Out of a Clear Blue Sky

Quite by chance I came across an extraordinarily interesting blog yesterday: http://www.sardanapale.com/

For a start, and on a cursory examination, the writer really does seem to be bilingual in English and French. This is something I have never managed to achieve after living getting on for 40 years in France!

Secondly, the text is written in a clear, alert and witty style which I find very pleasing.

But what about the blog itself? Well, I haven't had time to read through everything but it seems pretty clear to me that the writer, let's call him S, is an admirer of George Orwell and the late Jean-François Revel. To my way of thinking, you can't get better than that!

I shall certainly be turning to Sardanapale on a regular basis from now on, despite the fact that it is rather vexing to find someone who does the same sort of thing as I try to do - in my more serious vein - only infinitely better! Still, humility is good for the soul...

 

Nicolas Sarkozy

Sarkozy is getting it in the neck at the moment, and deservedly so in many ways, with one ill-thought-out measure following another into the public arena, where it is promptly emasculated or withdrawn altogether. BUT, BUT, BUT..., after the slumbering Brezhnevian years of Jacques Mitterac, one does at long last have the feeling that someone is actually trying to do something. Claude Allègre made a very interesting comparison with the first year of Giscard's administration back in the 1970s. Giscard got off to a brilliant start but then put too many people's backs up, and that was the end of that.

Perhaps Sarkozy can do better? I don't know. The fact is, though, there's absolutely no other alternative in sight.

 

Back to work

I find writing this diary a rewarding and at the same time stressful occupation. It's far more rewarding than my work but this very work takes up more and more of my time as my brain starts to wind down, so any time spent away from it becomes more stressful!