When you gotta go

Whilst weeding the garden, I noted the normal panic and probably terror of insects and ants as their worlds and empires among the roots crumbled and rearranged themselves. So, we slightly higher life forms should not be surprised by sudden change and the fall of certainties. So it has been in the world of books - a subject which I mentioned yesterday. However, the landscape of magazines and newspapers has always shifted. When I started out trying to get anything published I had read a book called "How to be a writer" which I had found in the local library. According to the author, you simply produced "Formula first person" stories to the correct length and sent them off to editors. The editors just sent them back, lost them or put them on a pile. The formula story was written in the first person (a female) who had arrived at a crossroads. Her mind then "flashed back" to how she had arrived at this point. Occasionally I managed to sell a story. Sadly, those story/love/romance magazines no longer have sufficient readership and most have closed. These days it is the celebrity mag that sells. The fact is that the antics and amours of celebs routinely trump any fiction that my imagination could create. What we now have is the formula love on/love off tale starring people who you actually know and have seen on TV. The reason I had been writing romance is because some of the publishers at the supermarket end of the business still accept manuscripts. I'll leave it to the posh "sincere and artistic" writers to follow their calling with integrity.

So, that brings me on to Celebrity. In France we do have them but most of them are somewhere inside Gérard Depardieu.(American readers will know him from "Green Card") Now, I love this guy. He's a kinda Jolly Green Giant crossed with the honey monster. He's also a brilliant actor and seems to be in every French film. Recently he came to international fame by urinating in an aeroplane.(I do not believe that he was filming a re-make of "Snakes On A Plane"). Seemingly he had asked to use the toilet and had been refused because the plane was about to take off. So, he did what any Frenchman would do. He stood, got out his manhood and anointed the floor. Some reports suggest that he was very considerately aiming for a bottle. This is an honoured French tradition that you are likely to witness at any moment in France. Polite males turn their backs on the closest spectators and enjoy their relief. Any aircraft taking money from French passengers should install at least a small area of soil or a corrugated iron partition to allow for cultural expression. We have to be ultra sensitive to all manner of special interest groups. A Frenchman with a full bladder is as special as you can get. I'm gonna create a church of the Open Fly in the Sky and sign up paying members. Once you're a church they can't touch you. Gérard - I'll be your priestess.


A French lady has sued her husband for "lack of sex". A judge has ruled that under section 215 of the legal code, partners have to provide this service. The guy had to pay out £8,500 Euros. Don't think my man will be in court for a while!!!!


The trial of ex-president and Mayor of Paris Jacques Chirac has opened. Seemingly he has memory problems and cannot attend. All looks a bit political and spiteful to me. He was ultra French and I liked him just for that. Emma says - leave the old guy alone. If his opponents win they'll look like muggers robbing an old gent regardless of the rights and wrongs.


Emma thinx: Never let the facts hide the truth.