3rd December 2008

The French sometimes struggle to come to terms with this internet age. Living here is a curious mix of the ancient and the modern, each jostling for position in a land famed for its love of tradition and old values. On the one hand, no-one seems to knock anything down, preferring to leave in situ all those ancient, wonderful chateaux and riverside watermills - waiting for the arrival of les rosbifs (the English) to spend vast swathes of money on renovation. But, on the other hand, the French still feel they are the most superior people on earth so don't wish to be left behind in this internet age. Sometimes I get a fit of the giggles when I see an IT engineer struggling through some ancient stony portal in order to establish a broadband connection in one of the oldest villages in the world. Never the twain shall meet?
Well, now French TV seems also to have come of age. There is a plan for the French government to launch its own 'Web TV' site, with proposals to respond to questions about public services and reforms. However, comme d'habitude with anything new, the public is up in arms. Enter stage left, government Information Services Minister Thierry Saussez, who tells everyone not to worry. "Propaganda is saying the president is the greatest', he says, "so we don't be doing that." Quite. Everyone knows that we don't need a web TV for that: the man himself is more than capable!

25th November 2008

It seems that the current hullabaloo about standards and advertising on the BBC is spreading to France too. I, personally, have never understood why the British licence fee was set up to cover the costs of the BBC, but that viewers wishing to view only the commercial channels still have to pay the fee.
Now, French deputies are meeting to examine plans to reform French public broadcasting. The planned law has been controversial since the announcement of Nicolas Sarkozy to halt advertisements on French TV, which is publicly owned, as from Jan 5. Apparently there is to be a vote by the National Assembly on Dec 9, but so far, whatever Nicolas wants, Nicolas gets.
Up until now the public channels in France have been allowed to raise 25% of their revenue from advertising. However, limits have always been imposed on the amount of TV advertising, which may not average more than 6 mph per day, with a maximum of 12 m in any single hour. A TV licence (rédevance sur les postes de télévision) is required by most TV owners in France, costing currently around 120 euros a year for a colour set. The licence fee covers any number of TVs (owned or rented), irrespective of where they’re located in France. Even if you bring a UK set to France and intend only using it to watch videos, you must still have a valid licence. The current method is for the taxe d’habitation (residence tax) bill to include as standard the licence fee, making it far more difficult to dodge paying it. Damn! It’s called inertia selling (‘invented by a Scotsman,’ says H – ‘in Ayrshire’), forcing the few who don’t possess a TV to actively claim back the licence fee tax.
We'll just have to wait and see what happens if the new bill goes through, but my guess is that, as usual, the poor old viewer will have to pay more. Tant pis (too bad).

11th September 2008

In an old cardboard box we keep at the bottom of the wardrobe I found a photo of myself taken in the 1980s. Other than the fact that I looked a lot younger, with an old-fashioned 'Afro' perm, it was the setting that gave me such a shock. I was sitting in front of a marble statue at the World Trade Centre in New York! I felt quite numb at the thought of what lay right there today. It's now 7 years since that fateful day, but the world is moving on - quite rightly so. And, after the fears of yesterday's experiments in Geneva, what else can we do? But, for the French, life is comme d'habitude. Although they are famous for the liberality of their bodies, their minds are quite another thing. In my experience, they do not like to dwell on their thoughts for fear of appearing ignorant. The French news channels seem to perpetuate this stance, not covering disasters such as 9/11 in anything like the regularity or concentration of English tv or Sky channels. No, French tv trawls across the different departements of France, giving a balanced look at what is happening across the country - sometimes lightweight, yes, but it doesn't matter. Yes, the French channels do include world events, but these do not saturate the news to the exclusion of all else. When in the UK, I try to limit myself to watching the news only once a day. Well, it's a constructive way to beat those depressive thoughts. 'The world might end?', 'a repeat of 9/11 around here?' Non merci. I'm too busy watching how to make champagne.

23rd August 2008

When we first contemplated moving to France, it was clear that the ideal scenario would be to enjoy all things French but also to have a few essential things from the UK: i.e. the BBC. Of course, him indoors quite rightly said 'what's the point of moving to France if all we're gonna do is watch Eastenders and all the other soaps?' However, how could we actually obtain English TV/Radio programmes so far away? I'd heard that it's illegal to watch Sky in France, so needed expert advice. We asked around. Apparently the whole subject is a grey area. Sky's broadcasting licence covers only the UK. Because of Sky's licensing restrictions, though, you can't subscribe to any Sky service from a foreign address, you shouldn't connect the Sky box to a telephone line if it's overseas (which means you can't use most of the interactive services) and you should never phone Sky from overseas. We had two choices: Ask to connect to Sky from a UK address or via a company based in France that is licensed to supply and instal Sky systems overseas. We chose the latter. So, voila! We can now watch all the BBC stations plus ITV, Film4, SkyNews, CNN etc. But - and there's always a 'but' here in France - every time it rains, we get pixelated faces on screen and an alarming chunking sound. And, of course, this always happens just when we've reached the denoument in a particularly exciting film. Another problem is the frequent power cuts round here, when in a flash, our English programmes change to French! Oh, the wonders of modern technology.
P.S. Don't miss tomorrow's exciting episode in the Sunday serial 'Sex a la francaise'.