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!

A trip to London with Bilal

Recently, I needed to travel to London on business and I hadn't seen so much of Bilal on account of various other things that needed to be done (in spite of my Frenchwoman efficiency) and so I asked him to travel with me to London.  Given his relative lack of travelling experience, I wanted to show him why there is such a need for my magazine to be promoted and be part of the fight against lack of sophistication.  As always, he was reluctant, on account of his predisposition to homesickness.  We took a TGV to Paris and a Eurostar to London on the Friday afternoon: - I have made this journey numerous times, though Bilal hasn't done the Paris-London leg before.  I am eagerly anticipating the introduction of Eurostar's direct London-Marseille services.Following a bit of research, I found out about a part of London that I thought Bilal would be inclined to visit.  I found out that the Borough of Southwark contains the Aylesbury estate: - one of the roughest areas in the whole of the United Kingdom, home of the rapper Patrick Chukwuemeka Okogwu, better known by his stage name Tinie Tempah, for the first twelve years of his life.  This was so that Bilal could be with the "homies", lol.  I also found out that the Borough of Southwark contains the church where Charles Spurgeon preached.

Earlier in the visit, we visited some marginally more sophisticated places.  In a previous post, I talked about Mariage Frères, the French brand of tea that knows how to do tea properly, unlike stupid English people, who tend to drink the disgusting "English Breakfast" variants with milk.  Yuck!  They have a counter in a British store named Selfridges on Oxford Street.  I was booked into a hotel that had the disgusting English stuff and I had forgotten to pack some Mariage Frères tea, so I was pleased to discover this.  While in Selfridges, I also discovered that Selfridges has a mini gluten free section in the food hall.  Bilal bought a few gluten free cakes: - as I mentioned, he is an extremely ravenous man on account of being tall, muscular and having coeliac disease!  The complete antithesis of me as the Impossibly Dainty French Woman!  I explained to Bilal that he should make sure to avoid developing a taste for sweet foods such as creamy cakes, given that they are characteristic of unsophisticated people.  Unfortunately, the taste was already there, as people in Mali are used to drinking extremely sweet tea!  Still, he is thankfully unlikely to consume such things regularly, given that coeliac-friendly bakeries are not exactly ubiquitous in Marseille!

I bought some Mariage Frères tea from Selfridges in the evening.  Given the late hour of our arrival, there weren't many options available for sophisticated French stuff in London (our decision to visit London was last-minute).  I found some French restaurants in London, though they were a pale imitation of the real thing.  Bilal and I ate in various French restaurants on the Friday evening and on the Saturday.  On account of our unwillingness to do anything that would generate employment on the Lord's Day (Sunday, remember the 4th commandment), we had no intention of visiting restaurants, meaning we therefore desired a packed lunch.  Good quality food stores are hard to come buy in the UK, so we decided to go to a bog-standard place in the Knightsbridge area known as Harrods.  The food wasn't particularly good quality, but it was the bare minimum that I was willing to condescend to, MDR.

I conducted my business meetings late on the Friday and during the Saturday: - a Frenchwoman is careful about work-life balance and does not avoidably work on a Sunday, much less a Bible-believing Frenchwoman!  The people involved in the business discussions wanted to resume discussions on a Sunday and I completely refused, saying that I would sooner refuse their business than work on a Sunday: - luckily, they agreed to have some late-night business discussions instead.  The discussions finished just early enough for me to catch up with Bilal that evening, who was at the Aylesbury Estate when I called him.  The estate is currently in the process of being demolished, though not all of the residents have left yet.  Bilal doesn't speak English and so had been struggling to communicate with the locals, though some of them were French speakers.  When I arrived, I agred to help him out by interpreting for him.  My interpretation capabilities were pushed to the max, as Bilal was talking in French hip-hop slang and the people in the Aylesbury estate also spoke hip-hop slang!  I probably looked rather ridiculous like Cléo Le Tan, a middle-class "bien élevée" ("well-brought-up") woman using hip-hop slang!

Bilal was asked by some hip-hop people if he would sing them a song.  They probably thought he would sing something silly, such as "Jungle is massiv", but instead, Bilal gave the most beautiful performance of "Je suis Tien, Seigneur" ("I am Thine, O Lord", by Frances Crosby): - http://www.mcreveil.org/Recueil/cantiques/lyrics/jsts278.htm .  One of the others present was from Congo and was therefore able to tell his friends what the lyrics meant.  Rather than an encore, he opted to sing "Croire, obéir" ("Trust and obey", by John Sammis): - http://www.mcreveil.org/Recueil/cantiques/lyrics/co396.htm.  Prior to his performance, the people present were boisterous, yet almost as soon as Bilal started to sing the first hymn, the silence was deafening.  Again, I know Bilal has made some friends for life and again, they parted with a fist bump!

The following day, we visited Charles Spurgeon's church.  In my church, we are very familiar with the work of Charles Spurgeon.  As with Bilal, The Assistant Pastor comes from Mali, yet he speaks a very educated form of French, rather than Bilal's hip-hop slang: - a fact I can hopefully use to persuade Bilal to learn to speak properly! I don't believe I would find a better boyfriend anywhere else and I adore Bilal in spite of this idiosynracy, but this is nevertheless something I want to work on.

We took the very earliest Eurostar service to Paris (05.40-09.26), as I was eager to be surrounded by sophistication again, with the Marseille train following shortly afterwards (I'm posting this via mobile broadband).  During the journey, Bilal told me that he is beginning to loosen up when it comes to travelling to unfamiliar destination, given that "homies" don't only exist in La Savine!  MDR!  Bilal has always been awkwardly shy, but I seem to be having some success in getting him to come out of his shell.  I am enjoying having a new travelling companion who I absolutely adore.  I hope our relationship progresses quickly.  Bilal refuses all physical contact with me (quite rightly, given that we are unmarried) and I have very rarely seen him without some sort of head covering (given that he is a tuareg): - he wore a hooded sweatsuit during the trip to London.  I can't bear to be apart from him for long and I can very easily see myself being his wife one day.

L'Occitane en Provence is now coming to St. Pancras International station

I was recently in St. Pancras International station: - regrettably, I had to attend to a business engagement in London.  Tee hee!  When I was there, I noticed that L'Occitane en Provence is opening a store in the station on the 20th of March (two days' time at the time of writing).  I thought I would educate my readers about this chainstore, which seeks to bring the finesse of Provençale culture to the rest of the world.  Given Eurostar's plans to offer direct services to Marseille next year, I am hoping that Provençal tourism authorities and Eurostar will use this opportunity to tie up with L'Occitane en Provence to promote the area as a tourist destination, perhaps in the St. Pancras International branch.

Me personally, I don't tend to buy from them unless I am buying a cheaper alternative for a business client as a present if the person in question is too unsophisticated to know the difference between this and the highest quality stuff.  Sometimes, this has been necessary, on account of not finding out in advance of my arrival in the UK that I plan to visit the people in question.  In terms of what I personally use, I will spend whatever money is necessary to get the finest hand-crafted products locally in Marseille: - I'm the bee's knees (meaning that nothing but the best will do for me) and I must always look my best.  However, this doesn't mean that L'Occitane en Provence's products are poor quality: - it just means they aren't right at the very top of the quality scale, MDR.

If, for whatever reason, one is not able to travel to Marseille to buy the finest quality local handmade products and one doesn't want to do mail order, then I just adore going to L'Occitane en Provence.  When I lived in London, I sometimes had to do this.  Sometimes, I was working very long hours (despite my instincts as a Frenchwoman that efficiency was more important) and didn't have the time to travel to Marseille.  Under such circumstances, my parents would often send beauty products to me by post, but sometimes things didn't arrive and sometimes I was away overnight (e.g. attending post-show fashion show parties) and therefore unable to pick up the packages as normal.

A Frenchwoman just adores verbena perfume from Provence!  As Mireille Guiliano said, "French women know one can go far with a great haircut, a bottle of champagne and a divine perfume".  Verbena perfume is exactly that: - divine (in the non-religious sense of the word).  The aforementioned woman also correctly said that we would never forget to dress up, even for taking out the rubbish: - added to my list of things to never forget would be my verbena perfume.  Mireille also advises caution about which perfumes to use in which circumstances: - of course, all this is second-nature to a sophisticated Frenchwoman such as myself.

I would also never be without Savon de Marseille, one of the things that make Marseille so sophisticated and without equal.  As L'Occitane en Provence explains, there are several criteria that soap must fulfil in order to receive the classification "Savon de Marseille", most notably 72% of the content being olive oil.  L'Occitane en Provence sells something vaguely related under its "Bonne Mère" label, though they have craftily worded some of the variants as "Bonne Mère Marseille Soap", presumably to get around the fact that it doesn't fulfil the criteria for Savon de Marseille.  I have no doubt that this is an attempt to dress an industrial product up as a small-scale hand-made product.  This is exactly what is done with Bonne Maman products: - they use packaging and a name to create this image, but the image they create is decidedly phoney.  If one wants to find the real thing, one should visit various provençale market towns.

I have a whole list of toiletries that I would not like to be without.  This is one of my reasons for my continued enthusiasm for travelling by train: - I like to have all my luggage with me and there are extreme restrictions on the quantities of liquids that can be taken aboard a plane!  Carrying around her lipsticks, perfumes, soap, shampoo, conditioner etc around with her is one of the ways in which dainty Frenchwomen such as myself get passive exercise that helps keep us dainty: - we don't drive around everywhere and keep them in the "trunk" (an American corruption of "boot").

In summary, L'Occitane en Provence's St. Pancras International branch will not sell things that are good enough quality and stylish enough for me, but I hope it will help bring Marseille and the provençale culture to the uneducated masses and inform them about Marseille (and indeed the whole of Provence) as a tourist destination.  Tee hee!

Direct London-Marseille trains!

Finally, an important piece of news that I had been waiting a long time for: - I have heard some vaguely likely news that Eurostar is planning to do direct services from London to Marseille (also with a stop in Lyon), according to http://www.travelweekly.co.uk/Articles/2014/01/23/46730/record-results-for-eurotunnel.html .  One can step on a train at St. Pancras International, the terminus of Eurostar services in the UK where the height of sophistication is Fortnum & Mason (MDR), and see the Mediterranean Sea on the final approach to Marseille a few hours later!

Regrettably, I sometimes have to go to London on business even today, given all the creative trendy types there who tend to be interested in designing and wearing fashion, one area in particular being Old Street, which is situated just two stops away from Kings Cross St. Pancras station on the London transport system.

However, I will now be able to conduct my business in London and quickly get back to Marseille by train before I succumb to my thirst for sophistication.  I am not entirely sure which rolling stock model Eurostar will use for such services.  It is possible that they will use the original rolling stock, because as I understand things, the reason Eurostar made the decision to purchase new rolling stock is the fact that they wanted to install ERTMS equipment to allow them to access new routes, but found there was simply no space to do so.  Unfortunately, British railway engineers were daft enough to build their lines in a much smaller loading gauge than we trendy continentals, so they had to build the Eurostars to a smaller loading gauge.

However, when the British finally opened the second phase of the CTRL (Channel Tunnel Rail Link) in November 2007 (the first phase was opened in 2003), it resulted in Eurostar no longer needing a third-rail pickup system (only the British seem to be capable of being bonkers enough to use this on mainline trains) or a British loading gauge for its trains.  When the second phase of the CTRL was opened, Eurostar removed the third-rail pickup shoes (which had been causing problems in terms of damage to trackside equipment in France on account of drivers forgetting to retract them), though changing the loading gauge of a train is obviously not so easy.  Anyway, I digress, when Eurostar placed its tender for its new trains, it found it no longer needed to specify 750V compatibility (the CTRL uses 2*25kV), British loading gauge compatibility or third-rail pickup shoes.  Unfortunately, they are procuring the new E320 trains from Siemens, rather than Alstom (which obviously means they will be of lower quality).  Please note that the design of the trains has changed since the photo below.

However, none of the high-speed route between London and Marseille uses ERTMS (European Rail Traffic Management System, a signalling system intended to be promoted throughout Europe), so maybe they won't be using it on this route, given that they have already committed to using it on the route to Amsterdam (which uses ERTMS Level 2, which allows for in-cab signalling).  Even if they don't use them for Marseille routes, it won't be so bad though, as Eurostar has a contract with Pininfarina (an Italian design firm) for refurbishing them.  What I hope this will mean is that the trendy Europeans who have lives split between London, Paris and Brussels will include Marseille in their destinations and they will realise that it is even more sophisticated than Paris, with its residents sipping pastis on the Vieux Port.

I get tired of talking to people who think that Marseille is all about La Savine, the extremely rough area of the city where Bilal has lived since moving over from Mali.  Paris has its rough areas just like Marseille does and La Savine is not the only area of Marseille.  I look forward to seeing more trendy creative types in Marseille on account of the Eurostar services that are planned to serve the city as of next year.

Provence

As I have more or less said in earlier postings, I grew up in Marseille, the largest city in Provence.  As a whole, France (with its impossibly thin women) is impossibly perfect, but superlatives let me down when it comes to describing my home region of Provence: - it is not just impossibly thin women that make Provence just divine.

I can't stand being away from Provence, so I am very pleased that it is possible to cover the approximately 750km or so between Paris and Marseille in only 3h05m by the train.  Paris is the fashion capital of the world, but I think it would be absolutely divine if the capital relocated itself to Marseille!  I would rarely need to leave the city to conduct my business activities, though I do think the train journey is just fabulous!  The Eurostar services also make transportation a little easier when I regrettably find the need to go to London on business.

France's Mediterranean coast is pretty much the only area of France where olives can be grown.  Olive trees are a very important plant to a French woman for various reasons.

We just adore using olive oil in our cuisine: - Jeanne Calment of Arles, a town within the boundaries of Provence, set the record for the confirmed oldest person (though a Bolivian man is vying for her title).  She was 122 years old when she died and used olive oil with all her food, as well as using it as a moisturiser.

The moisturiser part brings me onto another thing I just adore about Marseille: - Savon de Marseille, which is made using olive oil.  When buying Savon de Marseille, one must be careful, as it is often mislabelled.  The green variety is made using olive oil (as mandated by Louis XIX in the Edict of Colbert), whereas the white variety is made using a mixture of copra oil and palm oil!  Yeek!  Palm oil is a disgusting ingredient that is used by the food industry as a substitute for real fats that I will not touch!  Savon de Marseille should also be made from sea water from the Mediterranean Sea: - the water of any other body of water simply will not do!

When I am in the UK on business and I struggle to cope with the lack of sophistication, I tend to head for branches of a chainstore called L'Occitane en Provence, which sells various beauty products of Provençal provenance and has its headquarters in the town of Manosque, Provence (Olivier Baussan wanted to promulgate the Provençale lifestyle).  When I am at home in Marseille, I tend to buy such things from artesanal producers, but L'Occitane en Provence is the next best thing if this option is not practical.

Let us not forget the dietary things one can do with olive oil: - after all, if you are filling your body with filth, some absolutely divine olive oil used as moisturiser is of no avail.  A French woman just adores good wine and there are many useful things that come from the process: - I cannot stand unnatural and artificial dressings that one buys in a supermarket that are laden with E-numbers.  A French woman knows that it is very easy to make proper dressings using olive oil and wine vinegar (1 part vinegar to 3-4 parts olive oil or whatever ratio you prefer).  Olive oil made in Provence is great as a salad dressing all by itself: - drizzled on freshly-picked and sliced tomatoes from Provence, it tastes divine!

Note that both ingredients need to come from Provence for the sensation of pure pleasure!  They taste a world better than poisonous tomatoes covered in pesticides imported from the Canary Islands in the depths of winter!  As the saying goes, you are what you eat: - a French woman's dislike of unnatural food helps explain her unrivalled perfection.  I hope that Paris' fashion industry will move to Marseille, as I couldn't stand living anywhere but Provence.