Day 1726 (Monday) 28th February 2022
It was lovely and sunny again this morning and while Huw did a check-in at the apartment I did a 2-hour Zoom lesson with Eduard and Olga while Badger had a nice snooze on his pillow on top of the wardrobe. I was really pleased to see a tourist boat in the bay and soon heard that it was the usual ‘jamais plus jamais’ guide. Spring has arrived!
The guide does his speel in French and English and he says the same thing every day and has done so since we moved here three years ago (and I’m sure he did every day before that) is referring to the James Bond film ‘never say never’ with Sean Connery and Kim Bassinger.
This is Sean Connery standing in Parking Wilson.
Of all the glorious films that have been made in this area that surely was the worst one. Why not mention the hilarious ‘Dirty Rotten Scoundrels’ instead?
Here are Michael Caine and Steve Martin walking along the seafront near the Welcome Hotel
Michael Caine sitting opposite Parking Wilson
For once Eduard was on time, well just 10 minutes late, which I now consider to be on time. Usually he makes small talk before getting to the nitty gritty but today we went straight into grammar again, as we did on Friday. I think the whole war situation is really affecting him and he just doesn’t want to talk about it. Olga, on the other hand talks about it quite a lot. She has been speaking to friends and family in both Russia and Ukraine. The people in Russia are being shown a load of propaganda saying that everything is fine in Russia but the Ukrainians are killing Russian soldiers right, left and centre. The people in Ukraine are living in bunkers under their building. They have applied for visas for France for both their mums (who I met in the villa last summer); Olga’s mother is in good health but Eduard’s is very frail. They don’t hold up much hope of them getting a visa. Olga’s main concern is that she can’t send any money to their people in Russia, including her mother, because the Russian banks have been closed to the rest of the world. Eduard still has a number of employees in Russia and is unable to pay them.
I spent a few hours photocopying and doing some prep for the rest of the week and then spent a relaxing hour finishing another jigsaw.
A few weeks ago Huw found a TV series on one of our TV systems called ‘Riviera’ that many people had told us about. The common opinion was that it wasn’t a very good series but a lot of it is filmed in this area so we decided to give it a go. Huw hated it and most of it was filmed in Monaco so he gave up. I watched the second episode and a lot of it was in Villefranche.
This is the main character and she has just walked past where we park Kisbee.
This is her walking past the fountain which is about 50 metres from our front door.
And this is her at our train station.
This is what Wikipedia had to say about it…
Riviera is a television drama created by Neil Jordan. It premiered on Sky Atlantic on 15th June 2017. The series stars Anthony LaPaglia, Julia Stiles, Lena Olin, Adrian Lester, Iwan Rheon, Dimitri Leonidas and Roxane Duran. The first series of Riviera was released on 15th June 2017 on Sky Box Sets and NOW TV, and was Sky’s most successful original series, with an audience of 2.3 million an episode, and more than 20 million downloads and views total. The first series premiered in the U.S. on 9th February 2019 on Ovation. The second season aired on the network in May 2021 as part of the "Mystery Alley" block in a deal with Sky Studios. The second series was announced on 21st November 2017. It was renewed for a third series on 24 May 2019.
Synopsis
Set in the French Riviera, the series follows American art curator Georgina Clios, whose life is upended after her billionaire husband Constantine dies in a yacht accident. Georgina becomes immersed in a world of lies, double-dealing and crime, as she seeks to uncover the truth about her husband's death.
Production
Neil Jordan has disowned Riviera, due to his scripts being reworked by others. He says he has no idea who rewrote these episodes. “They were changed, to my huge surprise and considerable upset. There were various sexual scenes introduced into the story and a lot of very expository dialogue. I objected in the strongest terms possible.”
Filming for season 1 began in August 2016 in the South of France until February 2017. The Clios' lavish "Villa Carmella" estate was filmed at the Chateau Diter in the Cote d'Azur. The first episode of the series debuted at the MIPTV Media Market event in Cannes on 3rd April 2017.
Filming for season 2 started on 21st May 2018 to September 2018 in the Cote d'Azur, Monza, Nice, and Monaco for a 2019 release. Joining the show are Will Arnett, Juliet Stevenson, Poppy Delevingne, Jack Fox and Grégory Fitoussi, returning cast include Julia Stiles, Lena Olin, Roxane Duran and Dimitri Leonidas.
It really was a very exaggerated series with absolutely ridiculous, ludicrous stories. Her husband didn’t actually die on the exploding yacht but was living with an old friend pretending to be dead. His first wife and three children went to live in the same villa and they all hated each other – obviously. The main character ended up stabbing one of her stepsons to death on their yacht that they kept in La Darse. After stabbing him she wrapped him in a sail and threw him overboard.
There was a mass extermination of people on the Grande Corniche above Eze and the snipers were in a helicopter – of course.
The stepdaughter pushed her mother out of a 6th floor building in Place Massena and she survived for a while.
This was just after the main character was quizzing an eastern European prostitute about her relationship with her late husband when another sniper blew her brains out all over the lovely black and white tiles of Place Massena.
How anyone could look at these beautiful natural and man-made places and come up with such revolting gruesome stories I will never understand. I kept at it and it was almost worth it because of the scenery and knowing exactly where they were most of the time.
The third series was even sillier than the first two and was mostly based in Saint Tropez and Buenos Aires. Her husband did actually die in Saint Jean Cap Ferrat while she was in Saint Tropez and she did get to see him before he died. The president of Argentina had some connection to the main character (I’d stopped paying attention by now) and a woman connected to the main character killed her twin brother in Saint Tropez and put the body in a car crusher she just happened to know in Saint Tropez. The main character was kidnapped and put in a mental institution in Saint Tropez but she managed to escape and somehow ended up in Buenos Aires where the president was shot! It made Dallas and Dynasty look realistic. I won’t be watching that crap again.
This was Badger last night sitting between us on the sofa – could he get more comfortable?
Other people’s cats
Comments
Post a Comment