Zizi sexuel l'expo!

Since October, there has been an exhibition running at the Cité des Sciences intended to help pre-teens understand sexuality. It has been adapted from the book, Le guide du zizi sexuel by Zep and Hélène Bruller and is fun as well as educational. And fairly explicit.

I can imagine the outcry if there were a similar exhibition in London, but when you read any of the several reports about the teenage pregnancy rate in the UK not meeting the hoped-for targets, something must be done. According to the BBC report, the rate in the UK has fallen by 11% but it was hoped that it would be cut by 50% by 2010. The rate is three times that of France, so perhaps we could learn some lessons.

Intriguingly, the website for the exhibition in Paris, is also available in English. It runs until January 2009.

In the Bleak Midwinter

In spite of my mother's best efforts I don't attend church, but I have always loved Christmas carols as being part of the Christmas tradition.

One of my favourites is "In the bleak midwinter", sung here by Gloucester Cathedral Choir. I love both the words and music, but it always makes me wonder why the people who wrote carols assumed it would be snowing at the first Christmas. Most seem to have been written in the 19th century. Presumably people then knew it was unlikely to snow in Bethlehem (although it sometimes does), and that 25 December is not the actual date of Jesus' birth.

Apparently, from a response to a question on Yahoo answers, the great census which required Mary and Joseph to go to Bethlehem, occurred between May and September 4BC. The mention of shepherds in the fields by night confirms this because the flocks would be returned to lower pastures or indoors by the end of September.

The words of "In the bleak midwinter" were written by Christina Rossetti, originally as a Christmas poem, later set to music by Gustav Holst. From Hymns and Carols of Christmas I find that there is a third verse which I have never heard before:

Enough for Him, whom cherubim
Worship night and day,
A breastful of milk
And a mangerful of hay;
Enough for Him, whom angels
Fall down before,
The ox and ass and camel
Which adore.

I can see why it would have been "censored", but what a shame. If a deeply religious Victorian woman can write about breast feeding, why and when did it become a subject to be suppressed?

PhotoHunter: messy

I didn't expect to enter this week's Photo Hunt because we have only just arrived in France.

Sadly though, we found that person we had hoped would pop into the house and keep an eye on things didn't. As a result things are rather neglected, and I can offer you a selection of messy looking plants :(

Unfotunately there are more, but I will leave it at these two, and instead cheer myself up by showing an example of a wall that is very messy on close inspection, but I like the overall effect of age. It runs along the alley that leads down to the river.

A happy and peaceful New Year to everyone!

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One year ago

One year ago precisely, I posted my first post. It's hard to tell now, because I've back-dated Papillon's blog translations by a year so that makes it look as though I am older than I really am! I realise too, I've gone fairly off-track as far as my original intentions were, but still, evolution is the name of the game.

It appears that I share my moment of glory with the Queen, who has today posted her Christmas message on YouTube, though I haven't watched it myself. Not only is she now the oldest reigning British monarch, but modern too! She overtook her great-grandmother's record on 21 December 2007. There are some interesting statistics on British monarchs and longevity in Wikipedia.

Surprisingly I remember my staunchly Irish grandmother insisting on the Christmas meal being over in time to watch or listen to the Queen's Christmas broadcast. In the past this was a tradition for many British families though I doubt it's the case nowadays. The YouTube venture is intended to reach out to more people, though I'm not convinced that it will.

Season's Greetings

I am unlikely to be around too much over the next week or so. My sister is soon to arrive from Canada to look after our mother and allow me to have a short break in France. We are concerned that the house shouldn't be empty continuously for too long.

Two years ago I think it was, we had this very Christmassy scene which I do hope won't be repeated, pretty though it looks. Floods were followed by a heavy snowfall.

I hope you all have your wishes come true, and have a lovely and peaceful holiday.

Heads in the clouds

Sent to me by my son who is in Dubai at the moment.

PhotoHunter: light

Of course when I saw this week's theme, I wished I had saved my sunrise pictures, but planning more than one week in advance is too much for me!

So here we have two pictures I took in the autumn, showing the light coming through the branches on to the leaves.

I can't entirely resist the sunrise pictures. It started like this.

A little later a plane flew past, coming in to land.

Finally, another meaning of light: light as a feather.

I wish you all the season's greetings wherever in the world you may be, and may you all be as light as a feather after your festivities, as of course you were beforehand!

Season's Greetings
Meilleurs Voeux
Felices Fiestas
Frohe Festtage

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Christmas cards

This year I decided I would save a tree and send e-cards instead of paper cards. It seems to me charities haven't really caught on to this as a fund raiser. It was surprisingly hard to find any, and even harder to find ones I liked. I eventually found this from Engineer Aid, who don't even insist on a donation (though they do invite one).

I bought just half a dozen "real" cards to give to some special people. I was so pleased to find these Traidcraft cards from Bangladesh, handmade using traditional embroidery techniques and various papers: cotton, straw, jute.

Cotton paper is new to me, but I was especially pleased when one turned out to be made of water hyacinth paper, after having learnt all about the problems it causes just a few months ago.

And since my visitors are all special people, please consider these to be your cards :) Let me know which one you like best.

Conquered

Now that my mother has moved into a nursing home, I have had to start sorting through her papers. She wrote this piece perhaps 20 or more years ago, and I thought I'd reproduce it here because it follows on from my last post and conkers. It is an entirely true story.

A funny thing happened on my way to my crossword this afternoon. Three small boys came to my door to ask permission to collect conkers in my garden. I brought them round to the back of the house and told them to help themselves. They thanked me and we parted company.

Half an hour later the door bell went again. Could they have a bag please, pockets filled to overflowing were not big enough. I found one ... well, perhaps three bags would be better ... I found two more. They were bigger than they hoped for. Pity not to fill them a bit more. Back they went to the tree.

Ten minutes later the door bell yet again. This time not three but seven little boys were assembled. Fourteen eyes solemnly scanned my dead-pan face, anxiously assessing the barometric pressure of the adult mood, while the spokesman said his piece.He explained that they had seen their friends' conkers and could they have some too, please? I released the teasing and the tension with a smile and the necessary assent and they all hurtled round the corner in the direction of the chestnut tree, which, when I looked out of the window a moment later, was trembling (excitedly I 'd swear) under the unaccustomed assault.

Another five minutes, another ring at the door. There stood a Botticelli angel. I wasn't fooled by the disguise of sweater and jeans. He looked very anxious and was obviously the reluctant emissary for yet another bag. We considered this request together for a moment or two, and thought two bags perhaps, "just to be sure". I returned to my paper.

The doorbell again! This, I thought, was a little too much. The barometer was approaching "Stormy". I opened the door and there, half-way down the path stood the seven children in crescent formation, like a carol-singing party. "We just wanted to say thank you very much for letting us have the conkers," they said in ragged unison, but what a lovely chorus of unprompted courtesy. Their parents would have been very proud of them, I thought, as I waved them goodbye.

My crossword wasn't yet started, but my day had been made.

Walk down the lanes

We've been lucky to have bright if cold weather recently, ideal for going for a wander in the countryside.

The trees without their leaves look totally different of course but lovely in a different way.

This cottage, sheltered by the trees and the brow of the hill, looked very cozy.

Although I noticed the holly trees were almost stripped bare of their berries, other red fruits had been left. Obviously not so tasty!

These are the fruits of Rhus typhina, or Staghorn Sumac, which I always think of as a cultivated plant, but it was here in a hedgerow. There must have been a tree nearby and these were the suckers from it.

Surprisingly there were loads of conkers lying around and left to rot. I say surprisingly because if there had been any children around, they would have been instantly gathered for playing conkers as soon as they fell.

I can so well remember the search for good sources of conkers while my sons were at primary school. We used to spend hours trying to find a tree which hadn't been stripped. Great fun!

Soap for Africa - and profit for Unilever

Unilever are backing a major campaign in Uganda, and later Kenya, Tanzania, Senegal and Benin, to encourage hand washing - and the use of Lifebuoy soap. It states openly that it wants to make washing hands with soap a habit in order to sell more bars of its Lifebuoy soap. It is not being passed off as corporate social responsibility, which is a refreshing change.

Several organisations such as UNICEF, USAid, and the Gates Foundation, are involved in the campaign to encourage hand washing before eating and after going to the toilet. Although the amount of money being invested is tiny compared with other campaigns, it could be extremely cost-effective. According to the World Health Organisation, in Uganda alone, 140 out of 1000 children will die before the age of five, 17% from diarrhoea and 21% from pneumonia.

These organisations could conduct their campaign themselves but Unilever brings marketing skills, and more sophisticated ways of shaping behaviour beyond simple public health education. Unilever stands to gain by being seen to be in partnership with organisations such as UNICEF, and they are hoping that their Lifebuoy soap will be linked so closely with hygiene and health that people will be prepared to pay more for it than the basic soap already available.

Although I still feel uncomfortable about a multinational company being involved in this sort of thing, I'm not quite as concerned as with the Procter & Gamble campaign. Unilever are at least being perfectly open about it. Nevertheless, it remains the case that big business is attempting to manipulate people who can ill afford it to buy unnecessary products. Simply washing with ordinary soap would be an enormous step forward.

From the Financial Times Deutschland

Winchester Christmas market

The Christmas market in Winchester is very new. Last year was the first time it happened but it was such a success that it has been enlarged, so I went along to have a look.
It is held in the Cathedral Close. I arrived in the late afternoon when the cathedral was bathed in the rays from the setting sun. It looked spectacular.
The stalls were arranged all around the Close, with the central area being given over to a "portable" ice rink. Nobody was skating while I was there: the ice was being washed!
The stalls sell everything that could be possibly connected to Christmas or be a Christmas present. 
As it is run by the cathedral, unsurprisingly several stalls had a religious theme and there was a simple nativity scene. 
Tapestries. 
Nothing but candles.
More Christmas decorations. 
I was particularly taken by this pottery man outside a stall selling pottery mugs and jugs. 
I'm not at all sure how eco-friendly it was, but I certainly enjoyed it. By the time I left, the sun had almost set and the lights were visible in the trees. The whole thing was very attractive.

You might also like to see RennyBA's great post on the Yule market in Oslo.
Updated to add the Christmas street market in Stockholm, from Captain Lifecruiser.
The Christmas market in Brussels, from Gattina.

Photohunter: small

Once there was a small boy.

He grew up and met a young woman, a small young woman.

They had two small girls.

The girls grew up and one of them had two small boys.

The boys have now grown up. Watch this space .......

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Eco-friendly Christmas markets

From a TV5 report (in French*)

If asked, 90% of French people think Christmas has become too commericalised**. Apart from the cost, the excesses translate into a vast amount of waste and takes a toll on the environment.

There is plenty of advice for individuals on how to lower their impact on hte environment during this season, but not so much for local authorities who are very much left to their own devices.

ADEME, (Agence de l'Environnement et de la Maîtrise de l'Energie) have been asked to conduct a study which will result in a guide on how to minimise the environmental impact of Christmas without destroying its magic.

Because of the increasing popularity of Christmas markets, a charter has been drawn up prior to the study.

Environmentally friendly Christmas markets

1. Stalls should be insulated when they are in use, and should be reusable.
2. Electricity consumption should be limited and attention given to the type of lights with low consumption bulbs being given preference (as in Paris).
3. Access should allow for bicycles and there should be good public transport.
4. To limit waste, gift packaging should not be excessive and environmentally friendly products shouldbe used.
5. Recycling waste disposal facilities should be available on site.
6. There should be consideration given to the types of products on display.
7. Promotion of fair trade and products from the local economy should be encouraged.
8. Promotion of the event should be responsible in the amount and types of paper and inks used.
9. Visitors and stall-holders should be informed of environmental problems and encouraged to limit their impact.

* I have discovered by chance that TV5's articles seem to have a wonderful add-in whereby you double click on a word and it gives you a translation. I'm in England at the moment and it translates into English, presumably detecting that automatically. You can though choose the languages you need.

**I would imagine most people, in most countries would agree with this.

Red sky in the morning

We had a spectacular sunrise when I should have been getting ready for work.

It did start off looking quite ominous, and as I've said before,

Red sky at night, shepherd's delight
Red sky at morning, shepherd's warning.

However it didn't really come to anything other than a sudden drop in temperature.

Tasting water

Lyonnaise des Eaux, a large water company in France, has invited people to become tasters of tap water, in an effort ot rehabilitate water as a drink. They hope to be able to establish the areas where chlorine in the water leaves a noticeable taste.

It isnot a new idea. Other organisations are doing the same, such as Aleau.net. Apparently 40% of French people say they don't like the taste of tap water. As a result, water is used less and less for the purpose it is intended.

Reasons given for not liking tap water:

1. Bad taste
2. Taste of chlorine
3. Too much lime
4. Too hard
   

Personally, if I drink mineral water at all I prefer sparkling water, and of these Badoit is my favourite. Just enough but not too much sparkle.

Greenwash

... or whitewash with green credentials.

The e-on animals ad is the one I have noticed the most, mainly because for the first few times I saw it, I couldn't decide what on earth it was about. Why some wild animals wandering through an office should be though suitable for an advertisement for a power company I couldn't work out.

It seems that the fashion for demonstrating how green a product is has been growing, and in some cases taken to unacceptable limits. The following ad from Shell was banned for suggesting that Shell used waste CO2 to grow flowers. See more on the Friends of the Earth press release.

Peugeot have at least these two ads to show how green they are:

The first with flowers coming out of the exhaust!

The second seems to imply it will have a good effect on your lungs. Hmm

Anyone interested can see a whole range of greenwashed advertisements from France at L'Alliance pur la planète.

An example in English: Airbus shows an aeroplane flying through a tropical jungle.

But the most amazing has to be BAe Systems claim to manufacture environmentally friendly weapons. You have to wonder who managed to come up with that argument.