For some reason, I was thinking the other day that I’ve “only” ever been to France once.
And I was thinking, maybe I should try to fix that while I still can.
[My whimsy’s just about been extinguished, tbh. Find the last of it in the Apoplexy Tiny Letter]
That one time was a school trip around the end of junior school/beginning of secondary school. We were up in Normandy, staying in a youth hostel. Of course we visited the D-Day beaches.
Yeah, Johnson, it’ll be like Garden Bridge. But like, x10. (I’m not calling him Boris. We’re not mates.)
I also remember a cracking market where we learned the basics of negotiating with mainland Europeans, as citizens of the UK.
– Ca, c’est combien?
– Cent francs.
– I’ll give you fifty.
– Cent francs, enfant Britannique stupide. 🙄
The funny thing is, Liam had said to us just a minute earlier that buying that leather wristband would be the easiest deal in human history.
We also made it to Mont-Saint-Michel, an island off the northwestern coast of France of historic strategic importance with a current population of around 50.
Anyway, the point is, we didn’t get very far south. Actually, one of the reasons I was thinking about France was that I was reading James Baldwin’s Giovanni’s Room for a book group. As I read it, it felt very evocative of Paris. Or at least, certain bars I used to frequent in Brooklyn. And if it made that connection, I could try to build the rest of the city from there, all dirt and food and odours and drink and washed-out sunrises.
Although Baldwin did spend time living in Paris, he settled for the later years of his life in Saint-Paul-de-Vence in the south of France, where he would receive writers and artists and musicians and actors.
And as it happens, Mrs Stroke Bloke sent me a link about recurring guest of the blog Le Corbusier the other day. It turns out that his special place to find inspiration was also in the south of France (although admittedly, a seven-hour drive away in the west as opposed to the east).
The Nasjonalmuseet in Oslo is currently exhibiting a collection of Le Corbusier’s paintings for the first time since 1966. Although the paintings would be finished in Paris, he found inspiration for them in Le Piquey.
I am drawn to places where people live naturally. Le Piquey is full of life that is healthy, calm and to scale: to a human scale…This is what civilizations destroy, plunging people into artifice and misfortune.
– Le Corbusier in a letter to his mother, 1932
But I was trying not to dwell on Brexit. All I’m saying is, these places in the south of France sound pretty inspirational. I’d love to check them out some time.
Here’s a fun little postscript.
The Mexico ’86 poster is a bit dodgy. I don’t think it would pass a cultural sensitivity gut check these days.
Wondering what the posters will look like for USA-Canada-Mexico 2026, now that Trump has labeled our neighbors as threats to national security. A drunken brawl in a sports bar or tacky chain restaurant (staffed by Mexicans, of course) would be an appropriate image.
Innit? Wee Piqué’s got something, but I’m not sure it’s a good thing. (For the uninitiated, the alt-text on that one reads, ‘Second blog appearance for “controversial ethnic stereotype”, Piqué’.)
I vote for a drunken brawl among this mob for the poster:
You know Richard “Dick Nixon before he dicks you” Nixon is gonna come out on top. He’s got a paid goon standing just out of shot.
Aaaanyway, this one’s for you, pal:
This is how you do it.