27-3-2012

Today we are totally crippled with R.S.I.

Not the disease, the organisation Regime Sociale des Independents, which is the french equivalent of the DWP.

 The only things I used to miss about the UK were Chinese takeaways and Indian takeaways.

I now miss the DWP also.  This probably makes me unique amongst englishmen.

It is unbelievable how much time, energy and money that could be spent running a business is totally wasted instead trying to correct the mistakes of RSI.

26-3-2012

What a difference a few days make.
I've let the blogging slip, because the skiing at the Grands Montets has been absolutely fantastic recently.
The rock hard concrete snow is now nice and soft in the afternoons and skiing is so much fun again.
Car park's a nightmare though- you can't have everything!

Use the train while you can- it stops for repairs in April

21-3-2012

Skiing at les Houches yesterday.

Much better than I expected.

Really good fun and an object lesson to my niece and her friends as to just how quickly the snow changes from light powder to heavy clag at this time of year

19-3-2012

So often the best ski days start from unpromising beginnings.

We only went out skiing today because our niece had said she'd be at le Tour with her friends.

There was about 5 cm of fresh snow where we're staying, so we didn't expect anything special. 

Caught the train over to Vallorcine, where we were greeted by a liftie friend who said that, although the gondola was working the chairlift above it was out of action.

We asked what our options were and he suggested we walk up from the top of the gondola to the posettes drag lift- that was running.

We arrived hot and sweaty at the top, caught the plan des reines drag up and skied down to Charamillion.

Met the niece and friends and went up the Autannes chair. I suggested we ski a bit on the path back to Vallorcine, then drop off it.

It was absolutely amazing.  Half a metre of soft powder that hadn't been skied.

Spent the afternoon doing laps- magic.

16-3-2012

Jamming last night with "Edgar".

Absolutely magic.  They're insane.

It's a 12 piece funk band already and they're looking to add a second guitarist and a trumpeter.

You can't escape your past!

16-3-2012

Chamonix is world famous for the off-piste at the Grands Montets (GM).

For geographical reasons this place is Mecca for skiers. 

The GM is a pyramid shaped mountain, where the main skiable face is north-facing. Directly behind it is another pyramid shaped mountain (The Aiguille Verte) which is another 1000m or so higher.

The result is that the GM is largely sheltered from direct sunlight and what sun there is hits it at an angle, so it doesn't usually warm the snow up and melt it.

This year has seen exceptional snowfall and the geography should have preserved this. Sadly we've had unseasonably warm air temperatures over the last few weeks, which has caused the snow to melt and re-freeze overnight.

Currently the weather is unseasonably warm and the snow is unseasonably cold, so it's like skiing on re-inforced concrete (beton armé).  We waited yesterday until 3pm and the concrete in Lavancher was only just softening. Very sad.

Mind you the run home was great- did it twice!

 

15-3-2012

Just finished reading "Goodnight Jim Bob", written by the singer from "Carter The Unstoppable Sex Machine"

Definitely the best music based book I've read in a very long time- over the last year I've read Keith Richard's book, Julian Cope's and Patti Boyd's, but this is in a class above!

I know someone who got divorced because he took his missus to see Carter USM..........

14-3-2012

Have persuaded S to buy a CD copy of "Massive In A Parallel Universe" by Parisian Living on CD Baby.

This is a transcript of the text messages between us about this

S.    The artwork inside the parisian living cd is awesome! Just awesome.....   right, now for a listen!

Me    Tell Mike! Do it!

S.    Do you have his mobile number?

Me    No mobile. 01189 423807

S.    I'll just facebook him then.

Me    Do it as a public comment, then it's publicity as well as praise!

S.     Sure. Great work!

Me    Tell the world! Write a review!

S.     I'll have a listen first....    happy to tell the world

Me     Fuck's sake don't spoil it by listening!

S.    Haha!

Bronco

One of my favourite live bands.

Why I enjoyed country music (until I started playing it)

It's been a very French week this week. 

Went to a public meeting last night about the refurbishment of the railway tunnel under the col de Montets.
Has he turned into a trainspotter I hear you ask?

No

When the avalanche risk is high they have to close the road across to Vallorcine, since avalanches up to 30metres in depth can bury the road.

There are then 3 ways to get to Vallorcine.

1. Drive down to Geneva, round through Switzerland and back up to France on the other side of the mountain. about 200km.

2. Catch the train to Vallorcine   :-)    Gets my vote

3. Drive your car through the railway tunnel (!) to Vallorcine. I know lots of people who have done this. Once.    Most swear they will never do it again.

Mrs Rant and I have been fighting the French government for 8 years now over this piece of local madness. Sadly it looks like we've been out-manoeuvred politically now. You can't argue with them improving the existing train tunnel, but it makes the status quo of driving cars through a railway tunnel the way for the future. Madness.

Still, as my French friend X says ""You never know what will happen after the next elections...."

13-3-2012

Against the run of play Mr and Mrs Commerce managed to get through an hour's review of our financial situation conducted in the french language without bursting any major blood vessels.

We must have missed something really important!

Back to growing beans instead of counting them.

12-3-2012

Mr Commerce is off to see the accountant this afternoon.

There's an old French joke:-

     What's the best way to make a small fortune in france?

     Best way is to start with a large fortune.

11-3-2012

Out with the screwdrivers.

I use a small foldback monitor on stage which has a vocal pre-amp and effects and a guitar amp and effects built in to it.
The mixed output gives me foldback and also sends a mixed down stereo signal to the main PA system.
It had started playing up- looked like some sort of power problem, since it was cutting out on loud transients. 

Last time I used it I had to switch the foldback off to get through the gig.

After more than the usual quantity of head scratching it turned out that the on-off switch was playing up. 

Most unusual- a switch is normally on, off or broken.
This one was off or half on.

All fixed now (I hope). 

Testing in anger on Tuesday

Mr Music is now loading multitrack stems          (see wikipedia  here)
onto CDs for a band called Cane'd.
Cane'd are an unparalleled covers band, but, unusually for round here, the lead singer, Kev, also writes his own songs and the band perform them as an integral part of their set.
Several times people have said to me, during a gig, "Who wrote this song?" and I'll tell them it was Kev, then they say "But it can't be- I've heard this on the radio- I'm sure it's a Tom Petty (or whoever) song.

Wrong- they are Kevin's songs and they stand up well to comparison with the best recording artists..................

If you haven't heard Cane'd yet, they're on in the Office Bar in Argentiere at 10-30pm tonight.
I'll be there to hand over the stems.

Mr Music has now waited forever for the CDs to burn and is off to check the fruits of his labours.........

11-3-2012

One of the things that never ceases to amaze us about living in the Chamonix valley is the power of coincidence.
You mention by name someone you haven't seen for 2 or 3 years in casual conversation and 9 times out of 10 you will bump in to that same person within a day or two, entirely by coincidence.
You can even use this to make appointments- you have a small plumbing problem and you say to your partner "I haven't seen Jean-Marie the plumber in ages" and, bingo, there he is outside the shop when you're buying your groceries. Of course Jean-Marie is far too busy to attend to your plumbing problem, but, never mind, it's always good to renew old aquaintance.

There is a dark side to these coincidences though.

As part of the fall-out to our current mildly nomadic existence we have 3 different ways to connect to the internet.
Backed-up to the hilt you might think. Well yesterday all 3 conked out at exactly the same time.
It happened last month on the 10th also- Mr Rant will explain

We have a 3G SFR dongle. SFR have our bank details and the right to take direct debits for this on the 10th of each month. For the last 2 months we've run out of credit on the 10th of the month. No problem you might think- WRONG.
SFR initiate the direct debit process on the 10th and then we're cut off until it goes through several days later (allowing for weekends, bank holidays, employees unused sick days etc etc). We've only had this dongle 2 months and we've been cut off twice so far.
Never mind- when we moved into our current winter quarters we spoke to the nice man downstairs who agreed that we could piggy back on his Hi-Speed Orange box in exchange for a small payment. He's on the ground floor and we're on the third (or the 4th if you're American), so, to start with, we carried our laptops downstairs and sat on the stairs to do our emails.
Mrs Rant found out by accident that she could connect to the Wi-Fi on the Orange box downstairs if she took her laptop into the bathroom (don't ask). Result- we can stream the BBC radio just by putting the laptop on the washing machine and leaving it playing. This is where the coincidence comes in- the man downstairs also gets billed by Orange on the 10th of the month and, like us he has also been cut off at this point for a few days for the last 2 months running.
2nd backup system. We're right by a railway station, so there is an SFR hot-spot there. We can pick this up and (yee ha) the SFR dongle gives us free unlimited wi-fi and access to the internet, although at fairly slow speed.
Except on the 10th of the month of course, when the SFR hot spot becomes extremely luke warm for a few days. Why?   I give up.

How did I upload this file? By chance I put my laptop down on top of my bass amp, which is itself on top of a PA speaker in the corner of the living room so that I could try to print some off-line stuff out and, from that exact position,  the SFR "hot" spot suddenly sprang into "life" on my laptop. I can now communicate with the outside world, but I have had to become a contortionist to do so.

For a few days I expect to be sent into a corner to communicate. It's better than being sent to the bathroom I guess.

Mr Rant has now left the building.