Things I love about Bilal

I am writing this article because some of my readers have expressed skepticism about how enthusiastic I really am to be getting married to Bilal, given what I say about him, primarily regarding his use of hip-hop French.

Granted, there are many strengths that Bilal does not possess.  He does not speak very good French.  Yes, he has native-level competency, but his vocabulary is hip-hop French, rather than the French equivalent of Queen's English.  He is no gentleman: - he refers to me as a "meuf" or "femeu" (French for "bird", as in slang for "woman"), saying I am his "pineco" (verlan for "copine" or "girlfriend") and quite openly says in front of his "homies" that I am "bien faite" ("well fit") as if these were completely normal words that one would use in a job interview.  His tastes in fashion are very different to mine: - unless he is wearing his chèche, he wears sweatsuits with baseball caps on backwards.  He is not very outgoing; in fact, he is painfully shy with unfamiliar people.

However, there are plenty of strengths that he does have and this article is intended to inform my readers about them.  Firstly, he is an extremely attractive man.  He is 195cm in height and has a very large build because he works out so much (for this reason, he doesn't tend to say, "la moitié, s'il vous plaît" at mealtimes).  There are only two occasions on which I have seen him bare-chested: - the first time was when he was rescuing someone from church who was getting into difficulty while swimming (referred to in an earlier post) and in a recording made on a mobile camera (which I will refer to later in this post).  I have never seen someone as heavily-built as him (he is more heavily built than the man in the picture below), even in the silly girlie magazines I used to read before I became born again.  He has these absolutely gorgeous curls that result from his genetic makeup being somewhere between the Arabs of North Africa ("Rebeus", as Bilal calls them, who tend to have straight hair) and the blacks of Sub-Saharan Africa ("renois", as Bilal calls them, who tend to have curly and knotty hair).  Bilal is seldom seen smiling, but when he does, it is an absolutely beautiful sight: - he has the most perfect teeth and he has the most adorable dimples (that are visible on the rare occasions when he is seen smiling).  He is a very heavily-built man, but has a really cute baby face.

Secondly, he is an extremely tough and brave man.  He runs a boxing club in La Savine to keep the restless and angry youths there out of trouble: - this is something I found out very recently.  He took up boxing competitively and did very well, but he was only willing to go so far because competing at a higher level would have taken up too much time and compromised his work at church.  La Savine has a terrible reputation that would be even more terrible if there weren't peacemakers like him around.  He has very strict rules and youngsters join on the explicit understanding that they will be subject to his discipline if he finds out they are involved in things like drugs, carrying illegal weapons and other gangland activity.  There is a poverty of expectation and he has inspired several youngsters to make something of themselves with both the fact that the boxing club gives the youngsters something to do and the fact that he gets to witness (i.e. evangelise) to the attendees of the club.  He refuses to allow any acts of Islam or any other religion (e.g. prayer facing Mecca) to be carried out on the premises and there is openly evangelistic literature on the walls and pamphlets everywhere.  Someone posted on Youtube a video of when a group of about 20 Muslims burst into a session of the boxing club and delivered threats of violence and death regarding his evangelistic activities.  Bilal politely, but firmly stood up to them and they backed down.  There was another video someone put up of Bilal on the street standing up to a group of about 10 thugs carrying knifes who threatened one of the children who was a regular attendee.  They had apparently travelled from Savigny in Paris (an area with lots of gangs) to cause trouble and didn't know who he was.  A few of them tried to attack him with their knives and Bilal deflected the strikes; the rest of them decided not to bother and fist-bumped him out of respect, seeing how tough he was.  I once travelled to Mali with Bilal and I saw the rugged terrain in which he carries out his activities as a herdsman: - the terrain is often mountainous and extremely hot for most of the year.  Mali has been a very unstable part of the world for a long time and I found out from some of his relatives that Bilal has regularly stood up to raiders armed with machine guns trying to steal his family's livestock.  Of course, nobody would ever deduce that Bilal was capable of any of these things just through a normal interaction with him.  As I have said before, I would much rather have a genuinely tough man like Bilal than a heavily-built, but pseudo-tough man who has never faced any hazards worse than defective gym equipment.

Thirdly, he is a very hard worker.  It is not easy arranging dates with him because he is always so busy.  He works the standard 35-hour week in his day job with "Le Trom de Marseille" (as he calls it).  However, I have heard from a colleague that he is always working extremely fast and productively.  Though he never got involved in student life at university, he was always very diligent in his studies, even though this wasn't widely seen, as most of his non-timetabled work was done in his room at home behind closed doors.  He was never one to make a song and dance about how hard he works, but I know he is a very hard worker.  When we were in Mali, if something needed to be done with his family's livestock, he would do it, irrespective of the time of day or how difficult the task.  Bilal is always active in church right the way through the day.  Our church has four services on Sundays: - early morning, midday, afternoon and evening and Bilal attends every one of them, operating the audiovisual equipment and does not desire to lie in on Sundays.  Even between the services, he is active.  Before the early morning service, he is busy setting up the audiovisual equipment.  Between the early morning and midday services, he is busy making preparations for the Sunday School class.  Between the midday and afternoon services, he is busy delivering his Sunday school class (except when he is eating his normal goats meat and jollof rice lunch).  Between the afternoon and evening services, he is busy evangelising at major interchanges in the city (bus stops, "Trom" stations, Marseille St. Charles station, Marseille Blancarde station etc).  After the evening service, he is busy counting the collection money and doing the church's accounting work.  The church has several meetings during the week.  There is a prayer meeting on Tuesdays, a children's meeting on Wednesdays (which children in good standing with the Sunday School may attend) and a Bible study on Thursdays: - Bilal is involved in all three of these meetings.  Also, Bilal's boxing club meets on Mondays and Fridays.  Bilal normally keeps Saturdays free of pre-arranged appointments (though he attends things if needed).  Occasionally, he will rest if he is extremely tired, but most Saturdays, he is engages in theological study.  He loves to read the works of theologians John Calvin (French of course: - his book "The Institutes of the Christian Religion is Bilal's favourite book with the exception of the Bible itself), John Wesley etc, as well as biographies of the great men of faith of the reformation and beyond, such as Hudson Taylor, Adoniram Judson, George Whitfield, John Wycliffe etc.  Biblical commentaries are a favourite of his as well: - off the top of my head, I know he has the commentaries of theologians including John Gill, Matthew Henry and John Calvin at home.  Also, one project he is working on at the moment on Saturdays is the translation of the Bible into his local Touareg language.

Fourthly, Bilal is an extremely kind person.  He is a very wealthy man on account of his online share trading activities, but I know that he does a large number of compassionate acts.  People at church give him their used food containers, primarily plastic pots.  He doesn't normally tell people what he uses them for, but I am aware that he uses them to distribute food.  Every day, cooks a large amount of jollof rice and goat's meat, puts it in the donated plastic pots and distributes it to residents of La Savine who are struggling to afford enough food to eat and local homeless people.  Given that many of them cannot afford to heat their homes in winter (La Savine is in a high-up and exposed part of Marseille), many women need the extra energy and aren't in a position to say, "La moitié, s'il vous plaît"!  Facetious I know, but MDR!  The flat Bilal lives in with his parents is not big enough for guests to stay, except on the sofa or the living room floor, so he has a spreadsheet that he uses to manage the details of people at church willing to offer temporary accommodation to people who find themselves homeless through no fault of their own.  He organises laundry runs on weekdays so that the host families don't need to bother with bedlinen.  He also collects used clothing and household appliances to distribute to people in need.  He regularly visits the older residents of La Savine who don't have anyone to keep them company.  Even on Sundays, he is not too busy to chat with someone who has a burden on their mind: - he will always arrange a time during the day to chat with such people if they wish.  If he sees a beggar on the street, he will always offer some food, even if the only food he happens to be carrying is something posh for a party.

Fifthly, Bilal is very fond of children.  Pslam 127:4 talks about the value of children to a man.  If a man is even considering using contraception, it would suggest that he has some values that are at odds with God's standards when it comes to children.  Bilal wants a large family for both cultural and religious reasons.  I refer back to the aforementioned religious reason.  When it comes to cultural reasons, he is extremely fond of his native Touareg culture and does not want to give it up by westernising and having a small family or being part of a childless couple.  He has openly said he would rather father five children and die a very young man than live to 100 and have one or possibly none.  I have told him I will cooperate wholeheartedly with his attempts to have a large family, which is natural, given how incredibly handsome he is.  Some lezzie feminists would accuse me of betraying feminism by saying this to him, but I would say that apart from the fact that I want a large family too irrespective of anything Bilal wants, he is a man who has spent many years diligently labouring to bring good to so many people and glory to God's name that he thoroughly deserves a helpmeet in his labours and if a large family is his main earthly aim, he deserves a woman who will give it to him.  I have no doubt that he has a special love for children.  When he is not diligently labouring away at another task associated with the church or his workplace, he can often be seen cradling a small baby or playing with toddlers or small children.  As mentioned earlier, he is very diligent in his evangelistic efforts via the Sunday School.  He is motivated to deliver his Sunday School class no matter how unwell he is (though the truth be told, he is a very fit, strong and healthy man and is therefore very rarely ill, save for complications that used to result from him not knowing he had coeliac disease).  His love of God and children and the desire to see their souls saved is what drives him to come all the way from La Savine on Sunday mornings come rain or shine (mostly shine in the case of Marseille, MDR).  As mentioned, he was completely willing to stand up to thugs threatening a child from his boxing club even when he was badly outnumbered.

Sixthly, all these things would be in vain if Bilal were not a converted man.  As the famous hymn verse (from "Rock of ages cleft for me") goes: -
"Not the labours of my hands
Can fulfil Thy law's demands
Could my zeal no respite know
Could my tears forever flow
All for sin could not atone
Thou must save and Thou alone
Believers are completely forbidden from marrying non-believers and if Bilal could not demonstrate that he is a born again man, I would never have entertained his advances, nor would my father have given his consent.  Anyone who is reading this post who is under some delusion that they are heaven-bound because they grew up in a Christian home, you are delusional, a blessing though it is: - you have been warned!  Bilal has presented both a credible testimony and conduct that is befitting of a believer.  Nobody should ever be under the illusion that one can enter heaven by means of good deeds: - salvation is by God's grace alone.  However, as the Bible points out, we must look out for the fruit of the spirit and James 2 makes it explicitly clear that unless good works result from a person's conversion, that person's faith is dead.  God gives us the rule about not being unequally yoked for a reason: - if I were married to a man who fulfils the definition of a suave Frenchman, but who is not a believer, we will be at cross purposes throughout our marriage, as we will both be pulling in different directions.  A believing husband is a tremendous gift from the Lord.  Being the Impossibly Dainty French Woman, I have been approached by enormous numbers of men, but I don't believe many of them were believers and I am delighted that God has chosen to bless me with a believing husband.

So there you have it.  A few key reasons why I am delighted to have Bilal as my future husband and why I am not hankering after any supposedly better prospects.

A fabulous new collection of glasses!

One thing I have made clear in previous posts is that being a dainty and stylish Frenchwoman does not mean it is necessary to have attention to detail or even consistency.  Dear old Mireille Guiliano said on her website "French women adore fashion", but immediately afterwards said "French women are stubborn individuals and don't follow mass movements".

I was recently asked to give my expert opinion on an absolutely fabulous new line of glasses that is being released today by Warby Parker.  The line is known as the Concentric Collection, the word "concentric" being applied fairly loosely, given that the shape it refers to is not entirely circular.  However, there is no doubt that the designers showed how it is possible to have both an enormous amount of attention to detail, but not fall into the trap of failing to see the forest for the trees.  All six pairs of glasses within the glasses are beautifully individual, but have that rare gift of being able to combine attention to detail with making a product that is pleasing to the eye when considered as a whole.  Below I will go into the details of what I just adore about each pair, what I think it might go well with and who I believe it will be most suited to.

EVERLY: - Whistler Grey (with Fjord Blue)

Whistler Grey is the brand new colour available in this range.  It gives a sleek futuristic look with a beautiful contrast of silver and blue against each other.  I could easily see glasses such as these appearing in a movie set several centuries in the future.  I believe glasses such as these will work best against a bright white outfit, as the whistler grey will look a bit too understated if used against bright clothing, whereas a bright white outfit will allow the glasses to shine.  I just love the contrast of the horizontal lines of the whistler grey part and the plain fjord blue pattern.  These glasses will best suit someone with a very pale skin shade, which will combine with the bright clothes and the sleek look of these glasses to give the intended look.

EVERLY: - Windswept (with Hazelnut)

I just love the look of these glasses, the light brown blending in nicely with the dark lenses.  I am not sure this term is still politically correct, but these glasses are great for constructing an ethnic look.  There are a large number of different ethnic looks that will work with these glasses, most notably the Touareg look.  I therefore intend to buy a pair of these for Bilal for him to wear with his tagelmust and burnous.  Bilal takes little interest in fashion (save for hip-hop fashion), but he does wear some absolutely beautiful indigo garmets when he desires to be in Touareg attire and these glasses will complment them perfectly.  However, it is not just Touareg attire that this will successfully complement: - these glasses will work well for both men and women with more or less any type of veil, perhaps the dark veil often worn by Gulf Arab women.  The variety of horizontal brown lines affords the glasses a nice rugged look.  The hazelnut inner ring means that there is a pleasant gradual build-up to the dark shades, rather than a sharp transition.  These glasses are also great for leisure wear and are just the sort of thing someone would opt for if seeking a casual look whilst on holiday in a warm and sunny country.

MURPHY: - Crystal (with Hazelnut)

What I love about this pair of glasses is that it allows someone to have a "geek chic" look, but without being overly conspicuous.  Me personally, I disliked the dark horn-rimmed glasses look that was sometimes seen on people such as Justin Timberlake a few years ago and I am glad that this fad has since passed.  However, the fact that the hazelnut inner rim is thin (almost as thin as a Frenchwoman's waistline, MDR) means that it exercises a powerful moderating influence that stops the overall feel of the glasses being conspicuous, overbearing and as though the wearer is trying too hard with the "geek chic" look.  The hazelnut inner ring has a subtle pattern that fits well with the shining, clean and bright crystal frame and gives these glasses just enough informality to avoid appearing too formal if necessary.  The overall chic design will make the wearer look sophisticated and intelligent, but will not convey the impression that he/she is trying too hard.  These glasses are great for work wear, particularly in professions where it is necessary to convey the appearance of being knowledgeable, but are also great for creating a "power dressing" image.  They offer the best of both worlds.

MURPHY: - Cognac Tortoise (with Vulcanite)

The first thing that came into my head when I saw this variant was the film Thelma and Louise.  When I go to Mali (my fiancé's homeland) apart from the need to avoid offence with immodest dress, it is necessary to wear dark glasses and some sort of head covering, given the sand that exists everywhere.  After all, a Frenchwoman would not like to see her hair messed up or her eye makeup sanded away by a fierce desert wind.  This is definitely the sort of thing I could see myself wearing on future trips to Mali!  As in the film Thelma and Louise, a pair of glasses such as this will go very likely with a babushka-style headscarf for women of several different age groups.  There is a famous photo of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II riding a horse alongside Ronald Reagan and wearing a bubushka-style headscarf: - glasses such as these would complete the look.  The cognac tortoise pattern is just enough to stop the glasses looking too plain, but is simultaneously understated and elegant.  These glasses are great for general leisure wear, irrespective of whether the weather is sunny or not.

BENCHLEY: - Oak Barrel (with Flint)

The Oak Barrel variant reminds me vaguely of the cat eye glasses that women in the 1960s wore, though thankfully with more moderate top corners!  This is not intended as a criticism, as I regularly insert images from fashions of the past in my blog posts.  A Frenchwoman does not disdain the past, but she just loves to pick out the choicest examples of fashion from each era and look different each day: - a Frenchwoman will use her shrewd eyes to choose timeless elegance over fads any day.  These glasses are fabulous for a 1960s retro look.Glasses such as these will work very well as part of a 1960s-esque outfit consisting of these glasses, a plain top (a polo neck jumper in particular) and a plain skirt/pair of trousers, each of the three constituent parts in a different colour, say red/yellow/green or red/yellow/blue.  If a smarter or a slightly less bold look is desired, I believe this would work well with a matching pill box hat, jacket and skirt.  I don't think Jacqueline Kennedy was short-sighted, but if she had been, I could just see a fashion icon such as her wearing a pair of glasses such as this alongside a pill box hat.  Generally, I believe this will best suit someone with a fair shade of skin, so as to bring out the bright colours.

BENCHLEY: - Crystal (with hazelnut)

This variant will be a great choice for someone with a darker shade of skin, as the bright white of the main frame will stand in contrast to the skin shade, with the hazelnut inner rim giving an edgy, sophisticated look.  This variant is very useful for upper-end leisure wear.  It will look classy against many items of clothing.  As I have often mentioned, Bilal likes to wear hip-hop clothing when he is not wearing a traditional Touareg costume and I believe this will be a great accessory for a sweatsuit.  I could just see famous rappers such as Rohff wearing this on stage.    This is not a backhanded compliment though: - anyone hoping to make big sales in the fashion will do well if they can be all things to all men (and women, MDR).  This variant is the perfect complement to others in the range that allows the already fabulous Concentric Collection to appeal to an even wider audience.

So there you have it: - my take on this fabulous collection.  Each of the designs are individual, but absolutely wonderful in their own way.  It is clear that a large amount of thought has gone into making the designs individual, so careful thought should be expended regarding what it will match with, but a small amount of forethought about which pair of glasses will match the chosen outfit will yield enormous dividends when it comes to creating a look to die for.