Category: politics

L’œil du Cyclone

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Dear Reader, some of you might know that I don’t live too far away from Nantes and that I can be found wandering the streets of Nantes with a camera, or sitting in the pub talking with friends. So, nothing new here then.  You might not know that I sometimes publish said photos of Nantes, and even the pub, with friends of course, on Instagram.  I also sometimes go out and participate with other photographers in what is usually a solitary pastime. 

Nantes Grand Angle, a sort of collective of photographers from Nantes, often has events (with local partners) that want to get their event onto the local social networks and get some “viral” publicity.  The game is you go to the event and then talk about it on your social accounts and people might be interested thinking well, he went to see this, why don’t I go along too.  It’s the basics of social marketing. 

Why do I usually see photography as a solitary pastime? Because I get a certain amount of social anxiety.  For most extroverts, those pushy people that are in favour now, the word “mingle” gives them a buzz that they seem to thrive on.  I, as an introvert, find the words “new people”, or even the idea of “meeting new people”, “social”, or “mingle” just fill me with dread.  It’s akin to going on one of those terrifying rides at the fair. It’s scary, thankfully doesn’t last very long, leaves you feeling empty, very awkward, sheepish, and makes you want to run away as soon as possible.  sonds like my sex life on a good day.

So against my better judgement, I confronted my fear, and went on an outing with Nantes Grand Angle.  I could always just stay at the back and be subtle and try to fade into the background.  It also meant that I would visit a new place, Le Lieu Unique, which as its name might suggest, is certainly unique!  The Lieu Unique also contains the Tour Lu (sans T pour le jeu de mot de merde en français, et oui, je suis rendu à ce point là !)  It originally house the LU biscuit factory (des petits beurres de LU, which is another pun for the Happy Birthday song).  Dear Reader, I apologise for the years of therapy that you will need to get over that last paragraph.  It’ll teach you to speak French!

Right, back on track.  The Lieu Unique, which indeed is unique as the name suggests, houses not only an exhibition for introverts to take photos of for social marketing, but a bar, a reading room, a bookshop, and if I’m not mistaken, a hammam, as well as a whopping great tower.  It is a hothouse of culture where you can get fed, drunk, steamed, and get some culture, leading to the acquisition of a little intelligence! Maybe, depending on the order you do each activity.

I was there with my fellow photographers, some of which were annoyingly extrovert, to live the experience of Art from Taiwan in the “Eye of the Cyclone.”  The Lieu Unique boss, had, uniquely, gone to Taiwan in 2018, had been to an exhibition at The National Museum of Fine Arts of Taiwan, and had invited some of the artists to come to Nantes and show their work, purely an artistic venture.  Since 2018, the world has changed not only through COVID, but also because China would like to get its hands on Taiwan for economic reasons and political ones.  Taiwan came to the front in modern terms when the Kuomintang government who lost to Mao’s Communists, fled Mao and fled to the Island of Taiwan, setting up a new independent government, that China still hasn’t gotten over and is still very upset about.

In the early 1960s, Taiwan entered a period of rapid economic growth and industrialisation called the “Taiwan Miracle».  In the late 1980s and early 1990s, the ROC transitioned from a one-party military dictatorship to a multi-party democracy with a semi-presidential system. Taiwan’s export-oriented industrial economy is the 21st-largest in the world by nominal GDP and 19th-largest by PPP measures, focusing on steel, machinery, electronics and chemicals manufacturing. Taiwan is a developed country, ranking 20th in GDP per capita. It is ranked highly in terms of civil liberties, healthcare, and human development.  Again, something that China isn’t overjoyed by.  So as you can imagine, such an exhibition is as much political as artistic.

So now we have set the scene, let’s get down to the nitty-gritty.  The expo itself.  I admit not knowing a huge amount about Taiwan, however, since visiting the expo, I have read up to find out more about its history and culture.  It’s Chinese but at the same time properly Taiwanese. I will include official links to the expo and the English documentation at the end of the article.  But what I really wanted to do with this article was to talk about my experience of the exposition and the way the exhibits left their mark on me.

The first exhibit, Exhibit A, or Battle City – Scene, by Chang, Li-Ren, model, just blew me away with the complexity of the modelling and the realism recreated in model form.  The artist came over for the oeuvre installation and I can imagine a rather rotund Asian chap on all fours adding details to his masterwork.  Not based on reality, but the artist just wants to give an impression of what Taiwanese urbanism looks like.   There are cars, housing, and motorbikes, but the whole place is devoid of people.  It’s very eerie, yet totally fascinating and a photographer’s dream.  The whole thing is massive (7600mm x 8100mm x 2600mm), and the attention to detail is fascinating.

Exhibit B, Future Shock, by SU Hui-Yu, video, talks about a dystopian future, unfortunately, a not-too-distant future according to the artist influenced heavily by the American author Alvin Toffler, where people are drowning in information, and unethical technologies.  Maybe it’s happening already?  Definitely though provoking and frightening in equal measure.

Exhibit C, Braindead travelogue, YUAN Goang-Ming.  At first, you have the impression of traditional Chinese brush art, but with non-traditional means, like using markers, but also gold and jade.  From the centre of the painting, shoot out 10 disks of images showing the artist marking his territory in the landscape.

Exhibit D?  I’m going to keep the rest of the exhibition secret, because the idea is that you go and have a look yourselves, especially if you live in Nantes!  Did you really think that I would or could reveal all?  No!  Leave them wanting more!!!  Oh ok, you can have a few more pictures, but that’s your lot.  Go down there and have a look.  It’s free to visit; and you won’t be left unmoved…  You really get a feel of what life is like in the “Eye of the Cyclone.”

Links and all that:
Le Lieu Unique
Nantes Grande Angle
The documentation in English (pdf file 0,99Mo)

I would like to thank Nantes Grande Angle and our guide, Tanguy, not only for his welcome to the uniquely Lieu Unique but also for his great expertise. The poor man even had a look at this blog to see where I would publish my write-up. Brave too, and probably already in therapy. I hope I have done him justice!

Persona Non Grata

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This article is an opinion piece and might be contrary to your own opinions. If that is a trigger for you, then wait for the next article where I will probably talk about walking the dog and show photos from the village. If you’re fine with that, however, then read on.

In many ways, this will be a mere annoyance. If I really want, I can have the famous PCR test and have a probe inserted into my nostrils and then receive a code that I can scan into my phone, to show everyone how safe I am. I can then go to the pub, and even have dinner in a restaurant. Not the most pleasant of medical procedures, but it will afford me a certain liberty and normality. But I also have a healthy disrespect for authority. Sorry Mummy!

For the moment, these nasal insertions have been free, or rather covered by the Social Security and Health Authority contributions that come off my salary each month. Also, it has allowed people to be tested for Covid and know if they are infected or not. As the President said on the 12th of July “Cet automne, les fameux tests PCR seront rendus payants, sauf prescription médicale, et ceci afin d’encourager la vaccination plutôt que la multiplication des tests.” This Autumn, the infamous PCR tests will be charged, except with a medical prescription, to encourage people to vaccinate instead of having multiple tests.

I get the logic behind this. They will bill each test 50€ to the Social Security, and they want to reduce costs and get people vaccinated. I, unlike others, have nothing against vaccines, except for Astra Zeneca and Johnson and Johnson, where being a Catholic I can’t support something that used aborted foetuses to make them. However, I am against the obligation to vaccinate, and wish it could remain a choice. In France all Medical staff will be required to be vaccinated by law and those who wish to exercise their right to refuse a medical intervention, will be declared inapt to work, and will be eventually fired.

It’s so easy to get on your soapbox and talk about all kinds of codswallop. Words like dystopian society spring to mind when I read governmental policy. Another would be coercion. The authorities can be there as a guide, but as soon as that guidance translates into a more interventionist policy, maybe the authorities have overridden that guidance role. When governments get that far, are they serving the population that voted them in, or are they serving themselves? I’m not just accusing Macron and his government. The finger could be pointed just as well to Boris… then there was the evil villain Trump, followed by the rather weak Biden. I am worried about this becoming a global political trend.

The next statement will be the most controversial in this article. I believe most of humanity has the same goal, which is the desire to look after his family in the best manner possible. I am a father, living in France, and I bet that a father living in Afghanistan just wants the same thing for his children that I do. IE that they will be happy and live in a world of peace.

Wow, that wasn’t as difficult as I thought it might be. For the more liberal of you, you could insert community, etc for family. I’m a moderate conservative. I like to think that just because I don’t fully espouse your views; I don’t hate you. This can be quite a radical notion in a society that likes to pit people against each other. Read a newspaper and you will see that through its reporting of events that it is trying to divide more than unite. This is impervious to the political leaning of the publication. I think it’s even worse on the Internet. There are so many videos from the very conservative that are there telling how to destroy a liberal through argument. How awful is that? Why should I seek to destroy my opponent? Should I not try to convince him of my position respecting him as a human being, just like me, with dreams and hopes for the future?

Merry Fu**ing Christmas

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I’m presenting another entry for the « Understatement of the Year 2020” competition.  It’s been a strange kind of year.  I’m wondering how I am coming out of it.  Trigger warning, I may talk about mental health in this article so get over it pussies!  Normally at this time of year, I’m never really good and this year is no exception.

I think I may have given you the image of my mental health being like a wave.  At the moment I’m going back down.  People try to practice gratitude for everything as a way of ‘curing’ depression as if it were a rather fine ham for the Christmas table.  Well not me.  I should be happy.  I’m on holiday in 2 and a half days’ time for two weeks.  I should be happy, but I’m not.  I have a loving family.  I should be happy, but I’m not.  I have a roof over my head, and my family wants for nothing.  I should be happy, but I’m not.  When I think back to the ‘actual’ Christmas where Joseph was carrying his pregnant wife to Bethlehem, and couldn’t find a place to stay.  Air BnB hadn’t been invented, and he shouldn’t have been happy, but he was.  There was joy in his heart.  I should be grateful for all I have, and yet…

I have food from home.  The kind of stuff I can’t get over here, and I should be happy, but I’m not.  It’s awful.  Yeah, I forgot the Bisto for the Christmas dinner, you useless fool.  You have so much to be thankful for, and because you’re an ungrateful little shit, you feel even more guilty.  I can’t go to mass.  Last year I could and did.  I went to the Cathedral in Nantes and remember crying with joy at hearing the beautiful music from the organ.  I remember feeling physically moved and the music just passed right through me.  But not this year.  A Rawandan immigrant had been refused a residency permit, and the Bishop though he would employ the man as a janitor, and the guy who would lock the place up every evening.  The guy got rather upset about getting kicked out of the country and decided that he would burn the place down.  That beautiful 400 year old organ is no longer there and it breaks my heart.   There’s an article about that somewhere here.

That was last year.  This year is slightly different.  This year we discovered a virus, named after a light beer, and then the aforementioned beer producer found an other name that wouldn’t hurt its brand.  I present COVID 19.  A crappy name with an unobvious prime number.   We found out what it was like to be under house arrest, I mean lockdown.  We were told not to touch people and avoid people.  An introvert’s dream you might say, but I still maintain that we are a social animal, and when you take that away, we suffer mental health consequences.  Then they decided that, “oh shit, the economy is going down the drain, so you all have to go back to work, but have to wear shitty masks that you will end up becoming allergic too, whilst looking as if you have a speedo on your face, and when you beard pokes through, it looks as if you have pubic hair that needs clipping.”  You are not allowed to congregate at the coffee machine, and not allowed to stand next to eachother.

Then Summer came along, and the government said you can all go off on holiday, and so it seemed that the virus had done the same.  People felt as if the phoney war had ended and that it would all be over by Christmas.  I still can’t remember what I did this Summer.  Not because of Covid, but my brain just went on strike.  I know I got some good photos, and apparently, I went to Paris, but it’s all a blur, and I’m not talking about the band from the Nineties!

We could even go to the pub.  Then they said, that you still had to wear masks, but as soon as you sat down you could take them off etc.  This Covid Prime can’t infect you if you’re sitting down, having a pint and financially supporting the Guinness family!  Height restrictions and all that.  They had to move tables further apart, and then the Government said you had to close at 10pm and take a register of clients, with their phone numbers.  This was of course done, and then the G man said, well, you’re going to have to close anyway.  We’re going to launch the sequel to Lockdown, to be known as Lockdown II, the Sequel, not coming to cinemas near you because they’re shut too!  But for all those people not working in offices, you can still go into work but you have to come home straight away afterwards and you can’t meet up with your friends, etc..

Then they said OK we’ve finished messing with you.  Lockdown II is over.  Yayyyy, I can go out where the heck I like and don’t have to have a piece of paper saying where I’m going.  I can go to anywhere in the country I like.  I still can’t eat out of have a drink, or do anything remotely cultural, oh and the twist is that I have to be back home by 20h and can’t go out before 6h.  Bastards!

In other news recently in, a vaccine has been discovered.  Hang on, no that’s not right.  Three vaccines have been discovered.  The Chinese and Russians even have one, but they don’t count apparently on the news.  Not only have they been tested, but they have been approved!  But you can’t have one you fat slob.  Stop eating, and exercise, and loose weight!  You’re way down the priority list.  Nope, they’re for care workers, old dying people, the older people who aren’t dying yet, and then slightly less old people that aren’t dying, but not dead yet, and so on.  If you’re already dead, then you’re not eligible, oops…  #toolatemotherfucker  It’s either a very sick joke or somebody, somewhere, knows something.  And what is Bill Gates going to gain by being able to remotely control old people from a distance anyway?  Are they going to get uppity and rebel when the tea trolley doen’t have any more Chocolate digestives?  Other digestives are available, just not for the old people!  They’re probably going to go strike and die just out of spite.  We went through the war etc!

Now they’re talking about bubbles.  Bubbles are no longer about blowing, but are about families without the blowing.  All depends on the family I suppose.  I can have people in my bubble over for Christmas.  But not because the government said so.  I live in France, and they said that the curfew wouldn’t be enforced on Christmas Eve so people could gather, but only six adults at a time.  But if you think you can meet up for New year’s Eve, then you’re buggered!  So, you can officially celebrate a Christian Religious festival, and yet not the secular piss up at the very end of the Year.  And all this in an extremist Secular country, that is being mean to the Muslims, to stop those naughty Islamist shooting an beheading us when we make a joke about the Prophet (pbuh).  Double standards or what, even for French politicians.  But as that Luvvie Noël Coward said, there’s something Vichy about the French.

Don’t get me started about Brexit!  Biggest mistake since the French thought they could fish in another country’s Sovereign waters and get away with it.  Oh wait…

On a more positive note, Trump has officially been voted out by the Electoral College in the United States of America.  Let’s hope that the new guy will be better than the last President.  

I still feel pretty shitty despite the Christmas music on BBC Radio 2, but at least I managed to get some of my frustrations down on paper.  It’ll get better by Christmas…

Lockdown 2.0

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The government has decided that we have all been very naughty and have to go back into Lockdown. That was the end of October.  And we’re waiting until the 1st of December to see how everything will pan out.   The numbers are going up, as is the amount of testing.  I remember once hearing the quote, “There are lies, damned lies, and statistics!” I have just been accused to talking utter codswallop and the colleague was saying that if we catch it then it is our fault.  She heard somebody really important speaking on the news last night etc.  And me, as an obese person, would be up a certain brown creek without a paddle etc.  I replied, “Well at least like that would be one problem solved.”  She really got on my nerves.  I hate dealing with these self-righteous people who think they are always right.  I am fully convinced that the treatments of this pandemic is as much medical as political.  I think that governments are fully disarmed and have no real idea about what they are doing, but have to be seen to be doing something so as to quieten the hoipoloi and keep control over them.  I am not an anti-masker even though I hate these bloody masks with a vengeance.  I follow what “they” ask me to do.    I wear them at work.  I wash my hands, and the alcoholic hand gel really shoots me up when I smell it on my hands.  I wear my mask if I’m out.  But I’m buggered if I will wear it at home and wear one in the car.  I have my state authorisation to go to work and help the economy. 

I don’t understand how this government is functioning.  I’m not waiting for somebody to inform me either.  Certain policies seem completely incoherent.  I am allowed to to go to my supermarket to buy food, but not allowed to buy a book while I’m in there.  Before this latest installement, I was allowed to go to the pub.  I gave my name when entering and leave my phone number in of contact with somebody who had COVID .  I would order my drinks at the bar (mask on) and would be able to go to a table, take my mask off and then drink my pint, then put my mask back on, and buy another one.  There was hand gel when you entered the bar.  And people used it, and would obey the rules.  The bar staff had had to position tables to abide by social distancing regulations, and people had to be sat down, and this was enforced with great tact and gentleness.

Man is a social creature.  He needs the contact of others, or at least the social interaction that come with being around others.  Do “they” realise the damage that will be done on society?  Do “they” realise the damage that is being done to our children?  Do “they” they realise how nefarious this climate of fear is on humanity?  Do “they” think they will be re-elected when they seem to be heading for cancelling Christmas? I am not Q Anon.  I am not a conspiracy theorist.  But I do have a problem with the incoherence of all these policies, be it here in France, or in my own country!

STOP PRESS

The vaccines are being tested and will be here in time for Christmas.  It sounds like a sales pitch for turkeys!  Get yours today!  You’ll feel so much better afterwards.  You’ll only feel a little bit of a prick.  Nothing new there then!  It is of course some very good news and gives us a glimpse of hope in these dark times.  We have been told how the Pfeizer vaccine has to be kept really jolly cold, and I’m not talking about a winter chill in the North East of England, or even a Canadian Winter.  It has to be kept so chilled, that it sounds like a hippy in California after having smoked some really good weed back in the day…  And how their share prices have risen faster than a man’s penis after having taken Viagra! 

What else is new in the world?  Apparently there has been an election on the other side of the pond.  Biden and Harris have won, but Trump hasn’t lost yet!  Go figure!  The country has been divided by this humungous buffoon.  And to quote Oliver Hardy, “That’s another fine mess you got us into!”  Some votes have to be counted but others have to left well alone.  I almost feel sorry for Trump.  Hang on, before the accusations fly, I did say “almost!”  Here is a man with his model wife, who seems to be wanting to get out of her marriage of convenience.  Women and proximity to power.  She’s a gold digger, but should have divorced the Donald before he became the President.  For once in his mediocre life, he has realised that despite the 70 million voters who liked him, an awful lot more thought slightly less of him than he did of himself.  That must have been gutting for him.  And now he has his eviction notice from 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.  For once, he’s the one being evicted from a property.  He has failed.  Which in Trumpism is the worst thing that can happen.  Now he’s behaving like a little hateful boy who doesn’t want to leave the park, throwing a wobbler, but is being manhandled by the nanny to get the little merde out and away. 

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying that Biden and Harris are great people either.  One is a lawyer and the other a career politician who has finally landed the dream job before having to retire.  There is so much hope pinned on this guy, and I fear that although he will be able to repair some of the damage done by Trump, he will not be able to do as much as his voters thought he would do.  The man, like me, is a moderate.  That has become almost a dirty word in modern politics, where everything has to be polarized.  One is not allowed to say that despite Black lives mattering, in fact all lives matter.  Even blue ones.  There is no place for nuance.  There is no place for subtlety. I see the infamous AOC, Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez, the poster girl for the more extreme left wing in Democrat circles, saying that now Biden is President Elect, the gloves are back off, and that he’d better support her politics.  I find this whole situation very disheartening.  Yes, I believe that universal health care is a right, and that in the US, it’s a shambles (understatement of the year material I think), and the new Green Deal is a pretty good idea and will help reduce the consequences of Trumps mismanagement of the environment, and that the US has a unique position in the world despite Russian and China. But that doesn’t give you a free pass.  Extremism is never good, be it left or right.

Wow, that got slightly political all of a sudden!  How did that happen?  Back to photography.  I had started to go out on Fridays and take photos in some of the Chateaux of the Loire, and other places like Fontevraud, but with lockdown that ain’t happening no more.  It’s deader than flared trousers and hang glider collars, deader than the hope of me getting laid, deader than the hope of a family Christmas with friends and mas etc. (thank you, you little President).  Which is a shame, because I thought it was a really good idea.  I would have been able to visit castles, take photos, maybe even taste some of the local wine production etc.  I could have waxed lyrical about history, take a few digs at the French.  Easy to do and so satisfying, so very much like the French then!  As I have said before, it’s not a good day if you can’t take a dig at the French, or make a small child cry.  Insert evil laugh here.  I’m just going to mention a guy that I have mentioned before.  Paul Taylor.  The guy who left Apple to go on the road as a comedian, and has as great YouTube channel.  That takes balls.  Not only that, but a comedian in France, which takes even more balls.  This man’s balls are obviously huge, and he can obviously outman even the most manly of manly men who have just been doing some very manly things, like being mean about the French and making small children cry.

Life will get back to normal one day.  One day.  Until then, keep your pecker up.  Chin up, chest out, and thumbs in line with the seams of your trousers.