French lunchtime rituals

One thing that has been cause for concern as of late is the decline of French lunchtime rituals.  A Frenchwoman knows that rushing one's meals, particularly in the Anglo-Saxon style, can lead to what Mireille Guiliano calls "mindless eating", i.e. where people consume huge amounts and have become so distracted by things around them that they forget to concentrate on their food and end up consuming more of it, given that it has escaped their attention that they are consuming it.  A Frenchwoman likes to savour the moment and mealtimes are no exception.  The picture below is named "Pereza Andaluza" ("Andalusian laziness") and was painted by Julio Romero de Torres around 1900 or so.  I recall seeing it during one of my visits to Andalusia (known as "Andalucía" in Spanish and "Andalousie" in French), though Andalusia is a subject for another blog post.  Though it is a shame I cannot think of a similar painting done by a French artist about France, I think this painting captures very well the way a Frenchwoman loves to savour the moment and enjoy it, rather than rush around American-style saying "time is money, time is money".

The article describes people falling into American ways of working, i.e. rushing for a quick bite to eat and then wolfing it down in a couple of minutes and then resuming one's work.  It is very worrying that French women are falling into American habits.  If living like this, the only way to have an impossibly dainty figure like mine (or that of another quintessential Frenchwoman) is to starve oneself or take dieting pills or something else that is disagreeable to a Frenchwoman seeking to have as much pleasure in life as possible.  France needs to protect itself against American imperialism by keeping its own habits.  Yes, one needs to get a large amount of work done to maintain one's standard of living, but a Frenchwoman knows how to work efficiently, so that she isn't drawn into American habits.

But you don't know what is necessary to have a successful business, I hear people cry.  I do not run my workplace in the Anglo-Saxon style, though I must admit I am nevertheless a diva like Miss Anna Wintour, the British-born editor of the US version of Vogue, one of my competitors!  MDR!

At my workplace, we are not completely rigid about our working hours, as some people make French people out to be.  Obviously, if there is an important fashion show taking place outside of office hours (many of them seem to be mid-evening), then we need to make sure we are properly represented.  However, employees of mine who work beyond the standard 35-hour week tend to receive negative attention from me for not being competent and efficient enough at their jobs to get their work done within 35 hours.  I invest in various things to ensure that my employees can do this.  I send them on organisational skills courses to help them manage their workload and strategically work out what does and does not need to be done in the first place.  Touch-typing courses are a favourite with me as well, given that writing is pretty much what we do (not forgetting photography though).

Ok, so fashion shows require us to do stuff out-of-hours, but on a normal working day, we do not rush lunch or stay in.  French schools are known for having very long hours and some schools run from 8AM to 6PM.  When new employees start with me, just in case they have children, I give them a list of local schools that have timetables from 8AM to 6PM, so that we can observe proper lunchtime rituals the way Frenchwomen do.  In our premises, we have a list of markets and when they are on.

The market picture above is French, though it is in Cherbourg (a place with a much cooler climate, hence the coats), not my beloved Marseille, but never mind.  Anyway, regardless of whether or not it is a market day, we will normally start the working day at 8.30AM, leaving the employees with children half an hour or so to get into the office after dropping off their children.  If there is a market that day, we will take an hour for our lunch break (12PM-1PM) and have a light lunch, normally in a café on the edge of the Vieux Port: - when I say light, I mean light by French standards!  MDR!  This means we finish work at 4.30PM to allow time for combing the markets for the choicest ingredients before picking children up from school.  If there is no market that day, we will take a two-hour lunch break (12PM-2PM) and finish at 5.30PM (leaving half an hour for employees with children to reach their childrens' schools).  During the lunch break, we tend to eat at local brasseries.  I know all the restaurants in the local area and when it comes to the ones with the best food and atmosphere, I strike up relationships with them, meaning that they feed us a low price to my business (sometimes, good food costs less; a slogan for a horrible British supermarket chain) in exchange for regular custom.  Free meals is a perk I give my employees and if one is tough in negotiations with the restaurant, a perk like this need not cost the earth.  During these brasserie meals, we enjoy all the local culinary delights that Provence offers.  Such as what?  Bouillabaise for starters!  Corny pun I know, MDR!

Bouillabaise is probably the dish that Marseille is most famous for.  It is traditionally made up of a large number of different types of fish and is, for want of a better word (English culinary vocabulary is limited), a fish soup.  It is absolutely delicious and when living in London building up my fashion career, I found I needed to go back to Marseille every so often and get my bouillabaise fix!  MDR!

Pissaladière (a dish vaguely related to pizza) is closely associated with Nice, though it is fairly common in many areas of Provence.  Unsophisticated Americans might compare it to a deep-pan pizza!  Yuck!

Aïoli and olives are two things we like to eat as part of meals, though only the Provençal varieties are of sufficient quality for our palates.  Another thing we like to have as a side is Fougasse, that very Provençal bread.  Yuppies visiting my magazine's premises from the UK and USA tend to bleat about being gluten intolerant or having coeliac disease when this comes along, but I ignore their grumblings regarding their phoney yuppie diseases and order more!  MDR!

Did I forget to mention that we always have such things in local brasseries/cafés accompanied by Pastis de Marseille?  No meal in Marseille would be complete without Pastis de Marseille.  Anglo-Saxon visitors with inadequately developed palates tend to moan endlessly about its strong flavour, but I say that an inability to like Pastis de Marseille is a sign that one's palate is not sophisticated enough!

To conclude this blog, all I need to say is that lunchtime is a time for intense pleasure and no business objectives could possibly be important enough to sacrifice the pleasure a Frenchwoman, with her sophisticated palate, gets from eating lunch in a high-quality brasserie or café.

Readership

I have been closely watching the readership of this blog.  From what I have seen, readership is concentrated in a fairly small group of nations.

Not surprisingly, in first place is the USA, with 53.6% of pageviews coming from there.  Obviously, American women (who I assume have previously been stuffing their faces full of food) are keen to know about the immense wisdom that we effortlessly perfect French women possess.

Also, not surprisingly, the UK, my mother's homeland, comes in second place, with 26.6% of pageviews.  Apart from the fact that this blog is written in English, it is clear that Anglo-Saxon women are starting to recognise how effortlessly perfect we Frenchwomen are, hence why they are reading this blog.

In third place is Russia, with 9.2% of pageviews.  Maybe it is the population there?  I don't associate Russia with immense obesity, but then it is not a country I know well.

A surprising country is in fourth place.  One of France's former colonies: - Vietnam, with 4.0% of the vote.  In the CIA's 2008 statistics, France is shown in 108th place with 18.2% of its population being obese, with Vietnam appearing in 186th place (6th from the bottom of the table) with 1.7% of its population being obese.  Vietnam has been through a very unpleasant war, but it is fast becoming a prosperous nation and I'm not credulous that this statistic is the result of people starving.  Vietnamese women, I salute you!  You are among the few people who we Frenchwomen can learn from!  I am keen to hear how you guys remain so thin!  If any Vietnamese people are reading this post, please get in touch.  My e-mail address is mariannegaboriault@gmail.com .

The remaining countries in the list are the Netherlands, Germany, France, Ukraine, Canada and Poland.  I am surprised there aren't that many viewers in Canada (0.7%), but I'm not surprised that France's percentage is only 1.3%, because after all, we Frenchwomen are effortlessly perfect already and my blog is just teaching Frenchwomen to suck eggs.  A Frenchwoman knows very well that eating less is the best strategy for losing weight.

Indeed, I'm keen to hear from anyone who has any comments on my blog posts, be they positive, negative or indifferent, though I do fill with pride when I receive e-mails from people telling me that they lost loads of weight and became effortlessly perfect as a result of slavishly replicating the example of dainty Frenchwomen such as myself.  MDR!  Again, my e-mail address is mariannegaboriault@gmail.com and I'm interested to hear from all viewers of my blog, whatever their opinion.  Given that I am running my fashion magazine during the day and hunting the markets for obscure and high-quality ingredients and cooking in the evenings, I cannot guarantee that I will get back to you immediately or that I will respond to every single e-mail, but rest assured that I am interested in what you have to say, even if I might be virulently opposed to some points made.  So go ahead, I look forward to hearing from you.

A fat Frenchman

I was surprised to read an article recently about a morbidly obese Frenchman named Kevin Chenais (from Ferney Voltaire, near Geneva) and his difficulties in finding someone who was willing to transport him.  Firstly, let me say that although virtually every Frenchwoman is effortlessly dainty and perfect, there are exceptions to the rule.  There is also a bit of sexism in attitudes to people being overweight in France.  We rightly view it as being normal for a woman to have an impossibly perfect and dainty figure, but if a man is overweight, it is regarded as a sign that he is living the good life, Gérard Depardieu being a famous example.  Ok, Gérard Depardieu has renounced his French citizenship, though I am pleased someone has made a protest against high taxes on successful people such as myself.  As for me personally, I don't find it at all attractive for a man to be overweight, unless the weight is on account of him being extremely muscular and he has nicely ripped abs.  I cannot understand who on earth would find it attractive for a man to be overweight, but anyway.

The situation with Kevin Chenais is that he has been disgustingly obese since childhood (supposedly on account of health problems *cough*) and, aged 22, found himself with few travel options (apart from his mobility scooter).  The US train system transported him from Chicago to New York's Penn Station, following his treatment for his condition at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester (presumably he travelled by train from Rochester to Chicago, I'm not sure).  When in Nuu Yawk, British Airways refused to fly him and eventually, Virgin Atlantic agreed to fly him.  However, his travel difficulties didn't end there.  Eurostar refused to transport him, citing regulations requiring them to be able to evacuate everyone in the event of an emergency (Kevin Chenais and his mobility scooter fell afoul of this).

I also suspect that his enormous weight would have caused havoc regarding some of the other technical requirements.  Rolling stock boffins will be aware that Eurostar's current trains (shown above at Ashford International station) have an articulated design, meaning that rather than two bogies underneath each carriage, (most of) the intermediate carriages instead have a Jacob's bogie between them (therefore meaning there is an average of a little over one bogie per carriage).  Because the weight of the carriages are spread between fewer bogies, it is necessary to make the carriages shorter (I also wonder if the end-throw imposes some requirements, but I'm not sure how to find this out in a hurry).  Given that Eurostar's trains are under these weight constraints, I suspect that carrying this disgustingly obese man as a passenger would have put one of the axles over the axle load limit of 17 tonnes, tee hee!  Shown below is a Jacobs bogie on a Spanish RENFE 101 Series on the Euromed route (they were converted to S100 units for the Madrid-Seville line and the Euromed route is now covered by S130 trains).  These were a French creation and they look set to run on French soil again, as next month, RENFE plans to introduce them for the Toulouse-Barcelona, Lyon-Barcelona and, best of all, Marseille-Barcelona routes.  These were supposedly delayed on account of homologation issues, but I think the reasons are political: - RENFE doesn't want us out-competing them on the Barcelona-Madrid line (their most profitable one) with our economies of scale (the double-decker TGVs can hold over 1,000 passengers when two are coupled together).

I love the way Eurostar's trains are designed around dainty Frenchwomen!  The standard class seats are regarded by fat British and Americans as being too small, though even an impossibly dainty Frenchwoman such as myself enjoys the luxury of lots of space in first class, even if the décor is very dated (though it is currently being refurbished by Pininfarina from what I recall).

Above is an on-board Eurostar meal.  I wouldn't touch the main course personally, as the Lincolnshire sausage is too British for me.  Some people criticise the French for indoctrinating their people to believe French is best and only French is sufficient quality, but I am delighted that we have the wisdom to teach our people such things.  I recall travelling companions from Anglo-Saxon nations bleating about the dainty nature of the on-board meals, e.g. the single packaged Malteser-esque sweet ("the lighter way to enjoy chocolate", MDR): - they complained about the wasteful nature of packaging a single sweet like that, but a Frenchwoman knows that packaging sweets individually is a trick one can use to make less seem like more.  Added to that the fact that Maltesers are very light as they are mostly made up of air: - a large part of eating less is using culinary tricks to make your mind think you are eating less than you are.  As for me, I took on even fewer calories, as I wouldn't touch it, given that the chocolate used was less than 60% cocoa!  MDR!

Anyway, back to Kevin Chenais.  I think he looks absolutely disgusting and I think he is an embarrassment to our great nation of France, which is famous for its women with dainty figures (such as myself), but whose reputation could be under threat by some disgusting looking pig who eats so much that he requires a mobility scooter and oxygen.  Obesity in Anglo-Saxon nations is, dare I say it, in some way, understandable, given that Anglo-Saxon peoples, in their monstrous ignorance, do not know the things that Frenchwomen know.  However, being obese in France is absolutely inexcusable, given the wisdom that French women just happen to know.  Kevin Chenais, shame on you!

A BBC article criticising the Champs-Élysées

I was recently reading a BBC article criticising the Champs-Élysées.  Regrettably, I have to say that I agree with this.  The Champs-Élysées are not the best place to go to see the real France: - they are a very definite tourist trap.  They are certainly not the place to see and be seen.  The really stylish people go elsewhere and only ignorant tourists seeking clichés go to the Champs-Élysées in search of something French.  Where do the really stylish people go?  As if I would give away our trade secrets!  I'm not going to reveal this here, as I don't want me and my stylish acquaintances (not all of them are friends, some of them I just suck up to for the sake of business expediency) to be bothered by bumpkins.

The over-monied Arabs with the flash cars are something very un-French.  The Arab lifestyle is not something a dainty Frenchwoman aspires to, given the CIA's statistics showing many Arab nations near the top of the obesity rate table .  A Frenchwoman doesn't like driving and much prefers to walk or take the train when walking isn't practical.  Granted, we have brands such as Peugeot, Citroën, Renault etc, but a Frenchwoman tries to avoid travelling by car where possible.

I won't tell people the exact locations of where super-stylish people hang out, but I can give some simple directions for how to find something absolutely divine!  SNCF Transilien's website (http://www.transilien.com) gives journey times for the Paris area.  If one is not an impossibly perfect and dainty Frenchwoman and therefore used to walking everywhere, the website in question can give directions for going between Charles de Gaulle – Étoile Métro and RER station (which serves the Arc de Triomphe) and Paris Gare de Lyon's RER station.  When arriving in Paris Gare de Lyon, take a train to Marseille (from 3h05m upwards).  Simple as.

Ok, I know I said I wouldn't say what the hide-outs of super-stylish people are, but this one is far too famous to be worth bothering to hide.  Monaco's casino is a famous hide-out of James Bond.  Monaco can be reached from Paris by train.  Currently, there are no direct trains, but they exist at other times of year, typically taking 6h03m: -  obviously, one needs a day when one is wanting to sit and unwind, as it won't be for a few years yet that the partially new and upgraded line between Marseille and Nice will be completed.  The details of the project can be found online.  Monaco is a place I have sometimes considered moving to, given the very low taxes, but then its history is nothing compared with that of Marseille.  Nevertheless, I visit Monaco regularly, as it is full of stylish and successful people like myself and I love its ritzy glitzy atmosphere.  I love the way the government there has decided to crowd out bumpkin locals by bringing in stylish expats with low taxes: - members of the global jet-set elite such as myself do not give a monkeys about local people and we would much rather be in the presence of foreign elites.  Monaco's strategy of pricing out lesser people seems to really work wonders.  I was disappointed to see a branch of Carrefour in Monaco recently, as this will give lesser people an incentive to stay, but at least Carrefour is a French brand.  Tee hee!

I wish SNCF would do more mixed TGV services serving Monaco, say starting in Paris, stopping in Marseille-Blancarde along the way (I'd have to check if the platform length is the requisite 200m or so necessary to support TGVs) and then continuing to Monaco along the conventional line.  I love Monaco's glamorous station, with the multicoloured lighting in a corridor leading to the platforms showing how impeccably stylish the country is.

Marseille isn't quite as stylish as Monaco, but it is a place where real French people live, which helps to illustrate the point that even poor people can eat properly (a point which cannot be properly demonstrated in a society where almost everyone is rich).  It does unfortunately have a high proportion of foreigners.  They made up 12.7% of the population in 2008 (2.2% born in Europe, 10.5% outside Europe) and in 1999, 41.8% of people under 18 had at least one foreign parent.  Ok, I can't criticise on this matter, as I was part of that 41.8% and my mother was part of the 12.7%.

However, I get sick of hearing people saying "Wesh-wesh renoi/poto/rebeu/toubab?" on the street.  For those not au fait with French street slang, "wesh-wesh...?" means "How are you?" (a bit like "wagwan...?" or "wassup...?" in English).  "Renoi" is Verlan (Verlan being an inversion of "l'invers", which means "the inverse) for "noire", a black person.  "Poto" is street slang for "friend", roughly equivalent to "fam" or "bruv".  "Rebeu" is a double inversion of "arabe" ("Arab"), the single inversion being "beur".  "Toubab" is an inversion of "babtou", a word for a white person.  Me personally, I am a stylish Frenchwoman and I can't stand the sound of silly street youths murdering our beautiful language.

How is it that I am so familiar with street slang?  Lots of reasons really.  When I walk around Marseille, I hear people using it.  There are lots of Arab-style shops just to the south of La Canebière (the main street leading to the Vieux Port): - one thing that is unusual about Marseille is that the rough immigrant districts tend to be in the city centre.  Also, I get loads of wannabe fashion designers trying in vain to convince me that their hip-hop wares are stylish *cough*: - some of them severely let themselves down with their poor command of the French language.  If one wants to see what I am like as a person, watch Meryl Streep in "The Devil Wears Prada".  Also, some of my employees have probably changed their names by deed poll to hide their Arab origins: - I get this impression from the large amount of slang in conversations that take place in my workplace.  I have also interviewed people for journalistic positions and have had to decline them jobs because they used hip-hop slang all the way through the interview: - if anyone reading this wants me to give them a job in a role that involves writing, the first two things you need to do are convince me that you are interested in fashion and that you have a good command of the beautiful French language!  If you come in and say, "Wesh-wesh toubab?" to me, you are unlikely to get the job!

Anyway, though Marseille has its negative sides, it is both home and a very stylish tourist destination to me.  If one wants to see the real France and one is too lazy to walk between Charles de Gaulle – Étoile and Gare de Lyon stations, take an eight-minute RER train between the two stations, hop on a TGV and be in Marseille in 3h05m upwards.

The ease of eating like a Frenchwoman if abroad

Apologies for the long lull in my posts: - no-one said running a fashion magazine would be easy!

I have had some rather unkind people contacting me about my blog posts, calling me smug, up myself etc etc.  I have also faced accusations that from my supposed ivory tower, I don't understand what life is like for real struggling people in terms of affording proper food.  A chav who lives in the British town of Gravesend in Kent got in touch with me and challenged me to put my money where my mouth is.  You know me, I can't resist a challenge!

Gravesend is a funny place.  It contains some reasonably pretty areas.  The picture above depicts Khartoum Place, which is so named on account of the association of General Charles George Gordon with Gravesend, who died in the Siege of Khartoum.  Another reasonably pretty building in the town (though nothing holds a candle to my native Marseille) is St. George's Anglican Church.

St. George's Anglican church contains the most famous thing associated with the town: - the remains of Princess Pocahontas.  Yes, she was a real person, not just a Disney character.  Pocahontas, after visiting the British Isles, decided to make the journey back to Virginia in the Land of the Free (fat, more like) with her husband John Rolfe.  She became ill while on the ship near Gravesend and was carried ashore dead or dying and was buried within the grounds of the church, though no-one today knows which remains are hers.

However, the chav nature of Gravesend was very scary.  Above is an old photo of one of the main streets (Wikipedia wrongly says that it is the High Street).  As you can see, Woolworths (thankfully now defunct) and Primark are in the photo.  There is also an Asda, Aldi and Tesco in the town, with a Morrisons on the outskirts.  There is also a pier (normally a symbol of chav British seaside towns, though the restaurant in this one was relatively posh.  Yeek!

Gravesend is very easy to reach from France.  One can simply take a Eurostar train to Ebbsfleet International station, the parkway station along the UK's high-speed line to the Channel Tunnel that I assume was built mainly to serve commuters into London and people wishing to reach a Eurostar station by car.

From there, one can take a British Rail Class 395 (known informally as the "Javelin") connecting train to Gravsend.  Though this particular rolling stock model is only designed for 225km/h or so in service, its acceleration is impressive and enough to knock me off my feet.  As far as I'm aware, there are a couple of likely reasons why it was designed around a 225km/h maximum speed.  Firstly, given the gearing ratio question, higher speeds would result in a trade-off regarding acceleration.  Secondly, approximately half of the trains leave HS1 (the high-speed line to the Channel Tunnel, aka the CTRL) at Ebbsfleet International and the speed between here and central London is limited to 230km/h or so, meaning that only half of the trains or so (the ones going towards Ashford) would be able to make use of higher speeds.

Anyway, enough about the side matters, as this article is intended to talk about how it is possible to eat properly, even if one is a chav.  I met up with the chav who I had been in touch with and, at great risk of traumatising myself for life, I commenced the journey round the local supermarkets.  Aldi was reasonably continental in its offerings, though the quality wasn't great (one has to be a sophisticated Frenchwoman like me to know the difference) and there wasn't a great selection of dark chocolate.  Very close to the station is Tesco (the one shown below is not the one in Gravesend), where I found a large selection of chocolate.  I found two varieties of 85% chocolate.

One was labelled "Swiss 85% Plain Chocolate" and the other was labelled "Tesco Finest Dominican Republic 85% Dark Chocolate".  On the inside label, it reads "Tasting fine chocolate should be done with all of your senses.  Look for a nice glossy brown finish, listen for a crisp snap when you break a piece off, smell delicious chocolate notes and hints of other aromas before you take the first bite.  Let a piece melt slowly on your tongue to truly experience the depth of flavour, which will change from start to finish.  Using the flavour wheel below, you can identify the unique, characteristic flavour profiles of each of the Tesco Finest single origin chocolates."  As one can see from my earlier post about dark chocolate, even a bumpkin Frenchwoman could have told people that for nothing, but anyway.  The price?  One for £1.50 and two for £2 at the time of my visit.  Ok, so I wouldn't eat it myself, as people who are the bee's knees like myself only go for the best quality from specialist chocolatiers, but how is it that people think it is impossible to eat like a dainty Frenchwoman with 85% chocolate being that cheap?

We also went onward to Asda (above is the headquarter building in Leeds).  I was not very happy about having a choice between taking the escalator or the lift to get there (luckily, I found out in advance of my ascent after finishing in Asda that there is an outdoor steps route to the main road passing Asda), as a dainty Frenchwoman such as myself much prefers the stairs/steps.  Anyway, one of the things we looked at in Asda was the cheese section.  Yes, there was lots of rubbish, e.g. discounted Cheddar, Cheddar mixed in with horrible rubbish to make processed cheese (e.g. pickle, chili etc), but I was pleasantly surprised to see some continental cheeses there.  Comté, Castello Blue (which takes on a lovely taste as it ages), Manchego, Gorgonzola, Parmigiano Reggiano, Camembert, Brie (though I wouldn't personally go near the Cornish versions of these two), Roquefort and I was even amazed to see Reblochon de Savoie!

  The quality was probably substandard, given the low prices (a Frenchwoman knows that clever people never cut corners when it comes to spending money on quality food).  We also found some cheap vegetables (regrettably, the ones near the cheese aisle happened to be frozen, though there were some fresh ones near the entrance).  Fresh bread was also baked in-store (though I didn't intend to try it, as I knew the quality would be poor).  I rejected my chav companion's suggestion that she was too poor to buy butter instead of margarine, as the own-brand stuff (I hope nobody was contemplating the idea that I would ever let this near my lips) cost just £1!  For something marginally better, there was some Somerset Farmhouse butter for £1.40.  Ooh arr, gert lush (not)!  Slightly cheaper at £1.25 was the French brand Président, which is the bare minimum of quality I will ever consider, which I advised my chav companion to buy.

I followed my chav single mother companion to her home in a slum on Huntley Avenue in nearby Northfleet (pikey mothers shouting "Oi!  Come 'ere now!" at their children, noisy Staffordshire Bull Terriers, grannies wearing football shirts etc), with her purchases of items including dark chocolate, Président butter, Reblochon de Savoie, French-style bread etc.  She was originally considering taking the bus back, but I insisted that we walk, as a Frenchwoman would do.  She was originally planning on making cheese and chips for her family (all of whom were overweight), but I insisted that she make tartiflette (which uses cheese and potatoes and so has some similarities with cheese and chips, though it is in a different league altogether) instead, a lovely rich French dish that I have discussed in a previous posting that is very rich and fills a dainty Frenchwoman up very quickly.  She made gigantic portions, but obviously found she and her chidlren were unable to finish them, so I went onto the street and called in some chav neighbours to show them what proper food is like (I don't like food going to waste and the quality isn't so good if it has been microwaved) and fed them with the remainder of the tartiflette.

Eventually, when I decided I had had enough of the chav surroundings, I walked to Ebbsfleet International station across the bridge near Huntley Avenue, caught my train into London and went about my business of promoting my fashion magazine.  I don't know if the chav single mother I met up with has changed her ways, or if she is too proud to realise that we Frenchwomen are impossibly perfect and should be slavishly replicated, but maybe I'll ask her sometime.  All in all, though economy stuff is never the highest quality, the suggestion that one is overweight because one cannot eat like a dainty Frenchwoman is absolute nonsense.  What I say to people in Anglo-Saxon nations is, stop making excuses, get up off your incredibly overweight backsides, walk to the supermarket (if you aren't successful enough to afford the specialist stores), buy some proper food and watch the weight tumble off!