The cold weather continues to bite, France's peak power consumption keeps breaking records, and we suffered the perhaps inevitable blackout on Wednesday evening. The lights went out in the middle of the afternoon and didn't come back until late in the evening. Out came the candles, torches and warmer clothes. Gas central heating is all very well if you don't have a boiler that relies on electricity to work. Fortunately, if the blackout had continued, our downstairs neighbours had offered warm shelter, having an old-fashioned boiler. Indeed we sampled their sweltering conditions first hand when we went down for a candlelit chat. No bath for la petite and her parents were in bed by nine thirty. What else is there to do when there's no TV or light to read by…?
The blown transformer which caused the power cut was presumably replaced the next day because we had two more cuts, one of over 2 hours in the middle of the day and another of a minute early in the evening. All lights blazing since then, fingers crossed. The sub-zero temperatures continue, -10C yesterday morning, even if our back window weather station recorded a maximum of 0.5C yesterday afternoon.
I experienced a different feeling of helplessness earlier in the week when my beloved daughter's attempts to escape from the changing table finally succeeded. As she pitched herself headlong off the end and into the bath my loose hold on her clothing slowed her fall enough for a desperate grab with the other hand to succeed in catching a leg. Result: a relatively gentle landing flat on her back with her head cushioned by a collection of rubber bath toys. No harm done other than a slightly grazed thigh and small bruise on one cheek. A lesson learned on both sides, we hope, but then I've said that before…
Another power problem, a sore elbow, eventually lead me to an appointment with a rheumatologist on Thursday. As I assume it's a bit like tennis elbow, I call it baby elbow, though in truth it started before baby came along. More likely computer mouse elbow or something. Anyway, he injected cortisone into the joint and told me to come back if it hadn't improved significantly after two weeks or so. More power to my elbow, fingers on the other hand crossed…
Someone else likely to lose power is Nicolas Sarkozy. He is still conducting what is referred to as a 'teasing' campaign for the presidential election. ie not officially confirming his candidacy, but dropping hints here and there. For instance, an interview in Le Figaro magazine a couple of days ago setting out his 'values' bore all the hallmarks of a personal manifesto. Headline grabber was his proposal to hold a referendum on the right of the unemployed to refuse whatever job or training they are offered.
The campaign is hotting up with a political storm this week over interior minister Claude Guéant's comment that not all civilisations are equal. The English translation might seem relatively harmless but the subtext and his subsequent comments made it all too clear that he was saying 'Western' civilisation is better than the rest, in particular Islam. Cue an explosion of polemic and a retaliation in parliament by a socialist MP from Martinique who compared Guéant's ideology to those that led to the rise of Nazism. A view which one might sympathise with but succeeded mainly in letting Sarko's right wing rottweiler off the hook by provoking a mass walkout by ruling party MPs, allowing them to bluster about being insulted instead of having to defend the original insult.
