Friday, March 21, 2008
French fries
I learn this morning that the French were already frying their fries in oil, unlike the Belgians who were into lard (and the Brits who were not mentioned but who were (and sometimes still are) into dripping), just after the first world war, well before we were hit by healthfoodism. Or perhaps not. Perhaps they were just as faddy about their food as we are, but in differant clothes. Some of this from the intimate thoughts of the author of Maigret.
I have also recently finished my very fat tome on Louis XVI, purchased in October from the National Library over there. Well over a thousand pages long so not too bad a rate of progress. Interesting read. It seems that while Louis was not a particularly bright spark in company (a talent which mattered a good deal in those days), he was not a fool either. He knew, for example, all about navies and locks. A keen huntsman. He made an exemplary end. But he was not a politician and he might have survived had he known when to be firm: his refusal to use force on fellow Frenchmen when he had force was one of the causes of his downfall - and the subsequent massively fatal use of force by his successor Napoleon. And some of the force used in between times was of an unpleasantly barbarous sort - some aristos being ripped apart in the street by delirious mobs. Maybe a spot of drinking of blood and cannibalism. Not the sort of thing that happened in England - at least in so far as I am aware. A hundred years previously, Charles II had a few people hung, drawn and quartered. But that was judicial butchery of some of those responsible for the execution of his father; not quite the same thing as butchery in the street. And Louis knew all about the fate of the father - not that it did him any good.
There was an account of his attempt to escape to the safety of one of his frontier fortresses and his recapture at Varennes. An attempt which was well organised and which might easily have succeeded but for the king's foolish failure to preserve his incognito and the incompetance of some of those detailed to provide support along the way. For those like myself firmly in the what-if school, interesting to ponder on how things might have turned out had he made it. He had already conceded enough to make him a constitutional rather than an absolute monarch, and things might have taken a better, English course.
Another account about how the pre-revolutionary French won the American War of Independance for the Americans - with provision of men, materiel and money - money which it seems the Americans forgot to pay back in their rush to make friends with the English again once they had their independance.
But the one I feel sorry for was Marie Antoinette. So she was not the brighest spark either, but what chance did she have, dropped into the snake pit at the age of 17 or something, for a husband of about the same age but who took some years to claim his rights. Being foreign (from a country regarded by most French as the enemy) , pretty much everything she had known until that time was taken away from her. These days I dare say it would be called child abuse.
On which topic, not impressed with the amount of effort we continue to pour into hounding teachers. I dare say there are a few bad apples, but is it really sensible to deploy a crown court with judge, jury, bell, book and candle for a middle aged teacher who is alleged to have kissed a 17 year old girl after a few wines at some school social function? Should this be a matter for criminal proceeding at all? Could the matter not have been dealt with in some more summary way? Do we have to arrange things so that teachers caught up in muddles of this sort are, for practical purposes, guilty until proven innocent? Which might take some time. All this effort thrown at teachers but we seem quite unable to control the bad behaviour of their pupils on buses?
I have also recently finished my very fat tome on Louis XVI, purchased in October from the National Library over there. Well over a thousand pages long so not too bad a rate of progress. Interesting read. It seems that while Louis was not a particularly bright spark in company (a talent which mattered a good deal in those days), he was not a fool either. He knew, for example, all about navies and locks. A keen huntsman. He made an exemplary end. But he was not a politician and he might have survived had he known when to be firm: his refusal to use force on fellow Frenchmen when he had force was one of the causes of his downfall - and the subsequent massively fatal use of force by his successor Napoleon. And some of the force used in between times was of an unpleasantly barbarous sort - some aristos being ripped apart in the street by delirious mobs. Maybe a spot of drinking of blood and cannibalism. Not the sort of thing that happened in England - at least in so far as I am aware. A hundred years previously, Charles II had a few people hung, drawn and quartered. But that was judicial butchery of some of those responsible for the execution of his father; not quite the same thing as butchery in the street. And Louis knew all about the fate of the father - not that it did him any good.
There was an account of his attempt to escape to the safety of one of his frontier fortresses and his recapture at Varennes. An attempt which was well organised and which might easily have succeeded but for the king's foolish failure to preserve his incognito and the incompetance of some of those detailed to provide support along the way. For those like myself firmly in the what-if school, interesting to ponder on how things might have turned out had he made it. He had already conceded enough to make him a constitutional rather than an absolute monarch, and things might have taken a better, English course.
Another account about how the pre-revolutionary French won the American War of Independance for the Americans - with provision of men, materiel and money - money which it seems the Americans forgot to pay back in their rush to make friends with the English again once they had their independance.
But the one I feel sorry for was Marie Antoinette. So she was not the brighest spark either, but what chance did she have, dropped into the snake pit at the age of 17 or something, for a husband of about the same age but who took some years to claim his rights. Being foreign (from a country regarded by most French as the enemy) , pretty much everything she had known until that time was taken away from her. These days I dare say it would be called child abuse.
On which topic, not impressed with the amount of effort we continue to pour into hounding teachers. I dare say there are a few bad apples, but is it really sensible to deploy a crown court with judge, jury, bell, book and candle for a middle aged teacher who is alleged to have kissed a 17 year old girl after a few wines at some school social function? Should this be a matter for criminal proceeding at all? Could the matter not have been dealt with in some more summary way? Do we have to arrange things so that teachers caught up in muddles of this sort are, for practical purposes, guilty until proven innocent? Which might take some time. All this effort thrown at teachers but we seem quite unable to control the bad behaviour of their pupils on buses?
# posted by Jim @ 4:00 AM 
