Belately realising things

I recently read an article by a Northern Irish lady named Lorraine Wylie belatedly realising how wonderful French women's lives are compared to Northern Irish women at https://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/life/features/northern-ireland-can-learn-a-little-on-lifestyle-food-and-fashion-from-the-french-37451558.html .  What struck me most about this is that this was published on the 24th of October 2018 (less than a month ago).  Clearly, though the author has a French first name, she has been stuck in a bunker for the last decade-and-a-half or so!  Has it taken her this long to realise how effortlessly perfect we Frenchwomen are?  No wonder effortlessly perfect Frenchwomen like myself feel the need to go on endlessly about this!  MDR.

The article talks about her visit to her French friend Véronique Maquin Chillou.  She doesn't give the name of the town in which this article is set, though she mentions that it is part of Vienne.  I don't think I would be breaching privacy laws to say a quick Google search reveals it to be Chauvingy in Nouvelle Aquitaine.  This part of France is particularly famous for goat's cheese, with less famous foods being Echiré butter, Farci Poitevin paté and Tourteau Fromagé.  Not as wonderful as Provence, but every culinary region of France is wonderful compared to any region (or country) not under French sovereignty.

Lorraine Wylie talks about how she walked up the steep cobbled streets.  I must say, if she views French women's passive exercise as a new revelation, I can't think what sort of isolated circumstances she has been living in.  This woman has probably been sweating away in a gym (and overeating afterwards) in an attempt to lose weight, as is typical among frumpy Anglo-Saxon women.  Meanwhile, we Frenchwomen are staying effortlessly thin, to oversimplify things slightly, by just walking more (using the stairs and less car travel) and saying "la moitié, s'il vous plaît" when offered some food.

Regarding the tips about beauty, yes, a Frenchwoman definitely knows how to use a beauty regimen to make herself look nice, though I think Véronique Maquin Chillou has a fairly laborious routine.  I don't spend anywhere near the time she appears to spend on beauty (I have compressed my routine to a few minutes in the morning) yet Bilal still thinks I am a "bufft'ing" and comes home each evening with a huge appetite for after our sons have been put to bed.

The advice on food is hardly revolutionary.  Véronique Maquin Chillou says she makes rich dishes and avoids processed foods, sticking to simple things (a Frenchwoman loves elegant simplicity).  She also doesn't avoid cheese, desserts and wine, three not-so-guilty pleasures that Frenchwomen regularly enjoy.  The biggest No-sh"BLEEP"-Sherlock part of the article is "As suspected, a slender silhouette has nothing to do with national heritage. It doesn't matter which side of the channel our bread is buttered, staying in shape is simply about portion control."  I don't know how many times the phrase "La moitié, s'il vous plaît" has appeared in this blog so far.  Okay, she might have been suspecting it for a long time, though I don't know why it took so long for her to confirm her suspicions.

Okay, it is generally harder to reach Northern Ireland from France than the nations making up Great Britain (England, Scotland and Wales) by land, but how has Lorraine Wylie been in the dark for so long?  She talks about the tips as if they were groundbreaking new revelations, which they should not be, even in the Anglo-Saxon world.  This demonstrates that there is plenty more work to do with this blog!

Taking credit where it isn't due

As many of my readers will be aware, I am strongly in favour of trains as a transportation mode.  Mireille Guiliano has often pointed out passive exercise as being a reason why French women are so effortlessly thin and perfect.  In order to make this situation workable in today's globalised world, it is necessary to have good public transportation networks, of which high-speed intercity railway plays an important part.

Of the presidents we French have had in the past few years, Nicolas Sarkozy is the one I am most favourably disposed towards.  He didn't help himself by being a bling-bling president pursuing a glamorous romance with his now-wife Carla Bruni, but he did many good things, such as coming up with some ideas for economic reform (rewarding hard work) and setting the process in motion for construction of LGVs (Lignes à Grande Vitesse, or high-speed lines), in particular Le Mans-Rennes, Tours-Bordeaux and Nîmes-Montpellier.  In addition to this, he played a key role in starting the process for introducing high-speed rail to Morocco.

Granted, an organisation cannot go on indefinitely if its debts just keep ballooning and I am pleased that Emmanuel Macron is cracking down on the gravy train that many SNCF employees enjoy, but I am not happy with the change in the way high-speed lines will be funded.  https://www.railjournal.com/in_depth/sncf-reform-back-on-track-after-devastating-strike explains that SNCF Network will not fund any more high-speed line projects, but the funding will come from the regions.  I don't mind the idea that people in Marseille shouldn't be funding the Tours-Bordeaux line, given the limited benefits we will receive from it.  Some of the principles behind it are good, but what I am unhappy with is the possibility that it will make LGV construction unviable, given the relative lack of power regions have to pull together disparate funding sources.  It is hypothetically possible that Languedoc-Roussillon will persuade say Catalonia and the Spanish government to chip in for the LGV Montpellier-Perpignan.  Maybe PACA (Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur) will persuade Liguria, Italy and other French regions to chip in for the upgrades to the Marseille-Nice route.  I am not holding my breath though.  Marseille-Nice is already badly congested and Montpellier-Perpignan stands to get worse, given the lines that converge at the ends of the proposed route (two in Montpellier and three in Perpignan).

Having done so much to stop future high-speed line construction, our ridiculous president is making appearances when new lines kicked off by Nicolas Sarkozy are opened.  He showed up at the ceremony concerning the soon-to-be-opened Tangiers-Kénitra line, even though it clearly wouldn't have happened under him: - https://newsbeezer.com/franceeng/morocco-inaugurates-the-first-tgv-line-in-africa/ .  I am pleased that the government pushed through the Paris-Marseille route with a lot of enthusiasm, but it is a shame LGV development looks like it has come to a grinding halt in France.

Update: - third baby born

Apologies to my readers for the lack of updates.  Our third son was born a couple of months ago and I have been distracted from this blog by the various things to do at home and work.  Mireille Guiliano has explained how French women are good at making choices.  In her case, she chose not to have children in favour of having a career.  Later, she chose retirement and writing over her role as CEO of Veuve-Cliquot.  In my case, I wanted to continue expanding the reach of my magazine and my family, meaning that my blogging about how wonderful French women are has taken a back seat.  This is not to say that I will never write any more blog posts though: - I am hoping to write some more when I have some more spare time and creative energies.

I don't tend to write much about family matters.  Bilal was never a controlling man, but he is a very private man, so out of kindness to him, I run topics that concern him or our children by him before I write them.  He is happy for me to talk about our fast-growing family, as he is very proud to have had a third son so quickly: - he is very much a man who is still in his prime.  Let's just say he is not slowing down!  He is also happy for me to talk about him being hip-hop.  However, he jealousy guards our sons' privacy and wants this to continue until they are old enough to decide for themselves how much of their lives they want to expose in public.  Therefore, all I will say about our third son is that mother and baby are both doing well, plus the father and the older two sons.

I have various things to say regarding news articles.  For instance, the LGV Nîmes-Montpellier will open to passenger traffic on the 8th of July (it opened to freight traffic in December 2017), with Montpellier's Sud de France station also entering service that day.  However, Bilal is disappointed with the fact that in the interim, it will not speed up his train journeys to visit his homies in Seville: - he loves to take our sons on the train to Seville to visit his homies (I come along when I am able).  Only a few passenger trains (not tending to cover this route) will use the station each day in the interim.  This is because it is not possible to use the new line to serve Nîmes until Nîmes-Pont de Gard station is complete.  Also, the current lack of an extension of Line 1 of Montpellier's trams to Sud de France station limits the station's usefulness.

Also, there are the French railway reforms that were recently passed.  Reforms of SNCF are badly overdue: - its workers are all too often unionised and entitled, causing the organisation to be bloated.  I am hopeful that the reforms will lead to lower taxpayer subsidies and lower ticket prices.  However, the main problem with Emmanuel Macron's ways of doing things regarding railways is his lack of enthusiasm for building new LGV routes.  François Hollande pushed back the LGV Montpellier-Perpignan and his successor looks set to push it back even further: - this route will also reduce the train time to Seville for Bilal.

There was the famous incident of Mamadou Gassama, the Malian immigrant who climbed up a few flights on the outside of an apartment block to save a baby boy in danger of falling.  There is no doubt that this man's actions saved this boy from extreme danger, though from rumours I have heard, it pales in comparison to some of the things Bilal did while growing up in La Savine.  I mentioned in a previous post that he saved a child in danger of drowning: - if the rumours are correct, this was among the tamer examples of things he has done.  Still, Bilal and Mamadou Gassama put many native-born Frenchmen to shame in terms of what they will do to protect the vulnerable.

Loads of things to catch up on, but hopefully, I will write some more posts when I have time!

Fantastic news!

Apologies to my readers for taking so long to deliver the news.  I'll come straight to the point: - I am pregnant for the third time!  The baby is due to be born in the spring.  We have already had scans done that have revealed that we are expecting a third son!  I was delighted and so was Bilal: - he didn't waste time calling up his homies to brag about how he was a big enough man to accomplish this three times in quick succession!

I am doing most of my work from home at the moment: - I attend fashion shows, but I don't go to the office very often unless I need to.  Bilal persuaded me that as a self-employed successful businesswoman, I should exercise my right to do this, particularly with current technologies (I work using a hybrid tablet/laptop that uses mobile broadband).  With my third pregnancy and our oldest son walking and demanding lots of attention, he has been a bit worried about me lately, so I agreed I would spend more time at home to convince him I was relaxing, even though I have filled up much of the surplus time researching new fashions and hunting for the choicest ingredients in the markets!  MDR!

My vision for our sons

In a recent post, I briefly alluded to how I would like our sons to turn out as adults and thought I would do a full article about it.  It is natural for parents to have views on how their children will turn out, even if plans can very easily be scuppered.  Firstly, any parent who wants the best for their children will want them to grow up in the Lord and become born again.  We will provide our sons with the best theological education we can and pray that he will come to saving repentance, but under the principle of Unconditional Election, God has decided who He will bring to saving repentance and man cannot change His decision, so we can only do our best and pray.

The view of Bilal and myself is that there is no merit in treating boys and girls as if they were the same.  Feminists want to get rid of gender differences, rather than celebrate them, which in my view makes them the misogynists.  A girl such as myself is keen to make the most of her femininity, even if Zoë Williams dislikes the use of the word, though I think it is very good at communicating femininity.  If I have a daughter, I will pass on to her all the beauty secrets that have been passed down through the family and make sure her first phrase is "la moitié, s'il vous plaît" and, although it is good for women to be ready for physical labour, we will still treat her as weaker vessels.  On the other hand, regarding our sons, Bilal plans to trip them up and push them over (on soft, grassy ground, never on concrete), playfully punch them, throw them high in the air (obviously catching them afterwards), play "knuckles", "slapsies" and "mercy", tickle them and other ruff and tumble activities that ensure they accumulate lots of bruises.  His expectation is that if they fall and hurt themselves, they will get up again for more.

I want our sons to be both rugged.  Our sons will not be pampered wimps too accustomed to air-conditioned environments.  In keeping with Touareg custom, they will begin training as a herdsman when he is three years old, as well as being trained at Bilal's farm near Marseille.  Bilal's relatives have already agreed to have them during our spring when the weather is very hot, though Bilal has threatened very serious consequences if they so much as mention Islam to them.  Bilal is also learning mountaineering, so that he can get them used to mountain environments in mid-winter: - Bilal wants to climb Mont Blanc (4808m above sea level) when he is able and take our sons with him.  He also has homies from the Côte d'Ivoire and Congo in La Savine, through whom he is beginning discussions about jungle survival training: - Bilal is not used to jungle environments and wants to learn, so as to teach our sons.  As our sons grow up, they will also ensure he spends plenty of evenings and weekends with his grandparents in La Savine, so as to get him used to gangland environments and toughen them up.  This means operating in them, rather than mimicking their culture, MDR!  Part of this will involve fighting skills and learning to box, which Bilal already knows a lot about.  Ultimately, we want them to be unwilling to shy away from physical hurt in pursuit of noble aims, be this fighting for their country or stepping up to protect a lady falling victim to dangerous drunkards, rather than running away because they are afraid of damaging their nails, MDR.

However, as well as rugged, I want them to be gentlemanly.  I don't like much about Britain, but the traditional British gentleman culture is something I want them to learn.  This will involve learning  how to conduct themselves in different social situations, how to dress neatly, how to be properly groomed and everything else.  People often misunderstand what being gentlemanly means: - some view it as flirting with women one has no intention of pursuing and making them swoon.  We will want our sons to understand that being gentlemanly is the complete opposite: - it means avoiding excessive familiarity with women unless they are seriously pursuing them as a potential wife and not leading them on.  Providence enabled Bilal to find a wife who loves him for who he is and isn't offended in the slightest when he refers to attractive women as "well buff wifeys" or "bufft'ings", but I want our sons to know how to refer to women properly, just in case ladies they desire are sensitive about that sort of thing.

We will make sure they are extremely diligent in their academic studies.  We want them to be brains as well as brawn.  We want them to graduate from university in useful vocational subjects, rather than a Mickey Mouse arts degree.  Maybe they will be enthusiastic enough to do PhDs?  Who knows.  Oxbridge and Ivy League institutions are very prestigious, but Bilal and I would worry about our children being deep in cesspits of liberalism such as these.  They aren't exactly known for their tolerance of different points of view.  Bilal liked the fact that studying engineering at university meant he was relatively free of the social scientists!

We haven't got fixed ideas about what career our sons ought to go into, though we have got some ideas about what careers might use the various skills we intend to teach him.  A commission in the Foreign Legion might be one way.  I would love to see them in blues uniform and the ladies swooning over them!  I also wouldn't mind them becoming rolling stock engineers like their father and grandfather: - the TGV network is one thing that makes France great.

HS2 and comparing with France

Apologies to my readers for leaving such a very long time between posts.  There have been various things happening at home and work that I will discuss.  I started many stubs for posts, but didn't have the time to bring them to completion, so I am clearing out the backlog, updating them for current events as need be.

For several years in Britain now, a high-speed line between London and Birmingham (initially) and beyond has been under discussion.  I was reading an article about the effects of high-speed rail in France, discussing a study that claims high-speed rail only benefits the managerial classes.  As a successful businesswoman, I am very aware that there are lies, damned lies and statistics.  There are several factors about France's high-speed rail system that they have ignored.

The TGV system is designed to benefit French society as a whole, not just the wealthy.  Spain has pursued the opposite direction until the past week, when it announced its EVA brand, which is intended to serve outlying areas of Barcelona, similar to France's Ouigo service.  The service will go from Madrid-Puerta de Atocha to Camp de Tarragona and El Prat de Llobregat stations (the latter not yet being open for high-speed traffic).  Austria's RailJet service, though it has economy offerings, pursues the business market aggressively, as indicated by the huge reclining Premium seats.  These take up enormous amounts of space: - RailJet trains in normal composition are around 205m long with 408 seats, but Westbahn (the Austrian open-access operator) is purchasing Stadler 6-car (around 25m per car, therefore 150m long) KISS trains with 526 seats.

On the other hand, France concentrates on the fundamentals: - high capacity, good-value offerings and great journey times.  A Frenchwoman doesn't like garish interior decoration, so the relatively simple furnishings even in first class have been highly appreciated.  The TGV Euroduplex sets have 560 seats and the TGV Océane sets have 556 seats.  Also, there are the Ouigo services operated directly by SNCF and the Izy services operated by Thalys which SNCF part-owns.  Ouigo keeps costs down by serving underused stations, whereas the Izy services do this by travelling on slower and cheaper conventional routes: - both have Ryanair-style baggage policies.  Given how impossibly dainty we are, we Frenchwomen have little need for the super-sized Premium seats that OEBB/ÖBB (the Austrian state operator) uses on RailJet services, but they are still cool!

That is not to say that the TGV system doesn't appeal to successful businesswomen such as myself: - we appreciate being able to get lots of work done on the train using our tablet-laptop hybrids whilst we zip between important meetings (as well as fashion shows, in my case).  As France typically has a 35-hour week, the quid pro quo is that high productivity rates are necessary if we want a high standard of living.  We Frenchwomen accomplish this effortlessly.  When I lived and worked in London, was still frowned upon for leaving on time, even though my colleagues wasted lots of time in useless tasks and got half as much work done as me!

HS2 has been criticised as being just a luxury line, but this fails to take account of what the line is intended to do.  It is intended to be a relief line for the congested West Coast Main Line: - the commuter trains are already very packed and the freight capacity is squeezed.  There are passenger trains (e.g. the cramped Pendolino services operated by Virgin) which go a long way north before stopping anywhere: - some London Euston services don't stop until Warrington Bank Quay (near Liverpool).  Such services have no need whatsoever to be on the conventional West Coast Main Line south of Crewe (opening 2027, a year later than the first stage to Birmingham), so HS2 would be useful for such services.

According to an article Railway Gazette recently published about the findings of the "Conseil d’Orientation des Infrastructures" and its recommendations for future direction in railway construction, some lines should be prioritised: - http://www.railwaygazette.com/news/single-view/view/capacity-enhancement-at-hubs-is-spending-priority-says-infrastructure-council.html .  I am delighted that they recommended prioritising the Marseille-Nice line: - I love going to places like Nice, St. Tropez and Monaco because of how ritzy-glitzy they are!  On the other hand, it is a shame they aren't specifically recommending taking forward the LGV Montpellier-Perpignan: - I often have have business in Spain and Bilal loves to visit his homies in Seville and we would love to be able to do this all the way.

Anyway, we shall see what happens with these schemes in the UK and France!