Skills

Spent yesterday afternoon learning more about the lifeboat. Boy, is there a lot to learn: some of it technical, a lot of it physical, and getting a knack for some of the gestures needed is quite humbling. Coiling ropes, for instance, so that they will not spontaneously knot, is something which looks easy when you see somebody experienced doing it, but when you try it yourself it is surprisingly laborious and uninstinctive.

One of the skills I must practice and practice is coiling and throwing the light line with the weight on the end, which is used to haul in the real towline onto the boat in distress. I spent about an hour and a half doing this yesterday, and got very wet. It didn't seem to annoy the mullet swimming lazily around the lifeboat, even though the weighted ball at the end (pomme de touline) plopped really hard into the water, at variable and usually derisory distances from our boat. Meanwhile, the local fishermen were looking on with grins of polite amusement.

Quite a long time was spent on familiarising myself with the VHF radio, which has a relatively restricted range - roughly to the horizon. This instruction in its use meant the set was actually on, and listening to the constant squawk of radio traffic made me realise just how much activity is going on in a relatively restricted sector of coast.

Then came paperwork. The chartroom was full of certificates and permits. But what was even more interesting was the instruction manual for burial at sea. Apparently the station makes money to defray its expenses (which are enormous) by proposing the casting of the ashes of cremated loved ones out to sea - in a biodegradable, ecologically certified urn. The 'service' to be read out was not quite my cup of tea (too much artificial sweetener), so I asked who had to read it out. "Not the cox, that's for sure!" was the prompt reply, followed by "I give the orders around here!", which made me think I might have to brush up my French oratorical skills.

Finally, I have been allotted a 'parrain', or godfather, who I am to work with on deck. He will be the one to keep an eye on me and check that I am not endangering myself or anybody else. The parrainage required, you guessed it, a libation (in my case water, in theirs... something a bit stronger).

Formation accélerée

Yesterday was spent at the lifeboat station, receiving accelerated training from the cox. A nice guy, ex-navy, now working in the technical services of the local hospital. The training started with a detailed visit to the whole lifeboat, crawling into tiny, airless and cramped spaces, memorising where stopcocks, interruptor switches, emergency lighting, fire-fighting apparatus can be found. A lot to take in, and it was reassuring to hear that I will be hearing it again, and again.

Next followed matelotage, or rope-work. My clove-hitches were judged 'nickel' (super), and my knots for tying sheets (ropes) together were OK, if a little slow. Where I was hopeless was in relearning a different way of tying a bowline. I had done it the summer camp way, which is hopelessly slow and fiddly, if quite entertaining. I would have to learn the fast method, because often that knot is needed in a hurry. Unfortunately, the cox is left-handed, and I found it well nigh impossible to translate the movements into right handed, and neither could he, when demonstrating. Something to practice assiduously at home. Still, by this morning, I had hacked it, but I am probably not up to what they would call a satisfactory speed.

After these rather mixed results, it was on to how to attach a tow. Not just one rope, but three. The main towrope has about the diameter of a broom handle, and is equipped with an eye at the loose end. This is then shackled onto a shorter length of rope, in the shape of a 'Y', with loops at all three extremities, which actually gets fixed to the boat needing towing. All of this is far too heavy to throw, so a third, light line, intriguingly called a touline (towline) is then hitched on to the second rope (using a bowline, what else? holding together the two loops at the top of the 'Y'). This light line has a weighted ball at the other end, which provides the momentum to reach the other craft.

What then happens theoretically (but not often with Italians I am told), is that on the craft needing assistance you haul in the touline, bringing the second rope to the boat, and this you then attach, by opening the 'Y' and looping each branch to a separate cleat. The whole caboodle of boat with second cable is then towed using the first main thick cable. In the case of the Italians, apparently, the light line (like thin washing line with a tennis-ball stuck on the end) is believed to be the tow, and dutifully hitched, with inevitable consequences.

I have been told that the summer is almost non stop towing of boats that have got into difficulties, many crewed by Italians, so it will be a well rehearsed manoeuvre before long.

Then came mooring drill. Here in the Mediterranean, where there is little port space, and no appreciable tide, so boats are moored stern to the key, with four cables at the stern and two at the bow. Quite complicated when a wind is causing the boat to drift out of alignment and you are reversing into a very narrow space between other fragile and expensive boats.

By this time, the deputy cox had arrived. He was smoking a cigar, as he had just come off duty on the charter yacht he captains. That did not prevent us having to do the daily ritual of the peck on both cheeks, this requiring careful three-dimensional positioning so as not to burn our ears on the embers of his favourite smoke. There being three of us, it was time to roll all the firehoses used the day before, and left to dry over night in festoons from the radar mast. Now familiar with the boat, I was told to stow them in the fire locker. But I couldn't open the hatch. Somewhat embarrassed, I called for help, which came in the form of a shout from up on deck "Fous-lui un grand coup!" (F-ing thump it!). Another bit of highly technical accelerated training accomplished...

Still, there are rewards, like a post-training planter's punch made with genuine ingredients from Martinique, courtesy of a civic delegation from St Pierre, who gave a three litre, super-strength rum pack (the kind of wine bag with a collapsible foil container inside and a small tap) to the station, along with Martinique grown limes (even better than the rum in my view).

Today, more of the same, and no doubt a check on my capacity to do a bowline their way.

Fisherman's festival

These little boats, double enders, are the traditional fishing boats round here, now chiefly used for leisure. There is an annual rowing race across the bay. Hot work, that requires industrial strength coolant supply from the lifeboat's firefighting kit. It took four of us to hold the hose, and I am the one furthest aft on the foredeck, making sure no kinks happen in the hose, which gets really heavy and stiff, with a life of its own.

Me about to disembark for lunch, having just helped to haul in mooring ropes at the bow. Getting the flags down required me to shin up the radar mast. Strangely no vertigo when on water.

°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°

No blogging done in the last couple of days because I have been putting in long hours on the local lifeboat. I've been taken on as a trainee crewman, which means that I take part in exercises and non emergency work, but am not yet qualified to go out on a 'shout'. The station here, despite a huge amount of leisure boating (and risk of accidents or breakdowns) is a little short-manned, which is why, I think, they were willing to take me on.

The long hours over the weekend were because we were on duty for the fisherman's festival (St Pierre), which includes lots of boat related mayhem (including squirting the rowers of the pointus with our fire hose to cool them down after a race), and quite a bit of water taxi work out to the Abeille Flandre, a big rescue tug. Yesterday was the wreath laying ceremony for all the seafarers who lost their lives at sea. The mayor, Leonetti, the parish priest in all his togs, and a group of wizened old salts bearing banners, all came on board a for once absolutely gleaming lifeboat (we had spent quite a few hours giving it a buff and polish that morning). We, too, had changed from work clothes into summer dress uniform (navy shorts and white short sleeved shirts with the SNSM logo).

Offshore, in full view of the ramparts, the priest grabbed a loudhailer and gave his blessing, in a tone which was quite moving. Meanwhile, a couple of lifeboatmen, including me, were holding the wreath, which was pretty heavy, (the frame was made of old pallets) but which we had ballasted with some spare anchor chain to make sure it fell into the sea the right way up. His nibs the mayor (looking quite nervous about being on board a boat which was bobbing just a wee bit) was symbolically ready to give the ceremonial push. We had been told, quietly, that our job was to correct his aim.

When the signal came, we tried to launch the wreath flat, like a frisby. Easier said than done when it has to clear the railings and all the gear at the stern of a lifeboat. Still, it did bellyflop into the water flower side up. The small boats began to circle around the semi-submerged floral tribute, and the priest then turned to me and owned up quietly that his grandfather, a fisherman, had drowned at sea not far from that spot.

Everything flows, except piss

The emperor Vespasian knew a thing or two about taxation. The trick was to try and find an activity or goods everybody must have, and then devise a way to make sure people couldn't evade the impost placed upon it. In the emperor's case, he decided that the activity nobody could dispense with was peeing, so he built public toilets, not as a convenience, but as an enforced, and therefore taxed locus for micturition, with heavy penalties for relieving onesself elsewhere. This new tax, a turning on its head of the old vectigal urinae levied on the industrial users of collected urine, probably gave rise to the Latin proverb 'pecunia non olet' (money has no smell). The name of this tax reformer lives on in France in those strange metallic monuments, for men only, the grammatically feminine vespasiennes. Mind you, the average Frenchman of a certain age thinks nothing of urinating anywhere and against anything, particularly churches.

Today, I saw a crowd of anxious ladies in a devastated circle around the entrance to the municipal toilets near the bus station. I went to look, as it is a place where accidents often happen on the slippery tiled steps, and where I had had to help an elderly and very shaken German lady last week. It turned out that the mass protests against Sarkozy's retirement pension reforms included a strike by toilet attendants.

Whether being forced to pee for the good of the imperial treasury, as in the case of Vespasian's unfortunate subjects, or old ladies being denied the opportunity to pee, courtesy of the frequently peeved French public sector, you realise that the effectiveness of decisions relies not so much on absolute coercive power (Britain's grotesquely punitive prison record is an example of how more actually means less) as on the speed with which effects begin to be felt. In the case of toilet denial, the effect is pretty well instantaneous. The ladies got the message...

The saying ascribed to Heraclitus, Πάντα ῥεῖ, [everything flows], was clearly transmitted to posterity incomplete, as there must have been an exception for the contents of the bladder. Πάντα ῥεῖ (oύκ άτερ ούρου). Everything flows (with the exception of piss).

Fête de la musique

I don't know when this festival started, though I suspect the BH does, having been conscripted year after year in its organisation in Edinburgh. It's a bit of an oxymoron, music in a thoroughly unmusical country. To be honest, it's the most tone-deaf nation I have ever encountered, but one where the few converts to Ste Cécile have shone by exceptional talent and devotion.

Tonight is the Fête de la musique, and the offering (Opfer, for Bach afficionados) is entirely demotic and hyperamplified. Nothing against that, providing that the Eustachian apparatus actually works under such pressure waves rebounding from the narrow streets.

A life on the ocean wave

Today was my contact day for the SNSM, or the French RNLI. The chairman of the local station had telephoned me two weeks back to invite me to come along to their training sessions, held on Saturday mornings, theoretically at eight o'clock. That way, I'd meet the cox, whose word would be law.

They came in dribs and drabs, after having had an apparently very pleasant evening out the night before, with one or two people having distinguished themselves in the consumption department. The general opinion of those who turned up this morning was pretty dismissive - they would not have liked to have responded to a 'shout' with colleagues in that condition. Too many lives at risk.

The morning's exercise consisted of taking a school party from the Collège Roustan out on a familiarisation trip. The kids were really nice, interested, polite, a good advertisement for France's future. The teachers accompanying them were prime examples of what is best about the system here, despite the dysfunction of much of the structures and programmes.

The lifeboatmen turned out to be born communicators, who drew the kids out of their shyness and got them asking questions. The highlight of the trip, apart from a couple of cases of pretty dramatic seasickness occasioned by visiting the sickbay below decks as the boat wallowed in the swell, was the launching of an inflatable liferaft, the kind that explode into life once they hit water. Watching such a large object inflate and turn into something you can trust your life with is really humbling.

The kids were put onto the liferaft and cast adrift (with adults, including yours truly, accompanying them), as the lifeboat roared around them making big waves with its wake. When onboard, the lifeboat had seemed tiny, but when down at sea level, crouched in the liferaft, it seemed enormous. The liferaft itself was past its use by date, so could no longer be shipped as a legal requirement by any boat. The owner of the raft had given it to the SNSM for demonstration purposes, as they can only be used once. Onboard the raft were all the supplies, including ship's biscuit (horrible), sterile water packs (not a lot) and a chart of the world. Sitting that close to the water, surrounded by waves, makes you realise what a potentially hostile element the sea really is.

After the morning's outing, the crew set to lunch with fervour, very generously including me in their number. The local pizza delivery was engaged to bring high calory, very high cholesterol eats, and the cupboard, which I thought contained essential lifesaving equipment, provided the necessary liquids for life-support, namely pastis and rosé. In fact, a great deal of water was drunk too, especially by the poor guys who had had to don survival suits and had dripped sweat all morning.

Lunch was only moderately leisurely, as there was a guard duty for a regatta. So we cast off again, and motored out into the bay. Hardly were we amongst the yachts, when the VHF went off, asking us to go to the Isle St Honorat, off Cannes, where a motorboat was in difficulty. So on my very first day, I was involved in a 'mission' (shout). As we gunned the engines for the island, we started readying the tackle for a tow, shackling hawsers and unwinding rope on a winch, not easy when the deck is leaning backwards with the thrust, and the boat is beginning to buck its way through the waves, sending spray higher than the mast.

But which boat was in trouble? The information we had was vague, and all we had to go on was that it was blue and white, the commonest combination amongst the hundreds of yachts 'parked' in the roads between St Honorat and Ste Marguerite. Finally we got to our call, only to discover that the real problem was that they had snarled their anchor in the high voltage cable which brings over power to the lighthouse and navigation equipment on the island. They were still busily trying to desnag the anchor, despite the fact that several hundred thousand volts were passing through a cable directly attached to them by a metal anchor chain. Not our business, though, as other 'competent' authorities deal with that kind of incident.

So back to Antibes, passing through the regatta we had abandoned, and on to the fuel depot, where huge quantities of diesel were pumped aboard, as one poor sod from the crew was sent below, to the engine room, to check the levels in 60 degree heat. A task which allowed him to perspire all the water, rosé and pastis consumed at lunch.

The last duty, in a long day, was to scrub the boat clean of all the salt, which by now, under the mediterranean sun, had dried to a kind of sticky, corrosive slime. So it was mops away, at the end.

Highrise housing

The yachts and superyachts in Antibes harbour are one version of the wet dream of the immoderately rich. Another version, of demential dimensions, was briefly anchored yesterday outside in the roads, within view of the marvelous Nomad statue of Jaume Plensa.

It turns out that the ship, called something naff like World ResidenSea, is essentially a floating block of flats, in which the nervous rich can live out their lives in apparent security, surrounded by all the things you really need, like golf courses, nail extension salons, bar room piano crooners and the like. Not to mention serious and probably armed close protection. Sounds like a luxury version of those prison hulks the previous Tory government briefly toyed with, like HMP Weare (see first photo). Not my idea of fun, being cooped up, day in day out, with that kind of person: as Sartre wrote in Huis clos, "L'enfer c'est les autres".

What price a mutiny on the Bounty? With millionaires not breadfruit being jettisoned overboard... A little swim to shore would provide more health benefits than any number of personal trainers. Mind you, who would pay to clean up the beaches afterwards?

Douceur de vivre?

The English, then the Russians, then the Americans, followed by the Belgians, the Scandinavians, and finally the Russians again (plutocrats not aristocrats), all of them were attracted to the Côte d'Azur by the fabled pleasantness of its climate. For much of the year, the climate is indeed pleasant, somewhat superior to almost anywhere else on this planet.

But Wednesday, Thursday and today tragically told another story. All that superheated, moist air off the Mediterranean has to climb up steeply once it hits the land, cooling rapidly as it does so. This leads to violent rainstorms a little way inland. We were the recipients of a tiny one at St Barnabé earlier this spring, but it was nothing like the terror which descended on Draguignan and nearby towns, wiping out shocking numbers of human lives, countless livestock, whole livelihoods, everything...

Antibes, as usual, being on a low promontory, escaped the worst of it, but here are some pictures taken as the bad weather was passing over. Darkness at noon!

Three hours later, we were on the beach, with yours truly swimming out into the Mediterranean. Abrupt?

Redevance Audiovisuelle

Gradually, we are getting there. Slowly, ever so slowly, we are being recognised by the French state, including its taxation arm. The latest episode concerned not income tax, which may have to wait till September, but local taxes and television licences. The local taxes, divided into two parts, have taken the best part of a year to sort out, but are now more or less in order (and a good deal cheaper than Edinburgh).

The real surprise, however, was a demand for a television licence, which accompanied the bill for the local taxes. One hundred and eighteen euros, or else, to be paid towards French creativity in the audiovisual sector: presumably to carry on subsidising the sub-crap shite which passes for TV in this country. Not possessing a TV, and having looked up the laws of the land, I decided to contest this demand. Easier said than done. The wait at the hôtel des impôts (note the two circumflex accents), was naturally twofold, during which time I had to listen to a horticultural bore and a single, underage mother with three kids in tow (Kevin, Kenzo and Angelina). Finally, I was told that I had to go away and write a missive, declaring, on my honour (wonder what that's worth) that I had had no televisual receiving apparatus, or equivalent apparatus (as defined by the relevant clauses of the law), from first of January 2009 etc..

That said, the tax inspectors, labouring in airless, stressful conditions, were a model of friendliness and understanding. How they translated the complete gobbledegook of French officialdom into meaningful ordinary speech defeats me. They ought to get the top translation prizes.

However, the mere fact that I had contested their imposition didn't mean that I wasn't liable. I was informed that I was obliged to pay up by the deadline, unless I heard from them to the opposite effect. Merely being in the process of exemption did not let me off the hook, even if the outcome was foregone.

Jets overhead

One of the quarrels about the transfer of Nice and Savoie to France in 1860 concerns nomenclature. The partisans of a francophile Nice yearning to rejoin the patrie tend to use the term 'rattachement', whereas those who would either have liked to see independence, à la Monaco, or continued life with Piedmont, and therefore with Italy in the making, tend to use the term 'annexion', which has a rather negative ring to it, a bit like 'Anschluss' now has in German.

Of course, this regime change in Nice was only one of many transfers of sovereignty which resulted from the later stages of the Risorgimento. Duchies like Parma, grand duchies like Tuscany, and kingdoms like that of the Two Sicilies, all underwent forced conversions, ratified by plebiscites where the outcome was a foregone conclusion. Here in Nice, for instance, the printed ballot paper, crowned by the crest of the emperor Napoléon III, only really existed in a 'yes' version, as there was a mysterious lapse in printing enough 'nos'.

The catholic church, under some pressure financially and politically in Piedmont, jumped at the chance of supporting a move to France, which would then fill their coffers handsomely. Rome was, at the time, garrisoned by the French, so the pope was doubly grateful (or subservient). Priests at the pulpit called the faithful out, parish by parish, to vote behind their sacred banners.

Well, the festivities this time round, one hundred and fifty years later, have still been dominated by ecclesiastics, with masses, parades of penitents both black and white accompanied by the municipal fanfare, as you can see from this shot in Nice Matin. New bells have been cast and blessed, too, so smells and bells are well catered for.

In Lampedusa's Il gattopardo, there is a scene where don Fabrizio, the 'leopard', feels obliged to turn up at the festivities celebrating the outcome of the plebiscite in Donnafugata. Sickly sweet wines in the three colours of the new flag, red, white... and green, are offered. Which one is he to take? It is a decision which requires temporary suspension of the sensitivity of the palate and a simultaneously heightened, acute sensitivity to the politics.

Today, the Patrouille de France aerobatic display team, borrowed by Nice's mayor Christian Estrosi from President Sarkozy, flew low over our terrace and headed for Nice, as if to strafe it. Just as they arrived, in perfect formation, they switched on their coloured vapour trails, which from the viewpoint of Nice must have seemed like the normal blue white and red tricoleur. From the vantage of our roof terrace, however, with the blinding sun behind us, the trails, as they arched gracefully into the sky, appeared suspiciously like the Italian tricolore, with green replacing the blue. Just as with the loaded terms 'rattachement' and 'annexion', the con-trails of the Patrouille de France appeared to signify different things to different people.

Nice choisit la France

Yesterday we responded to a circular from a publisher in Nice who was hosting a lecture / book launch for a volume on the transfer of Nice to France in 1860. Nice town was full of posters and expensive banners with "150 ans, Nice choisit la France", which sounded a little contrived to one who had had to swallow the disgruntled Italian version of events as an undergraduate.

The lecture was to take place in a tiny underground (in both senses) theatre next to the ultramodern station of the narrow gauge Chemin de fer de Provence railway line. The tracks cross busy streets without level crossings, and the BH remarked upon the usual lack of safety provision. There were traffic lights, though, and strangely for once the cars and mad scooter riders screeched to a halt. We thought, just for an instant, that maybe Nice's civisme was an exception to the exception française, but no. Rattling round a blind bend came an antiquated but surprisingly speedy railcar which shot past the road users with millimetres to spare and whooshed into the station. The line climbs up into the Alps and ends at Digne. Sounds like a wonderful trip.

The theatre foyer, about the size of a school tuck shop, was full of a strange mix of people. Some were of that instantly recognisable French breed of self satisfied 'intellectuals', who not only read the same books but dress in the same expensively casual chic way. Others, however, had an outdated air, as if they had alighted from the narrow gauge train maybe sixty years ago. They were the local history and local bore brigade, a fearsome prospect to any lecturer, and ones whom the BH instantly recognised from her long stint at the IFE.

The book that was being promoted was one of a series on Nice history which combined an academic introduction with a short, purpose-written historical novel. I looked at the jacket notes of the other volumes in the series. The synopses of the stories were masterpieces of cynical assemblage. A kind of mad 'cut and paste' between completely different publisher's lists. These were not 'romans historiques' but rather 'histoire romancée' of Mills and Boon quality. I didn't have time to look at the historical introductions properly, but they seemed attractively and accessibly presented. Was this naff combination a huge embarrassment or was it a marginally cynical piece of genuine innovation in popularising local history? An intriguing question.

No time to reflect: we were promptly herded down into the airless basement, already heated by theatre lights, a computer and a data projector. Next to my left ear, just to make sure, I had the noisy outlet from the ventilating fan of the sound system warming me in case I felt a sudden chill. The publisher gave a brief and relaxed introduction to the two speakers, the historian and the novelist (who turned out to be Nice's city archivist).

Then followed the slow deliquescence of the flesh in the heat, accompanied by the struggle against ineluctible sleep as the historian droned on in an almost inaudible monotone. Gradually, though, once we were well soaked in sweat, the interest of what he had to say granted us a stay of execution from the hyperthermic coma. The interplay of local issues and geopolitics was put across with considerable skill. He was followed by the archivist-novelist, a chinless wonder according to the BH, who gave a none too brief resumé of his masterpiece. I have no idea what the quality of the writing was like (who knows, maybe it was a real page turner), but from the précis he gave of the story I have no strong desire to read it.

As the two speakers relayed each other before the spotlights, the chinless wonder visibly dripping sweat down his shirt, almost as if he had peed himself via his armpits (a public circumstance I was all to familiar with myself), the two antiquated gents in front of me blocking the view, one who with his wing-mirror ears and bald head looked like Plug from a comic of my childhood, and the other like an unkempt Napoléon III, pointedly and more than audibly spoke to each other in Niçois dialect. It was like hearing Cornish nationalists speaking Cornish. Voices from the grave seriously and laboriously reproduced by modern fanatics without humour. This was a bad sign, and the BH with a nod in my direction indicated that the dreaded intervention /correction sequence from learned bores was about to begin. And so it did. If you substitute artificial Niçois for studiously de-Englished Scots, then we were back at the Institut talks in Edinburgh.

Realising that any pretence at presenting their book on their terms was now hopeless, the publisher and the speakers resorted to the oldest trick in the book, namely commenting on old photos. The audience were over the moon, with choruses, of delight, anecdote and genuine local lore coming out. Yes, what they really wanted was for their lives and stories to be in a 'history' book, not invented other people's ones.

Gros temps à Antibes

Just had a phonecall from the lifeboat service, who invite me to come along to their training exercises. The need for a lifeboat here can be seen in this short video clip, taken this morning. The waves are incredibly steep and short troughed. Nice to watch, however, when the sun is out, and the howling wind is actually warm.

Thomas Crapper RIP

It was Brussels that finally gave me concrete proof that the fabled Thomas Crapper, he of the water closet, had not only existed but prospered. Some of his artefacts were still in use, and they were still magnificently fit for purpose. I felt privileged, even just going for a pee.

Here in Antibes, bodily functions tend to be a matter of street culture. The eye, and particularly the nose, and even, occasionally and unfortunately, the sense of touch confirm this. Nevertheless, some enlightened souls decided that le water was a must. The only way to accommodate the latest sanitary thinking to the mean streets of Antibes was to build outwards, on balconies or 'encorbellements', a small room, and connect it via very visible pipework to the none too evacuatory sewage system.

Clearly whoever owned our house had had ambitions in the closet department. Our impasse has an imposing, if jerry-built overhang containing a throne and a cistern. But time takes its toll, even on jerry-building, and our shithouse was declared dangerous.

So down it had to come. After months of paperwork, inspections, false alarms, today the jack hammers, in perfect harmony with the old canticle "The day they tore the shithouse down", tore into throne, cistern, walls, etcetera. Our cabinet d'aisance is no more.

Music on the streets

Another anniversary has passed, namely the Bataille des fleurs, a parade in which the various associations and clubs in the town decorate floats with thousands of carnations and hire bands of varying musical competence. The whole event is commented, through deafeningly powerful loudspeakers, by an inane MC with a verbal diarrhoea which would be laughable if it wasn't so condescending and vaguely racist.

All but one of the bands came from Italy. One of the recent innovations is in the percussion section. To increase the range of drums, whilst not having to increase the number of musicians, they have taken to mounting the drums on a kind of trolley, strapped to the drummer, which rolls along on fat little tyres. Clearly the bands would have a problem with steps or pavements. One band, in gorgeously naff pink synthetic uniforms.... (see clip ), ....liberally festooned with silver spangles, sported two of these trolleys. One was for a drummer, and so self propelled. The other was a much bigger affair, like a very large lawnmower. It was being pushed along by a tiny, wizened old man, who was almost horizontal with effort. On the trolley was a very large amplifier and speaker cabinet, along with a petrol driven electrical generator. Attached to the trailing wire from this contraption was a very healthy, heavily muscled man marching along with soldierly panache whilst playing a bass guitar with what might be politely called 'approximation'. Still, his efforts - for a short time at least - drowned out the commentary from the podium.

The band that garnered the greatest acclaim, though, in this town which has a southerner's expert appreciation of all that is noisy and raucous, was a group of a score or so of aged Hell's Angels on Harley Davidson motorbikes. As they passed the podium, they revved up their bikes repeatedly in eardrum rupturing, synchronised crescendos, bowing modestly to the tremendous applause that greeted their musicianship.

SNSM Antibes

Big excitement today. As the 'classic' yachts manoeuvred in the bay, waiting for the starting gun of a race, the uniformed crews struggling with outsized jibs and stays, yours truly was pottering along the quayside near the Bastion Saint Jaume. For some reason, probably connected with the Voiles d'Antibes, the Antibes lifeboat, the Notre Dame de la Garoupe, was tied up there instead of at the lifeboat station. You don't get this opportunity often, so I went and had a closer look.

As I was inspecting her from the dockside, one of the crew asked whether I would like to take a trip with them, as they were about to show their presence to the yachtsmen. I jumped at the chance, and was handed one of their very technical lifejackets (the ones for crew, not for shipwrecked mariners). Quite a fumble to get it on, and adjusted.

Then out it was into the bay, in glorious sunshine and a slight chop to the sea. Perfect. We sailed past quite a few of the gaff-rigged yachts, as various lifeboatmen (and a lifeboatwoman) took photographs. The crew were very friendly and chatty, and indicated I was doubly welcome, as a Welshman, since their twin station was the Mumbles, in Swansea, where they had been very well received a year or so ago.

Finally, and all too soon, it was time to come back (you can't make Frenchmen, even lifeboatmen, miss their lunch). Sacred lunch-time was ticking by, so the cox'n revved up all one thousand one hundred horsepower of diesel. The stern dug in, the bow rose out of the water, and with a tremendous surging sensation all seventeen metres of lifeboat careered, bucking madly, towards Antibes at twenty-five knots. Magic....

Real beauty

Whilst the owners of the 'classic' yachts vie with each other to pretend that they are the sole appreciators of fine things, yours truly, exiled from the waters of La Gravette by a swarm of jellyfish, wandered around the quieter parts of the old town. After a long wait, everything is in bloom, even the cacti, and the birds are chirping. The place has become mediterranean again.

One mystery has been cleared up, too. For a couple of weeks now, and at the same time of year last year, the TV aerials have been the favoured roost of little yellow birds who sing with quite extraordinary melodic fervour. Well, a few days ago, one of them, utterly tame, came to our terrace and inspected us from very close to. Like close enough to touch. Remarkable behaviour in a bird, except for robins. I took some photographs and sent them to AWB for identification. It appears that we are blessed with feral canaries (hence the divine trills), which now take their place besides the parrot colony.

Voiles d'Antibes

Another day, another tent city. This time it is the turn of the Voiles d'Antibes, a rich man's wankfest of 'classic' yachts, sponsored with tax-deductible largesse from business and finance. The yachts do, it has to be said, look very pretty, and the abundance of gaff-rigged boats makes the seascape look strangely like the Channel paintings of the Impressionists.

B. & B. meet V.

Today was a lie-in morning, relatively speaking, for the BH. In other words, it was a day when for once she didn't get up at the crack of dawn to head for her school. The pleasure was short-lived, however, as we suddenly remembered that we had to unlock the metal gate to the impasse to let the builders in for eight o'clock.

I heaved my way into my pantacourts, pulled on a tee-shirt, strapped on my sandals and headed down the stairs. There they were, all the builders, waiting patiently to be let in. One of them had, it has to be admitted, scaled the gate and was on the point of doing some builderly breaking and entering...

It was time for the formal good morning handshake session. I put out my hand. But instead of shaking it, Monsieur V., our mason, grabbed it and hauled me out into the street. "Venez voir, venez voir".

He dragged me round to the Archives Communales, pointed at the new , faecal-hued stucco being applied and said: "Ils me prennent pour un con, quoi, ça va barder".*

Apparently, the town authorities are having applied to their building the very stucco refused to Monsieur V.. I said how did he know it was the same product. He pointed to the pile of sacks containing the offending product. The showdown with Madame B. and Monsieur B. (different surnames), the two town officials who had refused him his first choice, was scheduled for eight thirty this morning. Will keep you informed.

* Who the f**k do they take me for, I'm going to have their guts for garters