National anthems

Apologies for the fact that my posts are not particularly regular.  I know that sometimes there are none for a few weeks and then several come at once: - no-one said running one's own fashion magazine would result in a predictable schedule (no, Vanity Fair is not my magazine, but hopefully, mine will become that popular in time).

One thing we French know how to do better than anyone else is national anthems.  Everyone knows the name of ours: - "La Marseillaise".  Most people would probably have heard it in Casablanca, the scene where there were only a few instruments, yet it sounded like a full orchestra.

I notice that the Paris-Marseille train journey in that film isn't as fast as the 3h05m non-stop journey available today, but then French technology does move very quickly.  Anyway, enough of that, back to my bragging about how "La Marseillaise" is the best anthem in the world, as confirmed by various polls.  Sometimes, I have been unfortunate enough to hear football fans singing "God save the Queen" in a  thoroughly tuneless way, as well as hearing incompetent musical arrangements of "The star-spangled banner".  The one below is one of the better arrangements I could condescend to put onto this blog, but it still doesn't compare to "La Marseillaise".

The anthem is so named because of its use by volunteers in Marseille, my home city and the home of my beloved pastis: -

A well-known rendition of the anthem was sung by Mireille Mathieu, a singer who comes from Avignon, just two stops on the TGV from Marseille and is famous for her pudding-basin haircut (not really to my taste, but never mind).

Anyway, I'll finish my gloating by leaving you with the poetic beauty of the full lyrics of "La Marseillaise", which are shown below (with a literal English translation): -

Allons enfants de la Patrie,	Arise, children of the Fatherland,
Le jour de gloire est arrivé !	The day of glory has arrived!
Contre nous de la tyrannie,	Against us tyranny
L'étendard sanglant est levé, (bis)	Raises its bloody banner (repeat)
Entendez-vous dans les campagnes	Do you hear, in the countryside,
Mugir ces féroces soldats ?	The roar of those ferocious soldiers?
Ils viennent jusque dans vos bras	They're coming right into your arms
Égorger vos fils, vos compagnes !	To cut the throats of your sons and women!
Aux armes, citoyens,	To arms, citizens,
Formez vos bataillons,	Form your battalions,
Marchons, marchons !	Let's march, let's march!
Qu'un sang impur	Let an impure blood
Abreuve nos sillons !	Water our furrows! (repeat)
Que veut cette horde d'esclaves,	What does this horde of slaves,
De traîtres, de rois conjurés ?	Of traitors and conjured kings want?
Pour qui ces ignobles entraves,	For whom are these vile chains,
Ces fers dès longtemps préparés ? (bis)	These long-prepared irons? (repeat)
Français, pour nous, ah ! quel outrage	Frenchmen, for us, ah! What outrage
Quels transports il doit exciter !	What fury it must arouse!
C'est nous qu'on ose méditer	It is us they dare plan
De rendre à l'antique esclavage !	To return to the old slavery!
Aux armes, citoyens...	To arms, citizens...
Quoi ! des cohortes étrangères	What! Foreign cohorts
Feraient la loi dans nos foyers !	Would make the law in our homes!
Quoi ! Ces phalanges mercenaires	What! These mercenary phalanxes
Terrasseraient nos fiers guerriers ! (bis)	Would strike down our proud warriors! (repeat)
Grand Dieu ! Par des mains enchaînées	Great God ! By chained hands
Nos fronts sous le joug se ploieraient	Our brows would yield under the yoke
De vils despotes deviendraient	Vile despots would have themselves
Les maîtres de nos destinées !	The masters of our destinies!
Aux armes, citoyens...	To arms, citizens...
Tremblez, tyrans et vous perfides	Tremble, tyrants and you traitors
L'opprobre de tous les partis,	The shame of all parties,
Tremblez ! vos projets parricides	Tremble! Your parricidal schemes
Vont enfin recevoir leurs prix ! (bis)	Will finally receive their reward! (repeat)
Tout est soldat pour vous combattre,	Everyone is a soldier to combat you
S'ils tombent, nos jeunes héros,	If they fall, our young heroes,
La terre en produit de nouveaux,	The earth will produce new ones,
Contre vous tout prêts à se battre !	Ready to fight against you!
Aux armes, citoyens...	To arms, citizens...
Français, en guerriers magnanimes,	Frenchmen, as magnanimous warriors,
Portez ou retenez vos coups !	You bear or hold back your blows!
Épargnez ces tristes victimes,	You spare those sorry victims,
À regret s'armant contre nous. (bis)	Who arm against us with regret. (repeat)
Mais ces despotes sanguinaires,	But not these bloodthirsty despots,
Mais ces complices de Bouillé,	These accomplices of Bouillé,
Tous ces tigres qui, sans pitié,	All these tigers who, mercilessly,
Déchirent le sein de leur mère !	Rip their mother's breast!
Aux armes, citoyens...	To arms, citizens...
Amour sacré de la Patrie,	Sacred love of the Fatherland,
Conduis, soutiens nos bras vengeurs	Lead, support our avenging arms
Liberté, Liberté chérie,	Liberty, cherished Liberty,
Combats avec tes défenseurs ! (bis)	Fight with thy defenders! (repeat)
Sous nos drapeaux que la victoire	Under our flags, shall victory
Accoure à tes mâles accents,	Hurry to thy manly accents,
Que tes ennemis expirants	That thy expiring enemies,
Voient ton triomphe et notre gloire !	See thy triumph and our glory!

An expansion of SNCF's Euroduplex fleet

Some fabulous news!  SNCF has signed a contract expanding its Euroduplex fleet!  Some people accuse the French government of protectionism, given that SNCF only buys its high-speed trains from Alstom (a French manufacturer), but I say this is reflective of the fact that not only are we French the only people who know how to do café culture, fats, portion sizes, bottled water and a whole host of other things, we are also the only people who know how to do trains.

As mentioned in the article, the Euroduplex sets are already in use on the Paris-Luxembourg and Paris-Strasbourg-Stuttgart-Munich routes and will be introduced on the Paris-Zürich and Paris-Barcelona routes.  Some people say that the double decker TGVs are cheap and cheerful, rather than sophisticated.  I would counter by saying that we French are good at making high-speed trains a mass-market product and if only the crème-de-la-crème of French society could afford to travel by train (as is the case in many other nations less competent at running railway systems), we French women would probably be forced into our cars to get around and we would then have to work harder to maintain our impossibly dainty and thin figures on account of walking less.  Besides, though we French have car manufacturers (I think I recall hearing that Peugeot was the first manufacturer to produce a diesel hybrid car, the 3008), I think travelling by car is a symbol of American indulgence and obesity, rather than French dainty figures, so I try and travel by train where practical.

I am very thankful that London-Paris and Paris-Marseille became major high-speed train corridors relatively early on.  How else would I have been able to return to Paris at weekends and Marseille on anything longer without getting on a plane when I was building my career in London.  London-Paris is approximately 450km and Paris-Marseille is approximately 750km.

I know I said it is unladylike for a lady to be a gricer, but since my daddy is an engineer who works for SNCF, trains have been a major part of family life and I have accumulated some understanding of rolling stock as a result, I thought I would give some technical reasons why the double-deck TGV sets (of various types) help cement France as being perfect in just about everything, including trains: -
1)  Some people think it is a step into the future if a train has the electric multiple unit configuration.  I would counter by pointing out the fact that the locomotive configuration makes the trains much quieter inside, given that you can't hear the traction equipment underneath your feet.
2)  The small number of motors in these Euroduplex sets helps keep the maintenance costs down.  Though I am very sophisticated with my lifestyle, I cannot boast about French women as a whole being sophisticated if their sophisticated ways are not mass-market solutions that permeate the whole of French society.
3)  The sets have an enormous capacity.  As far as I am aware, all the Euroduplex sets have capacities above 500 people.  Again, this helps keep the costs down and makes them a mass-market solution.
4)  The articulated nature reduces the power-weight ratio of the trains, meaning that you can get the same acceleration and speed performance with fewer motors: - again, this keeps the cost down.
5)  The articulated nature of the train means that the main area where vibrations occur is in the transitional area between one carriage and another.
6)  The fact that the trains are articulated and in a locomotive configuration means that it is very easy to make a double-decker train, because these two factors mean that you can have low floors, given that you aren't trying to fit bogies and motors underneath them.
7)  The articulated nature of the train means that the train is more likely to stay intact in the event of a derailment.  Granted, sometimes this doesn't happen, as has been proven by the derailment in Santiago de Compostela (obviously, if you run a train at 190km/h through an 80km/h bend, there will be carnage), but there have been some minor derailments in France involving TGVs running at very high speeds where the train remained intact and virtually nobody was injured.
8)  The fact that they are double-decker means one can get a great view of the verdant French countryside.
9)  They are very light: - the 17-tonne axle load makes them suitable for a wide variety of railways.  However, with so many French women weighing almost nothing, I guess they don't have to worry about the extra weight provided by the passengers!  Don't forget the reduced number of motors helps make this possible.
10)  They achieved the world speed record for a conventional train (574.8km/h) on the then-unopened LGV Est (though with some modifications to the in-service configuration).  Granted, the Japanese (who are also famous for dainty portion sizes) achieved a slightly higher speed, but this was with a maglev (magnetic levitation) train.  At present, I'm not convinced maglev trains are a mass-market product, because the power needed to keep the train afloat is higher than the power saved by the absence of mechanical friction between the track and the train, the internal moving parts of the train etc.  The Japanese are probably closest to perfection after the French, but they don't come close.  Vive la France!

A continuation of two previous posts

This post is a continuation of two posts I did recently.  It is a continuation of the one about my tea party-esque views and the one about café culture.

The theme of this post is how to do tea properly.  This is another thing that people in the Anglo-Saxon world don't seem to understand.  Regarding the part about tea  party sentiments, I don't know what I would have done if I had been at the Boston Tea Party.  Most probably, I would have been outraged at the monopoly put on tea, given that the British haven't the faintest idea about how to do tea properly, though I wouldn't have cared much about the taxes put on the tea, given that I wouldn't have bought it anyway.

I remember there was a reference to the Boston Tea Party in the film Mary Poppins.  Just before George Banks got sacked from his job, he commented on the Boston Tea Party, saying that the colonialists threw the tea overboard and made it unsuitable for drinking, even for Americans.

What hypocrisy!  Americans don't know how to drink tea properly, but then neither do the British.  British people are so stupid that they think the proper way to drink tea is to have the tea served with milk (and sometimes sugar) in a china cup with flowery patterns on it.  What monstrous stupidity!

A Frenchwoman knows that if drinking tea, the proper way to do it is to have the tea in a clear glass without milk and sip it delicately in a café whilst watching the world go by, with a blank facial expression only trendy Europeans can do.  Also, one should never ever use teabags!  Only stupid bumpkins would ever use tea bags!  If I ever got served tea in a café that was produced from teabags (a Frenchwoman's palate is sophisticated enough to know the difference), I would demand to see the manager without delay and quickly publish an article in my magazine telling people never to go there (my magazine focuses mainly in sartorial fashion, but is mindful of the fact that being fashionable is not just about what one wears).

Anglo-Saxon people are also ignorant of what types of tea are suitable for refined palates such as a Frenchwoman's.  For instance, Earl Grey and Lady Grey seem to be the choice for many pseudo-sophisticated British people.  Why are non-French people so daft?  The fact that there is a bit of French writing on the box below ("poids") does not compensate for the fact that it is unsophisticated!

If one wants to have sophisticated tea, then at the bargain basement end, the minimum quality one should consider is that embodied by the brand Mariage Frères, a remnant of the days when France was a world power, particularly in Asia (I wouldn't mind France enjoying the same colonial power, as that is a way in which people were no doubt made aware of how impossibly perfect we French women are).

Now, Mariage Frères is not a top brand, but a bargain basement brand, if you are a sophisticated Frenchwoman like me.  As for what constitutes a reasonable brand of tea, I will have to go into that another time, as I think this post is about optimum for a blog.  Please see the picture below showing a Mariage Frères close up and remember that only French people know how to do teas properly.

Restaurant meals

One thing we French women are aware of that makes us much more sophisticated than people in the Anglo-Saxon world is how we size up the value of restaurants' wares.

Stupid Anglo-Saxon people think that the value of a restaurant meal is the constituent value of its parts, i.e. they think that if the cost of the meal is only slightly higher than the cost of the raw materials, they have found a bargain.  What awful ignorance!  As Cécile Delarue says in her website French and Parfait, "My poor non-French people".  Particularly in the USA, people are very keen on buffets (yes, I know this is regrettably a French word) or all-you-can-eat places where they can stuff themselves silly.  How terribly un-stylish, vulgar and unfitting for stylish French women such as myself!  Why is it that some people are so daft and don't know how to do restaurant meals properly?

A French woman knows that this is not the proper way to do restaurant meals.  After all, "restaurant" is a French word, so if one wants to know how to do restaurant meals properly, one can do no better than asking a stylish French woman such as myself.  A French woman sizes up the value of restaurant meals not by the sum total of the cost of the raw materials, but by how much pleasure it gives you.  A well-made French restaurant meal gives a French woman (who has a sophisticated enough palate to know the difference between good and bad food) a sensation of pure pleasure.  I could describe what sort of pleasure a good restaurant meal gives a sophisticated French woman, but that would result in my blog receiving a warning saying that it is only suitable for people over the age of 18.  Look at these presumably Francophone women gaining pure pleasure from eating chocolate at the Museum of Cacao and Chocolate.  Yes, I know that this is in Brussels, the capital of Belgium and not France, but it is too late at night to find a more suitable photo on Wikimedia Commons and anyway, Brussels (or Bruxelles) is a Francophone area, even if it is surrounded by Flems, or should that be phlegms (LOL, or MDR, as people say in France).

A proper restaurant meal should be elaborately presented and with as dainty portions as possible.  The reason for this is that a Frenchwoman wants her food to be a feast for her eyes as well as for her taste buds. We are so sophisticated that we can very nearly look at a delicious meal and feel full up.  When I found myself in the UK, people weren't so bothered about food presentation and found the obsession rather silly, saying that there was no point, given that the food would soon be gone (ooh la la, such ignorance).  I found it hard to avoid eating more as a result.  The point is that if a Frenchwoman is given an immaculately-presented dish, she will almost full just by looking at it and she will be able to eat only a few dainty nibbles to feel full.