Excuses

Having just given birth to our second baby and received regular confirmation from Bilal that I am still a "well buff wifey", I am once again reminded of how thin and impossibly perfect my figure is.  Bilal is welcoming lots of visitors from La Savine (hip-hop people, in other words) to see our son: - the police were called to my flat because someone called them suggesting that there was drug dealing going on here, MDR.  When Bilal's homies visit, he lets his guard down, i.e. using hip-hop French I don't always understand and openly talking about knocking me up and me being "well buff" after two children: - his "homies" often express open agreement with the second point.  Unlike many Western women, I love this aspect of Bilal and I would never want a herbivore man: - I was always attracted to big, strong and macho men.  I ask him to try and avoid saying things too openly in front of people who aren't from La Savine (who are like him) or church (who have come to accept him as he is), as it is easier to just not have to explain, MDR.

Being a mother-of-two and still beanpole thin, one thing that has become ever more apparent to me is that Anglo-Saxon women have an endless supply of excuses for not being thin.  On the other hand, a Frenchwoman has an iron will and unbreakable self-discipline that enables her to be attractive in any season of life (both the young filly and old bag season, as Zoë Williams put it, MDR).  In this blog post, I outline typical excuses of Anglo-Saxon women and what a Frenchwoman's solutions are.

Excuses

Anglo-Saxon women seem to be under this bizarre impression that they need to eat for two when expecting a baby.  Granted, I have only given birth to two children, but having used the same strategy to stay thin during both pregnancies, my assumption is that the process is repeatable, no matter how many children a woman has: - Bilal is only too happy to oblige in enabling me to prove this, MDR.  During both pregnancies, I observed the rules I observed when not pregnant, primarily portion size.  If you remember them and have an iron will like we Frenchwomen, there is no reason to ever get fat.

Many Western women fall into the trap of comfort eating, the excuse being that because they are sad, depressed or whatever, they comfort-eat.  In other words, what they are saying is they have a bad lack of self-control when their moods are low.  A Frenchwoman knows very well that comfort eating never was the solution to low moods, as it causes large amounts of food to become like an addition, i.e. she is bad-tempered until she gets her fix.

Another common thing Western women do is blame people around them for "unrealistic" images of beauty, i.e. setting off a yo-yo dieting pattern because she does crash dieting to achieve the desired weight, which is followed up by eating more and getting heavier.  They often blame unrealistic images and the men in their lives, as Natalie Grant did in that article.  Our Heavenly Father displayed His wisdom in pairing Bilal and me: - I am able to listen to all he has to say about me being a "well buff wifey", appreciate it, and still remain in full control of my eating and weight, irrespective of anything Bilal does or doesn't say.  Natalie Grant (the author of the article the link points to) would no doubt respond in a similar way if she were married to a man like Bilal who appreciates fine women.

Solutions

Simple solutions are often the best.  A Frenchwoman knows that there is no black magic necessary to achieve a pencil thin figure: - just say "la moitié, s'il vous plaît" at every mealtime!  If necessary, keep doing so until the portion is befitting of a dainty Frenchwoman!  Simple!  This phrase has been key to keeping a Frenchwoman thin for many generations.  A French female learns this phrase that acts as the perfect solution for staying thin when she first starts to talk.

If the food portions available are more than twice as big as they should be, the next solution is to remember what proper food portion sizes are.  Mireille Guiliano discussed portion sizes she regards as standard, though truth be told, they are a little too big for me, MDR.  Even so, the principle  behind the solution is the same: - women should build an idea in their mind about what standard portion sizes are and stick to what they remember.  If she lacks ambition and she wants to use Mireille's portion sizes, she can carry such objects around with her to look at during quiet moments and continue building up her familiarity.

Exercising control of moods is another solution.  A Frenchwoman does not tend to indulge her moods in ways that lead to her indulging herself further with food.  Anglo-Saxon women tend to get angry about things and rant angrily, before resorting to comfort eating to lift their moods.  On the other hand, a Frenchwoman will just light another Gauloise (just kidding, we French women are not the stereotypical chainsmokers Zoë Williams thinks we are), do a Gallic shrug and say "bof".  She knows that self-discipline in general is key: - if she has mastered it over her moods, she will more than likely have self-discipline over food as well.  I am not saying a Frenchwoman never has trying times in life, but her solution is to deal with them by other means, such as more searching for beautiful garments.

The power of imagination is another solution in a Frenchwoman's arsenal.  She considers eating more of her favourite foods and then remembers the joy of being able to fit into all her favourite clothes.  When tempted, she thinks of the joy of being able to walk round in tight outfits and the misery of being too fat to fit into beautiful clothes!  Simple!  The only times I have ever been too big are during my two pregnancies: - the danger during this time is women will slip, given that she won't fit into her previous clothes anyway, so she needs to picture a postpartum shopping spree for the most gorgeous clothes she can find (I wouldn't dream of wearing fashions from 9 months ago) and fitting into all of them perfectly as she has no pregnancy pounds.  One day, I hopped on the train at Marseille-St. Charles at 08.38, arrived in Paris 3h07m later, rushed round shops selling haute couture (that would never fit fat and dumpy Anglo-Saxon women) and found anything I wanted fitted me just like before. I got on the 16.15 train at Paris-Gare de Lyon with my hands full of shopping (plenty of room though, given how little of the seat I took up, MDR) and 3h10m later arrived back at Marseille-St. Charles to find Bilal waiting for me with our sons telling me I was a "well buff wifey" in my latest outfit and that he was treating us to an exquisite dinner at the Vieux Port.  Imaging such situations is the ideal solution for maintaining self-control during pregnancy!

Though France suffers from big government, a Frenchwoman knows the solution is to take responsibility for her own body.  Mireille Guiliano pointed out that "French women choose their own indulgences and compensations.  They understand that little things count, both additions and subtractions, and that as an adult everyone is the keeper of her own equilibrium."  It is nice that Natalie Grant chose to take control of her diet for her own health, but she is vulnerable to falling into the bulimia trap again, as she lays the blame for this at the hands of her ex-boyfriend/fiancé, rather than accepting she is the keeper of her own equilibrium.  Granted, her ex-boyfriend/fiancé was unsuitable for her as a believing lady: - my daddy made it clear he would turn away all suitors if they had no history of regular attendance, participation and volunteering in a church (eventually, he realised it was not possible to fault Bilal on this).  However, a Frenchwoman has self-control and self-discipline and accepts responsibility whatever the men in her life are like: - I would never take the easy way out and blame the men in my life (Bilal and our two sons) for sidetracking me from exercising personal responsibility for staying beanpole thin!

So there you go: - common excuses for not being thin and a Frenchwoman's way round these excuses.  Stop making excuses and be impossibly perfect as we Frenchwomen are!

Our second child

I have given birth to our second son.  As expected, Bilal was overjoyed by the arrival.  One could falsely believe that he wasn't, given how much he has spoken about subsequent children, but he has been visibly excited throughout the pregnancy and his joy in holding our second son just after he was born was clear for everyone to see.  In one sense, nobody deserves anything, given that we all fall short of God's glory, but in another sense, given the fruits Bilal has produced during his Christian journey, I think Bilal really deserved this type of fruit.  He has a yearning for a big family and I am very aware that it is something he has aspired to for pretty much all his life.

As with his older brother, our son was a very pretty baby immediately upon being born and he was born with some lovely curly locks and beautiful light brown skin in between the skin shades Bilal and I have.  I would have enrolled them as baby models immediately if Bilal hadn't said no: - personal privacy is one of his primary preoccupations, so this is out the question, but I don't mind, as he clearly has his family's best interests at heart.  He is no controlling husband and does not do things like demand to know where I am at any moment of day, lol.  Marriage is about give and take and Bilal has certainly given a lot, so even by the standards of non-believers, there is no justification for upsetting him by sharing photos of our sons against his will (the boy in the photo below is not ours).

The delivery had no complications and I was immediately back to my previous waist measurement and weight with no fat to lose.  People often say this doesn't tend to happen, but I have managed it during both my pregnancies!  It is easy if you just eat sensibly: - just utter the magic phrase at mealtimes ("la moitie, s'il vous plait)!  MDR!  The lack of complications meant that I left hospital within a matter of hours: - as a BBC article pointed out, we French are often hypochondriacs, but it was blatantly obvious there was nothing wrong with me.  This was nice, because although I don't do much worrying about my health (since I eat properly), Bilal does.  He can be very attentive if he suspects I am unwell and it is often hard work to reassure him.  Even with French standards of hypochondria, he has made a name for himself at the local doctor's surgery for being overly cautious with almost every sniffle our first son has had, MDR.

Within an hour of completion of the delivery, Bilal was talking about future children, which attracted an unwanted disapproving comment from a feminist member of the hospital staff: - "Come on!  Your wife has just given birth and you want to force more children on her like she is some breeding animal?  A woman is worth more than the children she bears!"  Bilal was visibly shaken by this comment and he is uneasy about engaging in conversation with unrelated women, so I stepped in: - "Madam, I am aware of many options open to me in this country if I were in an abusive marriage and my husband were forcing me to have children against my will, but he is not, so I will thank you not to interfere in our private family life".  Bilal said very little after that and was clearly very upset, but he returned to his normal ungentlemanly self after we left the hospital with our sons and returned home, MDR.

Save for my parents who were at the hospital and came home with us, our first acquaintances to visit were some of his "homies" from La Savine who he has been trying to encourage to come along to our church.  When they rang the bell from the street entrance, Bilal was naturally too engrossed in our sons to notice, so Daddy went to the intercom.  The poor quality of their French made Daddy reluctant to let them in, so he asked Bilal if he knew them, to which Bilal abruptly replied "let them in, they are manz homies from La Savine".  When Daddy let them in at the door, he was visibly unimpressed with their attire (low-slung trousers and hooded tops covering most of their faces).  Upon seeing our second son, they said, "Congratulations fam!  You da man!"  Bilal replied, "True dat!  Manz only been married 19 months and manz knocked up manz well buff wifey twice and manz now got two sons!  Manz gonna knock her up again as soon as possible and be an even bigger man!  Us manz Heavenly Father has given man a bare sick gift between manz legs!"  Bilal then did a hip-thrust gesture and a loud grunt whilst saying that for effect.  This caused me to start sniggering and my parents let out a groan: - Daddy never liked Bilal's ungentlemanly behaviour and he tried to turn Bilal into a gentleman when we were courting and subsequently engaged, but eventually just gave up, reasoning that Bilal is an otherwise wholesome man, even if he is quite hip-hop with some similarly hip-hop friends.  I am expecting Bilal to be similarly ungentlemanly when we go to church today, MDR.

Bilal is enjoying his short time on paternity leave.  Ever since becoming a father, he has been almost clingy with our sons: - though he enjoys his job and works very hard, I know that he is always yearning for the end of the working day to come so he can come home and be with me and our offspring.  His interaction with our sons is at least as much as mine.

Vive la présidente!

On Sunday, we French will be going to the first round of the polls of the presidential election.  As many of my readers will be aware, the candidate Bilal and I view most favourably (remembering that none of them are a perfect match to us) is Marine Le Pen.

Bilal thinks her niece Marion Maréchal-Le Pen (Marine's niece) is a "well buff wifey", though he views her as being less attractive than me and therefore doesn't look at her with lust, MDR.  He and I agree it is nice that we French have relatively nice-looking female politicians than the frumpy and dowdy ones on the other side of the English Channel.  Theresa May isn't the worst, but she was at best plain in her youth, as she is today.  Bilal notes that Marine Le Pen was reasonably "buff" in her youth, even if she is overweight (by French standards, but not by British standards, MDR).  Though there are many things Bilal and I like about the United Kingdom (its rich Reformation history), the physical appearances of its female politicians (and women in general) leave a lot to be desired.  However, with Marine Le Pen being the only major female presidential candidate, there is not much to be said regarding comparisons of candidates' physical appearances.

Moving on to the less important issue of what their policies are, Bilal and I view Marine Le Pen's policies most favourably.  In the past 24 hours, there has been yet another terrorist attack in France, which seems to have had Islamic motivations.  Let us be clear, being a believer is never easy in any part of France: - very few sectors of French society are in favour of biblical teaching, given how much our nation regrettably did to persecute the Huguenots over the centuries.  However, La Savine has large numbers of Muslim migrants who tend to be very actively hostile to the faith: - Bilal struggled to deal with this and enjoys the less close-knit lifestyle that my penthouse apartment offers him, though he tries to keep up his work in the community of La Savine as much as possible.  Both of us would welcome the reduction in Islamic migration that Marine Le Pen promises, given the hostility our faith already suffers.

Marine Le Pen's economic policies are actually quite leftie.  She seems to be appealing to the stick-in-the-mud Luddite French workers who want to continue doing their jobs the way they have always done them and continue to enjoy ever-rising wages.  As Margaret Thatcher said, "No!  No!  No!": - constantly rising wages require constant innovation.  This means a constant search for efficiency and better products: - as a fashion magazine editor, I very much understand the importance of keeping ahead of the game.

I don't think Anglo-Saxon economic policies are necessarily good, as they centre around the principle of knowing the cost of everything and the value of nothing, as highlighted by a recent Financial Times article regarding Alstom's Belfort plant.  Continental European economies seem to work on providing long-term value, whereas Anglo-Saxon economics seems to be "slash-and-burn".  Given that France doesn't have the same silliness with shareholders demanding short-term cash flow, it is possible to focus on solutions providing long-term value.  The Financial Times article doesn't mention the fact that the order will enable SNCF to retire some fleets early and drastically reduce the number of different fleets in service.  In his work for "Le Trom de Marseille", Bilal only has to deal with one fleet (the MPM 76), but his railway industry acquaintances elsewhere tell him how annoying it is when you have to do an enormous amount of work to account for local fleet variations.  However, given their extreme ignorance about how a train operating company and rolling stock engineers work, it is easy for morons working at the Financial Times to criticise the TGV order.  I am generally supportive of Marine Le Pen's desire to avoid slash-and-burn economics.

France is actually doing very well with per-hour-productivity and I don't think increasing the working week would necessarily result in higher output (as Emmanuel Macron proposes), but its working practices are very staid.  Bilal often quotes the famous Neville Shute saying that says "an engineer is a man who can do for five shillings what any damned fool could do for a pound": - if we want to be richer, we need to be constantly on the lookout for improvements and unfortunately, Marine Le Pen's economic policies do very little to encourage this.  They seem to encourage the I-farm-cattle-because-my-father-did-and-his-father-before-him-did-and-his-father-before-him-did mentality.  In summary, I would prefer a candidate combining the best economic policies of both sides, but our presidential candidates are what they are.

All that said, I hope that next month, we will be chanting "Vive la présidente!"

Stuttgart: - a city of viticulture

Though I am heavily pregnant and due to give birth any day now, it was necessary to travel to Germany on business, as I am trying to get my magazine set up with a German office along with all the necessary infrastructure, such as distributors (admittedly, this is less of an issue in the online age).  I am considering the question of which cities to site the premises in.

To me, transport connectivity is a big issue, as in spite of the internet revolution, the fashion business contains many aspects that just require people to be there in person.  Airport connections don't really cut it for a Frenchwoman, as the short working week means she needs to be productive all the time, meaning that if she travels as part of her job, she needs to be able to do work during the journey, i.e. on a laptop/tablet hybrid on a table.  It was therefore necessary to choose a city that is well-linked to France and other German cities.

One of the cities I am considering is Stuttgart.  Current direct journey times from Paris are 3h11m.  This should drop further when the Rastatt Tunnel is opened in 2022.  Frankfurt is 1h17m on the fastest services.  Munich is 2h13m, though this will drop substantially with the Stuttgart 21 project's completion and the new line to Ulm.

Berlin is 5h04m, though it admittedly has a long way to go before it becomes a fashion capital, even though it is full of the metro-trendies from my industry I detest!  The Stuttgart 21 project will convert the main station from a terminus into a through station and shift it underground and will be completed concurrently with the Stuttgart-Wendlingen-Ulm high-speed line.  When they all open in 2021, they are expected to reduce journeys starting in Stuttgart by around 26 minutes, with Frankfurt-Munich journeys (via the Stuttgart route) being about 3h00m instead of 3h37m.  The increased saving for through journeys exists because of the time penalty for turning a train around.

In addition to good intercity connections, Stuttgart also has a great metropolitan public transport network, focused mainly on the tram system, but it also has a rack railway and funicular railway as part of its urban transport system, as the city is built on a series of hills.  Being from Marseille, this is something I am used to: - the city is shielded by mountains that mean the city is 8.4 degrees Celcius in January, compared with 5.5 in nearby Aix-en-Provence.  Bilal is more used to it, given the years spent in La Savine, a high-up area of the city.  The city has a series of outdoor staircases, a bit like Los Ángeles.

The Romans quickly discovered that Stuttgart has a mild climate suited to viticulture (some vineyards are a few hundred metres from the main station), which gives it an air of sophistication, though not to the same extent as France.  Germany has a reasonably large number of wine-producing areas: - the Rhine and Mosel(le) valleys are often used for wine cultivation.  The custom in these areas is to pick the grapes when snow arrives, which gives an extremely sweet quasi-dessert wine flavour: - not very good to my way of thinking, being a sophisticated Frenchwoman, but ultra-sweet dessert wines work with a few foods, such as crème caramel and blue cheese (Roquefort being a well-known French example).

Stuttgart is the capital of the Baden-Württemberg state and therefore contains the state parliament.  It is also the biggest city in the state and therefore the place where things are happening.  It is also a huge centre for the automotive industry: - Porsche and Mercedes-Benz are based in the city.  As my readers will know, I am less enthusiastic about cars, given the increased difficulty of finding somewhere to drive at 320km/h (the LGV Est, Rhine-Rhône, Sud-Europe Atlantique and Bretagne), but these two brands have definitely succeeded in creating an image of glamour!  Certainly, Stuttgart is a very prosperous city and these brands reinforce the image of luxury living.

A French it-girl such as myself will always be on the lookout for good places to go shopping.  I haven't slowed down on shopping since becoming a mother, as motherhood is not the time to kick back, neglect personal beauty and end up looking ugly: - this is what silly Anglo-Saxon women do!  Stuttgart is not as fabulous as the best French shopping destinations, but there are some reasonable bargain basement offerings and entry-level international cuisine in the form of the Calwer Passage: - after all, if German women are aspiring to be impossibly perfect and dainty like we Frenchwomen, they have to start somewhere!  MDR.

We shall see if this venture into Germany is successful and whether a whole new country can be made aware of how impossibly and unattainably perfect we French women are (and ideally inspired to replicate our impossible example even though they will never reach it)!

Our son's first visit to Douentza

Bilal and I had unexpectedly busy Christmases with our working lives, meaning our holiday time was limited.  We thought things would be less busy in the new year, but they weren't.  Eventually, we decided we just needed to take a holiday and work things around them.  There is always the temptation to procrastinate with taking holidays, thinking that a less busy time will come.  Apart from anything else, my due date for our second child is not far off.  I have no doubt I will soon have another distraction, as Bilal is looking forward to more children after then.

The fashion industry is composed of some very self-centred people who often don't understand that life is not all about them and their whims, so many people in my industry struggle to understand why I am happy with this and insinuate that I am some oppressed wife and Bilal is a misogynist who just views me as a breeding mare.  Me personally, I like big men like Bilal (he is a very big man, MDR) who are into adult pursuits like raising a family, rather than little boys who eschew responsibility and play computer games.  I view it as very manly for a man to be very attentive to children: - Bilal loves to take our son with him everywhere he goes.  A depot environment is no place for a baby, so he doesn't take him to work (I am sure he would if he could, MDR), but Bilal takes him everywhere else, including the gym (in spite of what anyone thinks of the sight of a very big man pumping iron with a small baby a few metres away).

We decided to visit Douentza, the town in Mali he is most closely associated with, though not exclusively, being born into a nomadic Touareg family: - we tend to travel to rural areas according to where his family's livestock are located.  We are on holiday now, so as to avoid the hottest times of year.

I have my tablet with me and recently bought some equipment for satellite broadband (as well as photovoltaic cells), as we plan to make regular trips to Mali.  Bilal was slightly perplexed by this, as is generally quite happy to avoid contact with the outside world when in Douentza.  Also, he is not particularly communicative with people other than friends and family anyway.  Furthermore, he is very hot on privacy: - he will very rarely agree to photos of him or our son, the conditions being that the photos are only stored on a hard drive in our home not linked to the internet (Bilal is worried about hacking).  As a result, his relatives in Mali have no idea what our son looks like, hence why they are particularly keen to see him.

Douentza is not exactly a place where an it-girl such as myself can live a life of glamour and luxury and the travel arrangements in Mali are a world apart from France's fantastic TGV system, saddened as I am by the lack of political will to build a new Marseille-Nice line, as it would make it easier for many high-society girls such as myself to enjoy the glitz of the Côte d'Azur.  A girl such as myself always loves her manicures and pedicures: - opportunities for this are very limited in Douentza, except when women are being beautified for their wedding (when the whole town stops).  I still love it though.  Given the lack of glamour, the arrival of an it-girl such as myself with her returning-son husband quickly becomes the talk of the town: - Bilal doesn't particularly like this from what I can tell.  Men try and pretend they aren't inclined to look at a super-attractive girl such as myself by observing the custom of turning their back when an unfamiliar woman is present, but Bilal knows better, hence why he comes along with me in public.  You can't blame them for trying to be respectful towards Bilal by not ogling me, lol.

Mali is topographically flat and boring, but the area around Douentza is unusually varied: - it sits in a gap between two mountainous areas.  Bilal enjoyed climbing them as a child and we both want our son to grow up to be rugged, though with more finesse than Bilal (e.g. not referring to women as well buff wifeys, MDR).  I am definitely enjoying being back.  I enjoy climbing up the mountains.  Most people would find this difficult with a baby in tow, but Bilal seems quite happy to carry him and all his paraphernalia.  Anyway, for now, we are enjoying the holiday and anticipating what life will bring with our second baby.  Bilal is looking forward towards the birth and future children: - some people talk about trying for children, but Bilal and I won't need to make any changes, him being the energetic man that he is.

Moving purposefully

I read an article just now about how South Korea is planning to revive its non-stop Seoul-Busan railway services (these two cities are the country's biggest).  It said that direct services had existed, but were discontinued, though they believe the economics are now different.  This got me thinking about one thing that is great about France's high-speed network: - the extensive use of non-stop or "infrequent-stop" services with great journey times.  Great journey times are fundamental to a good railway system.  The service planning that SNCF is probably the greatest thing about our high-speed network: - French train journey times are fantastic.  A Frenchwoman loves to sit back, unwind and enjoy the moment, but she manages her time efficiently and therefore does not want to uselessly spend an unduly large amount of time on trains because of ridiculous service and timetable planning: - she doesn't like to rush, but she loves to move purposefully.  She doesn't want to be stuck on a train going nowhere, whiling away the time in long dwell times at stations.  This would deduct from the time she has to shop for the latest fashions and the choicest ingredients at markets.

Apart from a Frenchwoman wanting to move purposefully, SNCF is always in a hard-slog battle to compete with air travel, which is never easy.  On some routes, it is in the lead (Paris-Marseille TGV services have an absolute majority), whereas the Paris-Orly Toulouse-Blagnac air route is the most congested in Europe.  I guess this is due to the prosperity of Toulouse, the prevalence of its aerospace industry there and the extremely long journey times (5h27m direct, 5h24m with an interchange).  When the LGV Sud-Europe Atlantique and the Toulouse branch of the GPSO (Grand Projet Ferroviaire du Sud-Ouest) are complete, journey times will be 3h14m with a stop in Bordeaux and 3h07m without, which will hopefully reduce air journeys drastically.

I know this is comparing apples and oranges, but roughly equivalent high-speed journeys in Germany for instance would take a very long time because of very generous timetabling and stopping patterns that prevent various routes from being competitive.  For instance, Hamburg Hauptbahnhof-Munich Hauptbahnhof (admittedly with a few high-speed gaps, e.g between Würzburg and Nuremberg is about 780km, but the fastest direct service is 5h38m (5h36m possible with interchange).  It stops in Hamburg-Harburg, Hannover Hauptbahnhof, Göttingen, Kassel-Wilhelmshöhe, Fulda, Würzburg, Nuremberg and Ingolstadt.  I am aware that Germany's settlement pattern is very different (lots of medium-sized cities everywhere), but they have missed several opportunities for reasonable journey times, e.g. by not building bypasses.  Apart from the Coburg bypass on the Erfurt-Nuremberg route to be opened this year, I struggle to think of high-speed bypasses in Germany where the town centre station is also served.  Given that Germans dislike anything outside the ordinary as far as punctuality goes, timetable planning often involves very generous run and station dwell times.  Probably, when they are planning timetables, they probably say, "How long does zis journey take at line speed?  Five minutes?  Give it an hour and ven it arrives on time, we will say, "Ve Germans are so efficient!""  There are plenty of stations that appear to be useless for high-speed traffic, given the low populations they serve, one example being Siegburg/Bonn station.

Austria also doesn't seem all that concerned about journey times: - whenever new railway improvements come along that should improve journey times, they always seem to slip in some more stops or journey time padding.  For instance, I cannot understand the need to stop Railjet trains in Jenbach.  Given that: -
1) Innsbruck, the major population centre, has a population of about 130,000, compared to Jenbach's 7,000
2) The Neue Unterinntalbahn (New Lower Inn Valley Railway) allows Jenbach to be bypassed at 220km/h
3) The Railjet trains, having a locomotive configuration, don't have particularly good acceleration
It therefore seems wasteful to stop trains in Jenbach.  I believe the Austrians were aiming for "1-2-3" journey times from Vienna, i.e. 1 hour to Linz, 2 hours to Salzburg and 3 hours to Munich and Innsbruck.  It is anybody's guess how this will be achieved if they are still pursuing it.  However, they will face some competition from Westbahn, which is planning to operate fast services to Salzburg (2h10m, compared to 2h22m with Railjet services), with alternate services going onward to Innsbruck (not sure of the journey times).

On the other hand, the French network has bypasses aplenty and is designed around great journey times.  Cities with high-speed bypasses where town centre through stations are served from both ends that I can think of include Douai, Arras and Lyon.  The LGV Sud-Europe Atlantique to Bordeaux will also include them at Tours (half in service, used by non-stop Bordeaux trains), Poitier and Angoulême, debatably Châtellerault as well.  Currently, there are no non-stop trains running to Marseille (seasonal, I guess), but where they exist, they have tended to offer journey times of 3h05m for the 742km journey.  Similarly, though the Paris-Bordeaux services only run on high-speed line to just beyond Tours, they offer non-stop journeys of 3h11m, which will drop to around 2h when the LGV Sud-Europe Atlantique enters service this year.  I don't quite understand the lack of a planned bypass at Bordeaux, given the need for Paris-Toulouse journey times to be competitive and a bypass for Eurostar trains not stopping at Lille Europe would be good, as the line goes round three sides of a square, but RFF has generally been enthusiastic about building bypasses.  I am loathed to speak favourably of anything British, but the Ashford bypass is a fantastic feat of engineering: - the line goes underground as it approaches the outskirts of Ashford, stays underground a little way, comes up alongside Ashford International station and runs on a flyover through Ashford, allowing trains to pass through at 300km/h.  This means I can minimise the time I spend in the unsophisticated UK, MDR!

I particularly appreciate good journey times when it is necessary to receive foreign clients at the Paris office, as well as during fashion show season (I hope Marseille becomes a fashion capital one day).  Many foreign visitors come to Paris thinking they will find a quintessentially French city with the Eiffel Tower, people eating frog legs and snails, people wearing striped jerseys and berets etc.  The Eiffel Tower is there and isn't going anywhere, but with all the immigrants and the foreign cultures they inflict upon us, Paris is definitely not a French city!  Other nearby cities, though they have immigrants, don't have them in quite such large numbers.  When they ask to see a more French city, there are several easily available options, e.g. Strasbourg (1h46m), Bordeaux (discussed above) etc.

One day, I hope people will realise the value of great journey times and their contribution to making France great.

When will the boys become (gentle)men?

From the very beginning, Bilal has been open about his desire for a large family with me.  He told me that whilst he would never force himself upon me, he will push me to agree to more children as long as the opportunity is available.  I was slightly taken aback by his honesty, but I quickly remembered that I have lots of female acquaintances who have married men who turn out not to want children (particularly if they are older and have previous marriages behind them), or they have lost their enthusiasm for more children after the arrival of the second or so.  I mentioned this to sisters-in-Christ and they expressed the view that such a desire definitely increases a man's desirability to them.  A few weeks after our son was born, Bilal raised this issue with me and said he wanted to try for our second child with no delay.  Even with our second child not yet born, he is already talking about trying for our third one.

Bilal comes from a society where life expectancy is extremely low.  According to the World Health Organisation's 2015 statistics, France's life expectancy was 82.4 years, whereas in Mali it was 58.2 years (near the bottom of the table).  The situation for the Touareg people is even worse, with Minorityrights.org saying that their life expectancy in 2013 was 48 years.  From all I have lead to believe, this situation results in the Touareg people taking the view that time is always limited for doing things in life, in particular childbearing.  There is no time for men to do things like long, extended university studies, followed by time travelling, followed by time spent drifting in one's career and finding one's feet many years later, before finally getting married in one's fourties and grudgingly having children as one's fifties approach.  Touareg men have the mentality that they won't be around long, so they have to work hard to save up to get married, get married as soon as possible and then have as many children as they possibly can in as short a period as possible.  They will typically learn to start keeping livestock at the age of three or four.  I quite like this mentality, as it means men grow up very quickly: - no Peter Pan characters there!  Death isn't a taboo theme with Bilal, as he has maintained his Touareg mentality of life being short: - he also received regular reminders when he witnessed gang shootings in La Savine.

Putting aside the issue of religion, I would seriously advise women frustrated with men who are indifferent about their female biological clocks to seriously think about a Touareg husband!  Bilal is not afraid of getting his hands dirty, putting himself in danger for others, working hard in very arduous conditions or anything like that!  I remember when we were out walking in Marseille one summer evening and he was walking a few metres behind me.  I passed some guys in their mid-30s dressed like teenagers who had set up their X-Box One on the street for some al fresco playing and were puffing away on joints.  One of them said, "That chick is hot!  I want one like that one day!"  They didn't realise Bilal is my husband and he turned round and said to them, "Man agrees: - manz wifey is well buff, innit?  Dat's why man pursued her all the way up da aisle.  Maybe you'll get one too if you do something besides playing computer games, be a man, make something of yourself and go after one?"  One of them then said, "What?  You think you're a bigger man or something?"  Bilal replied, "Yeah.  I knocked her up straight away after marrying her and then again only a few weeks after our son was born."  I was trying hard not to laugh when I heard Bilal say that. When he caught up with me, I told him it wasn't appropriate to accuse some he didn't know of being immature based on little evidence, to which Bilal said he knew them well.  Bilal has never really cared about being a gentleman and I am aware many feminists wouldn't like to be spoken about in that way, but I do because I love real men!  MDR.

In some ways, Bilal is quite feminine.  He spends more time with our son than I do, as his job has regular hours and doesn't require him to travel: - dealing with a screaming baby when at the front row of a fashion show is not easy, MDR.  Our childcare arrangements mean he could spend the evenings socialising with his "homies" if he wanted, but he has chosen not to do that: - he has told his "homies" very bluntly that he is happy to socialise with them, but they have to either visit him at home or they have to go somewhere baby-friendly.  He also found his gym wasn't very amenable to men bringing in small babies, as it wasn't the type of image they were trying to create.  He threatened to take his custom elsewhere (and with him all the women who come along to gawp at him and men who come for his advice) and they soon backed down.  A few men unfamiliar with him initially poked fun at him for bringing our son along, but that was before seeing his body in the changing rooms, MDR.

Large families used to be common in times gone by in France, though I am doubtful many French men were as open as Bilal about how conception was a boost to their egos, MDR!  The Church of Rome has had a consistent policy of opposing contraception, though its power in France has been severely curtailed ("laïcité"), particularly with the 1905 law separating church and state, long before contraceptive methods became available.  I think it is good that the Church of Rome's influence has been restricted in France, but it is a shame that a consequence of this has been people's unwillingness to have children.  Much is made of France's high fertility rate, but the reality is that it tends to be the immigrants having children.  French men don't know how to be men any more!  With the great figures we Frenchwomen have and the female-biased gender ratio, few men can justifiably claim the absence of options, particularly if they lived in nearby Vitrolles in the late 1990s.  Bilal is aware of the baby bonus that Catherine Mégret briefly introduced for children born to at least one French/EU parent.  I remember someone asking him about her, assuming that he would dislike her on account of her supposedly "xenophobic" policies.  Bilal replied, "Fam, she used to be quite fit, though not as fit as manz wifey".  MDR!

Much is made of French men being seductive, but in my view, they have become wussies over the past few decades.  Prior to my relationship with Bilal, I was often approached by men, who I am sure never bothered to call my father when I gave them his business card.  Giving them my father's business card was never intended to put them off per se, it was intended as a test of their manhood!  I love the way Bilal talks to his "homies" about his marriage to "a well buff wifey" like me as being a conquest.  He first asked for permission to court me aged 18 (he was starting university, but already had a large income from his share-trading activities), which my father declined.  Bilal made several more attempts over the next few years while I was at university and subsequently working in the fashion industry before he finally conquered my father and subsequently me.  Bilal's ignorance about how to speak about women in a gentlemanly fashion didn't help, but Daddy later came to realise that he is a man with some rough edges when his activities at church became more apparent.  Daddy tried to turn him into a gentleman during our courtship and engagement without success.

French life expectancy has increased dramatically during the past few centuries, even the past few decades and doesn't appear to be slowing down.  People had more children in times gone by because of the low expectation that they would reach adulthood, i.e. having lots in the expectation of getting lucky with a few.  As mentioned, this is part of Bilal's subconscious mentality.  It is likely that many people have no rush to get married and have children because they think they have all the time in the world.  They prolong adolescence.  It is not such a problem for men when they do this in France, given the gender ratio and the fact that they are surrounded by fabulous women, but the numbers are not really in women's favour, as discussed extensively in an article entitled "The case for settling for Mr. Good Enough".  Also, given the expectation that the man will initiate, courtships tend to be according to the man's timing.

I am hoping that our son will grow up to have my French finesse and Bilal's ruggedness.  Bilal has said he intends to take him on regular holidays to Mali to develop them as herdsmen (I didn't argue, as I support this fully, even though I know many French mothers wouldn't).  Bilal finally managed to find a farm suitable for livestock somewhere near Marseille, so that our son (and future children) will be able to practice even when he isn't in Mali.  Bilal is also learning about mountaineering so that he can teach our son to operate in such environments in the absence of deserts here in France.  This won't be possible full-time, as he will need to be diligent in his academic studies, but the aim is that he will be well-prepared for both lifestyles.

On the other hand, I have insisted that I and my male relatives teach him how to be a gentleman and to speak proper French.  Obviously, it is still quite early to think about our son's career, but I was thinking a commission in the French foreign legion might be a profession where both these qualities are required.  They are based in Aubagne, which is more or less on our doorstep in Marseille.

I came across an article about Memminger High School in Charleston, South Carolina, which has a "Gentleman's Club" (in my view, a very unfortunate double entendre), which teaches young inner-city boys to be gentlemen.  To me, given Charleston's position as the epitome of Deep South gentility, it seems a shame that the boys didn't pick such things up.

A quick Google search also revealed the London School of Etiquette, which does this, but in a paid formal setting.  I am not enthusiastic about sending our son to a boarding school where he would learn this, as I believe that raising children is the parents' job, but I would be delighted if our son grew up to have all the airs and graces of both suave Frenchmen and stereotypical English gentlemen in addition to Touareg ruggedness.  Nobody can say if he will grow up to be sufficiently well-suited to the military lifestyle, but I could just imagine him in a Foreign Legion officer uniform (their headquarters is in nearby Aubagne).

I am not talking Bilal down, as I recognise that he has the personality traits that really matter: - finesse is not one of them.  However, it would be a shame if our son were held back in life or weren't able to woo the woman of his dreams because Bilal passed on his ignorance of gentlemanly conduct.  Certainly, there is an abundance of French men who have a reasonable amount of finesse, but there is a deficit of French men who know how to be real men, rugged and pursue a woman properly.