The World Cup countdown gathers pace and, now that the last French hope has crashed out of Roland Garros, dominates the news bulletins more and more. It was with no little embarrassment that the TV presenter reported on Saturday that out of 18 men and 12 women who were in round 1 of the French open, by round 4 there remained just one Frenchman. And he managed only a single set in the fourth round before retiring injured. Eh bien, tant pis.
In the political arena, there's been a bit of a brouhaha over the last couple of days, starting with Sarkozy blaming his socialist predecessor François Mitterand for France's enormous deficit (7.5% of GDP) because it was he who brought in the reduction of the retirement age to 60 in 1981. Socialist Party leader Martine Aubry took offence - dead men can't defend themselves, after all - and retaliated by comparing Sarko and his management of the public deficit with the methods of Bernard Madoff. Naturally, great umbrage ensued from the presidential acolytes at hearing the great man likened to a crook. All good, dirty fun…
For us it's been a quiet few days. La bienheureuse spent two days in Germany and then took Friday off, using up her last day of the holiday year ending this month. The weekend then followed a familiar routine. Lunch by the river in the sunshine on Saturday, a walk round the park for ma bien-aimée while I occupied myself with preparations for the forthcoming diving, which I should have done several weeks ago. Then when the sun disappeared yesterday, we consoled ourselves with a trip to the cinema to watch Green Zone. Entertaining enough, and reasonably thought provoking stuff...
