Monday, March 09, 2009
A picture is worth a thousand words
That retired flic-chic of afternoon TV (week day variety), Carol Vodermann, has been brought to my attention in two ways this week. Firstly, there is a large photograph of her on the front of this weeks TV guide from the DT. The photograph says it all - for me. But I wonder whether the intentions of the DT photographer were honourable? Secondly, the DT proper tells me that she has become, in her well-heeled retirement, some sort of advisor on the teaching of mathematics to the Conservative Party. She follows in the footsteps of our well-beloved MP for Epsom and Ewell, the former TV reporter, now the shadow Home Secretary. (Incidentally, if one looks at Chris Grayling's web site you would not think he had any other interests than cuddling old ladies in his constituency. No mention of his other duties at all). It is clear that the ability to look good on TV is a mandatory requirement for political advancement these days. Being able to communicate through that same medium a desirable requirement. The subject or quality of the matter communicated consigned to some annex. One slight problem with all this of course: if looking good is a mandatory requirement, why is CV the retired flic-chic?
Leaving that aside, maybe we should make being on TV a core subject in all our secondary schools. Pupils will all spend five hours a week honing their skills at appearing in video clips. It can take the place of the Latin which used to get a slot of that size in my day - not that I remember very much of it. This will build on their play grounding in appearing in mobile phone clips. I wonder what proportion of school children would actually benefit from such a regime? Are they mature enough? It might be quite interesting to give it a try. But are our dance&drama schools turning out enough near misses to staff up the operation?
The same edition of the DT also carries a short peice about the unfortunate 80 something year old lady whose doctor would not give her some medicine for her wheezing unless she gave up the fags - which she has done or is doing. Presumably her wheezing was enough of a problem to overcome her love of nicotine.
After a shaky start just finished another charity shop find, 'Les enfants de la liberte' by Marc Levy. The book came with two Ryanair scratch cards and a July 2007 Air France ticket which had belonged to Soraya Elglaoui. I hope she will overlook this minor invasion of her privacy. Although the book was described as a novel - perhaps 'roman' in French casts a wider net than 'novel' in English - I came to find that the things described were not invented. That they were based on a true story, in this case of teen-age resistance fighters in the southwest of France in the second world war. Known as terrorists to the Vichy and occupation authorities, a word I believe the author has emphasised with deliberation.
It turns out that the author (to be found at http://www.marclevy.info/) had successful careers elsewhere before becoming a very succesfull author who has sold millions and millions of books. Show how parochial we are that I had never heard of him before. A fairly complicated website, only marred by the poor standard of translation into English. Odd, considering that he lives in England. Didn't find out why he chooses to, being French.
Also, that it was his father who was the resistance fighter in question, and who was very lucky to have survived at all. Most of his comrades did not, partly because, although a neighbouring resistance outfit knew that his lot were about to be rounded up, they chose not to warn them because they were the wrong flavour - ie not Gaullist and mainly not French (having been refugees before the war from other parts of Europe; welcome in France at that time as the French wanted to make good their huge losses in the first war) - and it was better that they were put out of harm's way with the war coming to an end.
While I have sometimes tired of the French preoccupation with occupation and collaboration, this book reminded me why both subjects live on. They were difficult times of which the father must have carried the scars for ever.
Leaving that aside, maybe we should make being on TV a core subject in all our secondary schools. Pupils will all spend five hours a week honing their skills at appearing in video clips. It can take the place of the Latin which used to get a slot of that size in my day - not that I remember very much of it. This will build on their play grounding in appearing in mobile phone clips. I wonder what proportion of school children would actually benefit from such a regime? Are they mature enough? It might be quite interesting to give it a try. But are our dance&drama schools turning out enough near misses to staff up the operation?
The same edition of the DT also carries a short peice about the unfortunate 80 something year old lady whose doctor would not give her some medicine for her wheezing unless she gave up the fags - which she has done or is doing. Presumably her wheezing was enough of a problem to overcome her love of nicotine.
After a shaky start just finished another charity shop find, 'Les enfants de la liberte' by Marc Levy. The book came with two Ryanair scratch cards and a July 2007 Air France ticket which had belonged to Soraya Elglaoui. I hope she will overlook this minor invasion of her privacy. Although the book was described as a novel - perhaps 'roman' in French casts a wider net than 'novel' in English - I came to find that the things described were not invented. That they were based on a true story, in this case of teen-age resistance fighters in the southwest of France in the second world war. Known as terrorists to the Vichy and occupation authorities, a word I believe the author has emphasised with deliberation.
It turns out that the author (to be found at http://www.marclevy.info/) had successful careers elsewhere before becoming a very succesfull author who has sold millions and millions of books. Show how parochial we are that I had never heard of him before. A fairly complicated website, only marred by the poor standard of translation into English. Odd, considering that he lives in England. Didn't find out why he chooses to, being French.
Also, that it was his father who was the resistance fighter in question, and who was very lucky to have survived at all. Most of his comrades did not, partly because, although a neighbouring resistance outfit knew that his lot were about to be rounded up, they chose not to warn them because they were the wrong flavour - ie not Gaullist and mainly not French (having been refugees before the war from other parts of Europe; welcome in France at that time as the French wanted to make good their huge losses in the first war) - and it was better that they were put out of harm's way with the war coming to an end.
While I have sometimes tired of the French preoccupation with occupation and collaboration, this book reminded me why both subjects live on. They were difficult times of which the father must have carried the scars for ever.
# posted by Jim @ 1:30 AM 
