London.

My favourite encounter of the last few weeks, though, hasn’t been with an archaeologist or politician.

Hairy, club-carrying and wood-dwelling, the wild man or "woodwose" is a familiar figure in mediaeval art and literature. Part-man, part-beast, he - and sometimes even she - can still be seen going about his daily business, whether it’s hunting lions with a Herculean club or throwing a pagan stare over a congregation of Christians. The wild man is carved into the very fabric of Norfolk and Suffolk: the region’s early churches and historic houses, even its heraldic coat of arms, bear fertile witness to the potency of the woodwose. East Anglia is still alive, too, with tales of beasts and monsters - including the 12th century wild man of Orford:

Men fishing in the sea caught in their nets a wild man. He was naked and was like a man in all his members, covered with hair and with a long shaggy beard. Brought into church, he showed no signs of reverence or belief.

Ce n'est pas possible!

The Algerian Embassy in Paris - I always venture there with mixed feelings: happy at the thought of applying for a visa to go back to Algeria... but fairly sure that something will go wrong before that visa is finally pasted into the pages of my passport.

This is the third Algerian visa I've applied for in the past few months, so I've become something of an old hand now at gathering all the required paper-work together (in multiples of at least three). And I'm pretty familiar with all the tricks of Algerian bureaucracy: you can only pay for the visa in hard cash, you have to write in block capitals in a black pen, you have to declare undying love for Algérie (and add for good measure what rotters the French were and the Americans are).

Anyway, I turned up at the embassy, just a short hop from the Arc de Triomphe here in Paris, armed with all the usual parephenalia. The visa office opens at nine-thirty in theory and ten thirty in practice. Having patiently waited my turn, I prefer to hand over a single document at a time, so I can triumph each of the clerk's triumphal looks - "Ah, but you don't have Form B52, Section A" - with my own triumphal: "Bah, si, si, Monsieur: le voilà!" This dance goes on for about ten minutes until the official asks for a document with my proof of residence on it.

It's at this point that I always say: "No, Monsieur, you are mistaken: I checked the documents on your web-site very carefully and nowhere does it say that one needs proof of residence".

"No proof of residence, no visa".

"Ce n'est pas possible! Why doesn't it say that on the web-site or in the information pack, then?

"Don't ask me. You're not French so you need proof of residence".

"I'm European, so I don't need one".

"Next!"

I then draw the proof of residence letter out of my pocket and give it to the official. He makes me wait ten minutes, says come back tomorrow at ten and collect your visa, I come back at ten to collect the visa, he says come back at ten tomorrow... and eventually I get it.

Except not this time. Because this time, unlike only a couple of months ago, the gatekeeper won't accept a letter from my bank as proof of where I live.  "You could have a bank account at one address and live at another".  "Uh, why would I do that then? I'm a law-abiding citizen", I say with a smile.

"Next!"

"Oh, comme on, you were happy with exactly the same document six weeks ago".

"That was a favour".

So what do I need? I need a letter from the French equivalent of British Telecom or British Gas. "But", I point out, "I am renting my flat, it's in my girlfriend's name, so I don't have anything like that".

His response? The owner of the flat has to write a letter, go to the town hall, get it stamped, then I have to bring it in to the embassy, he'll get it stamped... et voilà, I can start to apply for the visa all over again.

One small problem, I say: the owner of the flat lives in America.  "Okay, he has to..." well, all of the above, but in addition he has to get the document translated into French first... yeah, right, in the middle of the American mid-west. I decided it would be easier to get the visa from the British Embassy in London.

When I told this story to an Algerian friend, she pointed out: it costs an Algerian living in Algeria three times as much money to get a visa to come to London; they have to queue for three times as long; and then the embassy never writes to them to tell them whether they've been successful or not... so they have to go through all the queuing a second or a third time to see whether they can come to sunny old England.