Day 903 (Friday) 29th November 2019
Another gorgeous morning in paradise, 30 degrees on the thermometer on the
balcony in direct sunlight – not bad for the end of November.
Being big fans of Graham Norton we watched his interview with Elton John
last night and it was delightful. What made it even more special was that it
was filmed in Villefranche where Elton has a summer house and Graham was
chuffed to have been invited. I wish we’d have seen him while he was here.
Huw gave me a lift to Nice this morning because he wanted to buy a jacket
to wear on Kisbee. I introduced him to Benny before he went off shopping and I
spent a very pleasant hour with Benny in our usual café near the school. I had
a lovely Franglais conversation with Anna in the school and we planned to go
for a coffee next week to practice our French and English – she is such a
lovely woman. I then met Gashbin in the bakery where we had a 90-minute lesson.
From there I walked over to Place Mozart where I met
William for a meeting about ‘blended learning’ and it went quite well. He has
agreed to pay me for doing some research on how to deliver ‘blended learning’, to
make the course cheaper for the student this new system allows one hour a week
face-to-face conventional teaching and a few hours online so I need to research
into exactly how it works. I don’t like the idea of working online but work is
work!
There was
a train strike in Italy today so my train was affected because it goes to
Ventimille so I walked back to the Old Town and caught the tram and bus home.
In Nice
‘it’s beginning to look like Christmas everywhere I go’
The sun was pretty powerful and
everything was glistening
I had a bit of a wait for the 100
bus but I didn’t mind too much because it was so warm.
Villefranche looked beautiful in
the sun too… the colour of the winter sky never ceases to amaze me
Christmas is coming to town here
too…
We went to Le Phare and the usual
suspects were there and we had a lot of fun and got Pat’s birthday card signed
by everyone who was there. The big party is tomorrow afternoon and I think it’s
going to be massive so we were sensible and had a fairly early night in
anticipation of a big day tomorrow.
I found this article in The Local
France and thought it was appropriate for this time of year as the French
prepare to eat loads of foie gras over Christmas and the New Year.
French shock at US foie gras ruling: 'How can
the country of the Statue of Liberty ban this healthy delicacy?'
New York lawmakers to ban 'healthy' foie gras - even though the French
product cannot be sold in America.
New York city council
voted overwhelmingly on Wednesday to ban from 2022 the sale of the French
delicacy, which is made from the livers of force-fed ducks and geese.
"I am astounded
that the country of the Statue of Liberty and liberalism can ban the
consumption of a product that is healthy and sells
well," Marie-Pierre Pe, director of the interprofessional committee
of foie gras (CIFOG) which groups French producers, said.
"It's a symbol
of French gastronomy which is being targeted but there is nothing like a
ban to boost sales," Pe said.
Animal rights
activists cheered after New York lawmakers ruled that it was cruel to
force-feed ducks and geese to fatten their livers for human consumption.
But Pe downplayed the
impact on the sector in the run-up to the end-of-year holidays, when the
French routinely gorge on slabs of foie gras on toast.
"For us, there
is going to be no economic effect as no French company exports (foie gras
to the United States)," she said, explaining that French producers,
respecting EU legislation, fell foul of American sanitary requirements.
Philippe Baron,
president of the association for the promotion of foie gras from the
southwestern Gers region, a bastion of the delicacy, confirmed that the
ban "has no meaning from an economic point of view".
"The US is not a
country that adopted this product," he argued, referring to
French-made foie gras, while admitting that "from a symbolic point of
view, it is a shame."
Some 80 percent of
foie gras consumed worldwide is made in France.
According to CIFOG, France
produced 18,000 tones of foie gras in 2018 and should match this in 2019.
But the US also has a
number of producers, who have warned that New York's ban will badly affect
their businesses.
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