Kamikazi Lemmings ...

Over here in Ole Yurrup we is all watching, in some sort of ghastly obsession, the on-going suicidal cluster-fuck that is Brexit. Or perhaps "train-wreck" would be a better word to describe it ... it's an unedifying spectacle, and everyone wishes that they'd just get it over with and put us out of our misery (cries of "Jump! Jump!" come up from the crowds below) but for some reason they seem incapable - or maybe just incompetent - of doing even that.

Don't know exactly why the sorry saga should be quite so gripping - it's not as though there's an actual story-line or anything, things just seem to lurch from one non-event to the next - and it's not even as though I had skin in the game, I mean, what's it to me, really?

Come to that, I'm not even sure exactly why Theresa May should be quite so reviled: certainly, her husband used to watch porn on the taxpayer's dime, and she is possibly not the most empathetic of people, but to be fair she did inherit the whole bloody mess from her pink-cheeked pig-kissing predecessor (last heard of swanning off to a rich mate's Tuscan villa or something) but no-one seems to blame him. At least, not these days.

Whatever, I guess that's one of the mysteries of British politics - along with the thorny question of exactly why it is that Nigel Farage, Boris Johnson and Jacob Rees-Mogg weren't strangled at birth. Then cut into small pieces, burnt, and the ashes scattered to the winds ... these are topics that we choose to avoid of a Friday night, mostly because although it would be easy enough to wind people up, these are my friends, and I'd rather not be responsible for anything bad happening to them. Like, biliousness, or dyspepsia, or an actual heart attack.

A more kindly eye than mine might look on the whole sorry mess as a fine example of the good old Blitz spirit, the old tradition of having a knees-up and a nice cuppa before muddling through as usual: being less than charitable, I tend to see it as a manifestation of the equally venerable British tradition of total bloody incompetence. Just wish they'd get on with it ...

But on the bright side, Spring has arrived and all the wildflowers are out: maybe a month ahead of time, but I can live with that. The little dwarf irises which somehow manage to thrive in the stones of the pinède, the normal or garden-variety irises which, despite being completely untended, do quite well for themselves on the banks of the road, the poppies, and any number of other flowers which I personally tend to lump together as "plants". Also, the crows have started building their nests: for a given value of "building" which involves making a pile of sticks somewhere and shitting on it in the hope that they'll stay in one place. The corvidae seem not yet to have learnt that crap is not, as a general rule, a good adhesive. As usual, you should avoid walking too close past the church if you happen to have to go that way.

I imagine that this may come as a surprise to those of you who recall my youthful looks and healthy lifestyle, but I really am getting too old for this sort of thing. I had occasion to go past the bar late the other night, not so long ago - bringing the hairy retards back from their evening bowel and bladder exercise - and could not help but notice that it was full of bad company. Which is usually pretty good company, so having dropped the beasts back home (for they are not old enough) I headed back despite myself ... and of course one of those bad companions was Philippe from the château, who welcomed me with open arms and insisted on my accompanying him in a serious effort to empty the one and only bottle of cognac in the place (he'd already managed to polish off the Jack Daniels).

We managed that, completely unaided, and started on the armagnac, but around 2am I came to my senses, reluctantly tore myself away from the den of iniquity, and went back home. Just saying, I can no longer expect to do this sort of thing without there being Consequences later on.

Which, as it happens, there were, for at an absolutely unheard-of hour of the moaning that very day, two extremely youthful young men (well, they seemed that way to me: I'm sure that they were actually of legal drinking age and maybe had to shave once in a while) turned up at the doorstep, having managed to back the front half of a semi-articulated lorry up rue de la Calade to get here. For which, felicitations: I do realise that removal lorry drivers probably get special training in such things but even so ... and then they started unloading the thing.

It was, of course, a swag of stuff from NooZild so we now find ourselves with another dining-room table and chairs, a comfy chair, even more china and silverware (not yet unpacked), and some pictures: so later on I spent some quality time with a laser level and a drill up on a ladder, putting up more picture rails because now that we actually have a bit of room around here and don't have to squirm around boxes just to sit down for a meal, I'd rather like it to stay that way, for a while at least.

Possibly for the first time in my life, I have to admit defeat before a bottle of gin. (Second time if you count the bottle of "Lemon Gin" ie industrial alcohol with artificial lemon oils in it that I once, when a student, consumed more or less in its entirety at a party one night and consequently regretted it bitterly ... staggering bollocks-naked through one of the more elderly halls of residence of Massey University at 5am, in search of a shower, is not a happy memory.) The Lidl budget supermarket chain has all sorts of odds'n'sods that turn up from time to time, and when Martin mentioned the other day that they had some award-winning London gin and some Irish gin with which he was very taken, it became a moral imperative to buy it. That too is something I rather regret doing now.

The London gin is indeed very good, but the Irish stuff should not have been let out of the pages of a Tom Lehrer songbook ... purely in a spirit of scientific enquiry I set out to discover exactly why I find it so disagreeable, and I can only conclude that it's the presence of coriander (which I've never particularly enjoyed, to be honest, and improve those recipes that call for it by omitting it) and pine in the list of botanicals that make it so foul. Gives it - for me, at least - an oily, camphor-like taste that reminds me of extremely bad retsina. Not that there's any other sort ...

Luckily tonight is pool night oop't bar, and I rather think I shall take the bottle with me and hand it discreetly to Lionel with strict instructions that he can serve it to whomsoever he wishes, so long as it's not me.

Later ... it was probably a good thing. I swear that before picking it up and heading off, that bloody bottle had started following me around the house, humping up against my ankles and trying to make friends. Godnose what would have happened had I kept it another night, the damned thing might have forced itself between my lips (and why, Great Google, does auto-complete suggest "legs" at this point?) as I slept and smothered me. I'm well rid of it.

It's rude to stare at bus stops.

A few days before was la fête de la bière organised by the comité des fêtes, and so having memories (admittedly vague, because of reasons) of last year's effort, I decided to head off. Sadly I did not take my phone with me, for otherwise this post would be enjolivated with a (crap) photo of young Jeremy, wearing neon-green socks, kilt, weskit and tam'o'shanter: all, I suspect, liberated from over-enthusiastic St Patrick's Day participants. But after careful consideration, perhaps it's for the best after all.

This being the south of France things were running late: not only that but I got cornered by Ninou and, as soon as it was decently possible to do so, ran off into the night to avoid having my ears reamed and my brains dripping out of my nostrils ... so it was that I missed the "Fucking Vintage" set.

Well, mostly. Standing out on the terrace much later that evening, the sound of some crowd who really didn't like AC-DC that much but were being paid to play it was pretty clear.

It may seem strange, but you can have too much of a good thing. Take asparagus, for instance: every year, as Spring approaches, we look forward with glee to the arrival of the first tender spears, but now? I'm just about overdosed on the stuff. Or scallops, les coquilles St-Jacques. I dragged a packet out of the freezer (they, and popsicle lobsters, are about the only seafood I'll consider sticking in there) and had my usual way with them ie sear them, flambé them in whisky then finish them off in white wine and cream ... very nice they were too but the next day we still needed something for lunch out on the terrace so I headed off into Lézignan looking vaguely for something edible.

And went past the rather excellent poissonerie, where I couldn't help but notice that they had 3kg of scallops for 20€, what's not to like?

Apart from the fact that the plastic bag they were packed in had a small leak somewhere, so Sarah smelled a wee bit fishy for a few days ... I will admit that by the time you've shelled and cleaned the sods you've not much change out of 800gm, but these were extremely fresh and rather big, with loads of coral: even so they are very rich and in any case that is still too much for the two of us at a sitting. Didn't help that, just for a change, I poached them in white wine and stuck them in a gratin dish with a bit of sauce Mornay, breadcrumbs and cheese on top and under the grill.

(Incidentally, my invaluable Nouvelle Larousse Gastronomique, which is only "nouvelle" for a value of the word involving "forty years old", tells me that in the US scallops are only available without coral. Which seems rather peculiar to me, but it does perhaps explain why, a long time back when I was getting dinner ready for twenty, this American house-guest wandered into the kitchen and asked me - in broken French - what that strange orange stuff was. Go figure.)

Whatever, I have some paperwork to put off: mind how you go, now.