Aujourd 'hui

Yes, aujourd 'hui.

Being an observantly type you, my only reader, will have spotted instantly that I am listening to an album by a French band, Hurleurs.

I quite like the damned thing, but the lead singer has a voice that suggests cutting back on the Gauloises to something slightly less than 80 a day might be a good idea. The mood of the album is, how shall I put it?

Melancholy.

A title such as Ciel d'Encre suggests that it wouldn't be a barrel of laughs, of course, and how prescient you'd be for thinking that. Apart from the title track, it also has such uplifting shanties as Temps de Pluie, which could only have been sung by a band whose country had survived 5 years of Nazi occupation.

My French is appalling, but three tracks in, I have this unnerving urge to eat a bucket of garlic and veto a Security Council resolution.

Formidable!

Less easy to explain is my desire to wear a hooped tee-shirt and ride an onion bedecked bicyclette. And suddenly, my pack of Berkley Superkings seem too long and not strong enough. I feel that Virginia tobacco is no substitute for the Turkish blends used by les Francaises...

Track 4 now, Tout ca.

Somehow less depressing than the previous three, but I suddenly feel the urge to flick through the channels to see if TV5 is showing un-translated Hector's House. That can't be good.

France is a much misunderstood and maligned country. Famed largely for smelly cheeses and pretentiously named wine.

Of course it is their own fault.

French history, you see, is written in French and this means that the rest of the world has had to piece it together from old photographs and rumour.

I'm going to strangle that bloody accordion player...

Aujourd 'hui

Yes, aujourd 'hui.

Being an observantly type you, my only reader, will have spotted instantly that I am listening to an album by a French band, Hurleurs.

I quite like the damned thing, but the lead singer has a voice that suggests cutting back on the Gauloises to something slightly less than 80 a day might be a good idea. The mood of the album is, how shall I put it?

Melancholy.

A title such as Ciel d'Encre suggests that it wouldn't be a barrel of laughs, of course, and how prescient you'd be for thinking that. Apart from the title track, it also has such uplifting shanties as Temps de Pluie, which could only have been sung by a band whose country had survived 5 years of Nazi occupation.

My French is appalling, but three tracks in, I have this unnerving urge to eat a bucket of garlic and veto a Security Council resolution.

Formidable!

Less easy to explain is my desire to wear a hooped tee-shirt and ride an onion bedecked bicyclette. And suddenly, my pack of Berkley Superkings seem too long and not strong enough. I feel that Virginia tobacco is no substitute for the Turkish blends used by les Francaises...

Track 4 now, Tout ca.

Somehow less depressing than the previous three, but I suddenly feel the urge to flick through the channels to see if TV5 is showing un-translated Hector's House. That can't be good.

France is a much misunderstood and maligned country. Famed largely for smelly cheeses and pretentiously named wine.

Of course it is their own fault.

French history, you see, is written in French and this means that the rest of the world has had to piece it together from old photographs and rumour.

I'm going to strangle that bloody accordion player...