Corona Virus Lock Down – Day Three…

Tags

Corona, Environment, exercise, Family, France, French, Journalism, Law, Life, News, Relationships, Running, Virus

 

It all seemed like a joke not so long ago. Like last Friday maybe. This Corona Virus malarkey wasn’t serious really, was it? I mean sure, people were dying, but they were few and far, far away. But then it was in the UK, and Italy.

And then it was here, in France.

Then President Macron took to the air and announced that we were at war with a virus. And suddenly it was all to real, and not funny anymore. Not in the slightest.

New measures were announced to combat this threat, avoid contact with other people, wash frequently, don’t panic buy (good luck with that one!) but the main one was that we must stay in our homes unless absolutely necessary. Meaning, effectively, that we are all locked down in our own homes with our loved ones and, if we do leave the house, we need to fill out and sign a form in case a police man sees and stops us (if you don’t have your note then you face a hefty fine).

So far since the new regime has been implemented I have been out once (I mean, you can still go out in your garden, but I’m talking about a bit further afield). I went for a run yesterday for about forty minutes, running all around my town. I did of course ensure that I had my ‘permission slip’ with me: ‘Dear Mr Policeman, I am running outdoors as I need to exercise and get away from my kids otherwise I will go mad‘ was bizarrely NOT one of the possible justifications for leaving your domicile.

It was strange. So quiet.

In some respects this is no different from normal days/evenings when I run. The French are a very ‘insular’ people, and I have likened them to trap-door spiders in the past (in a loving way of course). They pop out, do their thing – be that working, shopping etc. – and then they head back indoors and effectively don’t leave until the next day. That’s why when I run I generally don’t see many people. This is a marked contrast for someone who comes from the UK, where you could go for a run through a much smaller town and see dozens and dozens of people milling around.

There are no off-licenses or late-opening corner shops, very, very few take-aways and pubs are less frequent, so I think this does have an impact on that kind of social mobility. I prefer it, if I’m being honest. The amount of drunken people rolling around English towns as a result of these alcohol-selling shops, and the other obesity-issue related to convenience food is not something I miss.

But I digress.

So I went for a run and I did see some people, but every single one of them moved out of my way as I approached. And I’m not saying I ran near them. Many times I was about four meters away (the recommended safe distance is one meter), yet still they moved.

So it’s quiet, which is not unusual. But it’s the atmosphere in the air that’s so different. There’s almost a fear. A sense of dread that you can taste.

There’s also a very real sense of horse manure and cow dung in the air too, but that’s because I run past a farmer’s field on my circuit.

I’ll report back on what it’s like indoors in another blog, as we are all still settling into this new lifestyle.

But one thing’s for sure – we are living in interesting times…

 

Close to home…

Tags

America, England, guns, Journalism, Life, News, Poetry, Violence

This is something I wasn’t going to post as it’s a bit ‘outside my wheelhouse’ so to speak, as well as being somewhat political. However I’m tired of all the handwringing that goes on in my old country (England) for other countries – mainly by people on Facebook and other social media platforms – when we/they have more than enough problems of their own to deal with.

This is not to say I am in anyway wanting to diminish from some of the atrocities, the slaughter that goes on in other countries, not at all. However when you see/read about some of the things that are ongoing in England, with nary a word being spoken or very little in the way of effective action being taken, things like this just grate.

 

Why do we cast our net so wide

when death and bloodshed are right outside

We look across the oceans deep

While down the road the children weep

For deaths in America our tears they pour

But rape and murder is on our shore

Why try to take guns out of foreign hands

While troubles multiply in our homelands

The guns still fire, the deaths still mount

The girls in England are raped, do they not count?

The young in London are killed on a daily basis

And yet here we are, worrying about distant places

So before ranting about lives that guns have marred

Maybe look first at the problems in your own back yard

West Yorkshire Graffiti Artists Invade Sleepy French Village!

Tags

Artwork, cultural differences, France, French, funny, Graffiti, Humor, Journalism, kids

TRANSLATED FROM ARTICLE ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN FRENCH NEWSPAPER ‘LE MONDE’

 

A sleepy French village was rocked to its foundations this week, after it was invaded by English Graffiti Artists. St Nectaire, famous for its relaxing spas and beautiful views, is now synonymous with this ‘art form’ thanks to the efforts of the two spray-can-wielding Brits.

 

The defacing duo – Big Daddy Pimp (AKA Cumberland Sausage) and his sidekick Lil Bitch-Slapper (AKA Chipolata Sausage) – have claimed ownership of the ‘Ladybird’s Delight’ (their words) which now adorns the abandoned tennis court in the hills of the village. The artwork, which depicts a ladybird on some leaves, is said to highlight the difficulties facing the ‘urban artist’ in modern France. And also West Yorkshire.

 

Lil Bitch Slapper, with the artwork in full.

 

“It’s about being true to yourself, yeah” Said Big Daddy Pimp, when he was interviewed earlier this week by the UK Graffiti Bible, Take A Break, “You can be all the colours of the rainbow – as long as they are mainly black and red – but it don’t matter but a ‘ting if you ain’t in touch with where you are coming from”. When asked to translate this into English, Big Daddy Pimp just said ‘Peace. And stay away from the yellow ladybirds, yeah? ‘cos everyone knows they is poisonous”.

 

“Also dere is a grasshopper” he expands “Because I bought too much green spray paint”.

 

The duo were raised in the UK, in an ‘Urban Ghetto’ as Pimp refers to it, called Wakefield, West Yorkshire. “Growing up on them streets was tough, yeah” says the urban warrior “Some weeks we was having to work 35, sometimes 37 hours, just to be able to put food on da table” Tears well up in his eyes as he recalls the depths he sometimes had to sink: ” Some weeks I had to work bank holidays…and even Christmas Day…for triple time”.

 

“I remember that Christmas” chimes in Lil Bitch Slapper “Daddy bought me a Lego Police Station”.

 

Big Daddy Pimp and Lil Bitch Slapper first met when Big Daddy Pimp’s Fiancee gave birth to him in 2010. The two, while not immediately close, soon formed a bond that developed into a collective love of art. This love found an outlet in graffiti, with the two going on to ‘decorate’ numerous walls around their area. Together the duo went on to form the graffiti collective known as The West Yorkshire Whippets (AKA The Alotment Boyz).

 

Feeling the heat led the duo to move away, in an attempt to break free from the underground graffiti scene which was threatening to endanger the lives of not just Big Daddy Pimp, but his family too. “We had run ins wiv da police, and a collective from Barnsley – The Flat Cap Pork Pie gang (AKA Revenge Of Kes) – and it was just getting too much”.

 

“Dey even keyed me car once” He recalls”I had to get it fixed at Daz’s Chips, Dents and Scratches in Chickenley. It Cost me £130. We only ate two takeaways that week”

 

So the family upped sticks and moved to France, and for a time it seemed that their completely-illegal artistic-activities had been left behind. But for ‘Cumberland Sausage’ the call of the streets was too strong. “I see a wall, empty, unused and it touches me inside. And if that wall is attached to a tennis court that is rotting away…well I iz going to sort it out and make it magical”.

 

“Daddy was going to do a lady boy at first weren’t you Daddy?” ‘Chipolata’ chips in “But then I asked him what a lady-boy was, and he went all quiet, and said we should do this instead”.

 

Following allegations that the artwork featured is not the property of ‘Big Daddy Pimp’ or ‘Lil Bitch Slapper’ and in fact that they are not graffiti-artists, but are just two ex-pats standing in front of someone else’s graffiti, Le Monde would like to apologise to our readers for any confusion caused.