Working from Cannes

Well I've finished my first week at work now and this is the first company in nearly 20 years where I've been expected to write code almost from day one. It seems the reason I'm here is to provide a Symbian version of their platform for a trade show in October. That will mean two things:

1/. There will be no moving of deadlines!
2/. Chances are high this contract will not last past October.

That will be a shame, but as the initial contract is only 2 months, it will perhaps mean a 2 month extension is likely. Short contracts are a problem, because I want somewhere to live, and it's not easy finding somewhere when the contracts are so small. My agent has been stretching the truth on my behalf to catch the interest of landlords, and this appears to have worked, as I should be able to move into a new apartment by the end of the month in Antibes.


Since Tuesday, I've been living out of a suitcase in Cannes, at the home of another friend of a friend, while she is on holiday. Its location is very central and everything is on the doorstep, including a church with a bell (above), but I'll be glad to get back to Antibes.

My new appartment is no more than 15 minutes from the front in Antibes, and is much better located for the blast to and from work. And I get to see the sea from the balcony - I took the next shot during the viewing. I also get a decent parking location, which is not always available with a flat because much of Antibes and Cannes are old town type places with small hilly cobbled streets. Needless to say this doesn't bother the scooter maniacs at all, but getting cars up them is another thing entirely.

I'm just waiting for the landlord to move out now....

First Day @ Open-Plug

In keeping with tradition, my first entry into my new office was accompanied (baby sat?) by my agent. This is a different person (same company though) than was the case for the Toulouse job, but the working practices are very much the same, and way better than in England.

I was introduced to the PM, who then introduced me to everyone else, and then - well, bugger me, off straight into a meeting. By the time this had fiished, my new computer, actually a laptop, had been comissioned and was waiting for me on my desk! WTF? For the last seven weeks I've been idling my life away, and now I was expected to start work almost immiediately after walking in through the door? Actually, this is better than having to read documentation for 2 weeks, and they're woefully short of that, so I think this could get interesting. I appear to be their sole Symbian programmer too, which may or may not turn out to be an advantage, but it certainly sets me apart for now.

How Much?

I've already made a fair few enquiries with local contacts supplied to me by a friend of a friend, and rentals start at around 350 euros a week out of town to 600 (even 900) for the town itself. That's a week remember! Outside these months things settle down again, but what seems to happen is that the local residents clear their houses, milk the rich holiday makers for two months, then move back afterwards. That's how popular the place is, and what makes it a bit of a witch when you just want to work there. Still, I could go a few miles up the coast or even inland, and that would make things easier.

Toulouse To Antibes...

...was as easy as setting the TomTom to take me to an address in Antibes. I'd been put in touch with a friend of a friend who has been living and working there for 4 years. Kate had offered to put me up temporarily until I could sort myself out.

The journey was about 340 miles, and Google claimed this would take about 5 hours. I reckoned closer to 4, but by the time I'd had a break at the services and got stuck in the Antibes rush hour, it was almost spot on, despite never dropping below 90mph all the way. Given that the speed limit here is 80mph, you really have to go some to reduce the journey time predicted according to legal parameters. Even so, as always the French motorways were great ie empty.


At the services I also spotted a motorcyclist with English plates, so I strolled over to say hello. Turns out he'd taken a ferry to Holland, and was now crossing (more like touring) France to get to Italy. As motorcycles do have a 'sidedness' - obviously not the steering, but definitely with the dipped beam headlight direction - I am counting it as a sort of RHD vehicle.


Antibes looked great as I drove in - lots of palm trees and a harbour and a beach. Definitely looked a cracking place to be, certainly in summer anyhow. Bonus: almost as soon as I'd landed, Kate took me out for some food and beer, even though she had work the next day.


RHD=0.5

Winning the IT Lottery

Well, after a rather lengthy wait for the news I'd been hoping to hear, I found out today I'd got a new job in Antibes. I had a telephone only interview for this over a week ago, and it seemed to be in the bag at the time, although plenty can go wrong between the tech lead's interview and the accountant's abacus. This job hasn't come a moment too soon either, as I have bugger all in the bank to see me out of the recession, and I really need to be working at least semi-regularly.

The position is in Antibes, which is well over 300 miles from Toulouse, and is located on The Riviera between Cannes and Nice. I'll say that again - it's located on The Riviera. I'm still pinching myself, as it is everything I could have hoped for when I moved to France. The company is actually based in Sophia Antipolis, which is a very large science park set in a forest a few miles inland. For those who know, think 'Kista'. Except with scenery. There are apparently 20,000 people working in IT there.

There are 2 only downsides as far as I can tell:

1/. The initial contract is only 2 months. This makes life very difficult to rent in France, as the rental market is heavily regulated, and two months won't impress many landlords. This suggests a house share will again be the likely option.

2/. The two month contract overlaps almost precisely the two most expensive months in The Riviera holiday season. During July and August, Antibes is the most expensive town in France. This will pretty much guarantee that a house share is the likely option.

I'll know more when I get there in a week or so.

But for now, dead bloody chuffed :-)

Holy Hailstones!

We had some inclement weather yesterday evening. It started off as rain, then heavy rain, then a bit hailstoney, and then nature let rip. For about ten minutes there were hailstones the size of golf balls coming down - I was enthralled. Being home at the time, I stood at the open kitchen door watching them. Anyone who had been out in the middle of this would have been stoned to death very quickly I reckon. My lodger came to look too, although he didn't look at all pleased with what he saw. When I asked him why, he said that wherever this storm goes, it will trash every vineyard in its path, taking out 2 years' worth of crops. Still the French farmers won't loose a penny, don't worry about that, but it will no doubt affect the paying public.

However, there was a downside to this fun. After it stopped I needed to pop to the shops, and then I noticed the damage to my car - it was now covered in dents! Lots and lots of little dents. Most were shallow, and only showed in a certain light, but a fair few were serious bloody hole type dents. Every single panel was affected. I had a quick look up and down the street; everyone else's car was the same.

It turns out that this storm had been quite narrow in width, but had basically traversed Toulouse, passing right over the centre, attacking every car in its path. It also turns out that the same thing happened last year at more or less this time, only then the 'stones were even bigger!

My car is 12 years old a probably worth little more than £2-3K now anyway, so my insurance company would probably right it off - if they'd pay at all, for I would expect them to describe it as an Act Of God. Elsewhere in Toulouse, cars had been more badly damaged than mine too. Many had broken windscreens, and many more had broken lights - I'm guessing these would have been driving at the time, and many would have been doing that, as it happened during the evening rush hour. The papers today are full of it and seem to be indicating that many will be able to claim on their insurance anyway. For this year at least - insurance companies aren't daft.


Update: 13th June
When I saw the damage to my car that I thought perhaps I had not been as badly treated as some could have been. At least my car was 12 years old, although immaculate. Others may well have been sporting brand new cars. Well it happens that one of my old colleagues, Fabrice, falls into this category - his new car was 3 days old. Poor bugger - it is now back in the garage being repaired.

May Day Parade

Just after we finished, there was a May Day Protest demonstration across Toulouse (and the whole of Europe I believe), attended by the unions (of course) and others at Freescale.

Here's a video of my old team lead (Greg, avec l'enfant) and project manager (Ivan) being interviewed by French television whilst taking part.





They appear after about 1.07, but if you can't be bothered, there's a still.

Last Day

Well, after around 2 weeks since we were given the news, the final day at Freescale arrived quite quickly. No one has done anything useful at work in this period of course, and that's not surprising really.

On Tuesday most of the day was taken up with a party in the clubhouse, and coming in today was little more than a convenient way of getting everyone in to agree on the evening's party venues. Or so I thought. The morning was largely taken up with a hurried exchange of linked-in requests. I take most of the credit/blame for this, as I have been steadily adding my French colleagues to my list since I arrived, but it's not really taken off here as it seems to in the UK. People sat up and took notice though when I explained that linked-in is the sole reason I ended up in France - that's were my name was plucked from. Not its finest recommendation, but there you go, and enough to encourage a good number of others to join up.

The same goes for Facebook, only more so. Only one person I know at Freescale has signed up. They have some work to do over here it seems. I don't think there is any other site they use, it's just that they're not really interested. Given the way that Arnaud spams everyone, this is surprising, at least in his case, but then he'd need victims, wouldn't he....

Anyway, the most important events of the say were as usual based around food. A long and extended breakfast in the garden started things rolling, with coffee and croissants in the morning sun. It's a shame we got sacked at this time of year, because this was only the second chance we'd had to do this, and it makes a welcome change to eating indoors.

Next up was lunch, and again, we ate outdoors. Plenty of vino around too for this, and and the last meal was every bit as good as the first. I am really going to miss this canteen. I finished, as I had started, with fish, and yes, that is red wine. If the French can, then so can I. The atmosphere was really chilled with lots of banter going on, and people who hadn't eaten with us came and joined us for a period to say goodbye to colleagues, or simply join in with the humour - Madame La Guillotine figured largely of course.

Eventually, we trudged back upstairs to fulfill our remaining task - collect 4 signatures signifying handover of appropriate bits of kit. This was an odd bit of red tape that I think the French are famous for, but of which I've had little experience. We even had to get the return of our PCs acknowledged! It was easy enough, and everyone who's signature was required was in the appointed place at the appointed time. Security is managed by a third party, so I couldn't escape with my pass card as a souvenir, as I did at Symbian and SEMC. In fact I never saw a Freescale mug to steal in the whole time I was here either, and I've had one of those away from every company I've worked for. I didn't even get a pen!

Our final act on work premises was to sabotage the boss's office. He had left his door open, and then disappeared for the afternoon - foolish boy. We packed his office with just about anything we could find that wasn't nailed down: cupboards, CRTs, plants, boxes, shredders, fax machines, fans, lamps. It took us about an hour in total, and we really crammed it in, so he'll have a devil of a job clearing it out with hardly any staff left to help. We then covered his window in sundry photos we'd taken since Tuesday. The effect was quite pleasing, and we all felt very satisfied as we had a final handshake with each other before filing off home.

The evening went thus:

First stop - all meet at the De Danu Irish pub, to get leathered and eat some food - in that order. The mood was fantastic and we were all screeming like little school girls for most of the time here. I expect brownie points from the owner for dragging 30 odd people here, as opposed to just me and Peter for the football games.

Second stop - a salsa bar. ie a bar with salsa music and people dancing like they knew what they were doing. This does not include me. Luckily it didn't include quite a few others either, so we drank large quantities of mojito and let the others get on with it. I ended up chatting to quite a few locals in here too, not entirely unaware that they were probablt just using me to practice their English. My French is certainly not up to nightclub standard yet.

Third top - some nightclub. Very tacky Euro music (you know the kind), and very expensive drinks but a fine way to finish off. Only one fight seen, between two red faced youths which tickled me no end - usual handbags at 10 paces, so nothing serious. Those of us still going were here until after 5AM, and it was still going strong when we left. Tomorrow was going to be a big recovery day.

What's Your Point?

This evening I found myself watching a game of footy on the TV with my lodger. It's very rare for me and the lodger to be in at the same time, so, since he had a beer, I thought I'd join him, just to be social. I opened a bottle of wine, and, as you do, immediately opened the kitchen cupboard to drop the cork into the bin. He started laughing....

Demob Happy

Well this week Freescale announced the death of their Cellular Products Division. Contractors are out next week, and the permanent software development staff will endure a "period of consultation" before being axed around October. The chip manufacturing plant will be de-commissioned in 2011.

Unlike at SEMC, there is no other site that will continue the work, no one to hand over too, no customer to support. Nothing. The end. The atmosphere at work is therefore one of resignation, and pretty anarchic. Even the bosses have gone nuts. I was trying to finish something off earlier in the week, and one of the line leads was in my seat when I returned from a break. He asked me what I was doing there in the kind of tone he might use if I'd been found in the women's toilets (and could I come back after he had finished chatting!)?

Anyway, the job market here isn't so hot for S60 work it seems. No surprise there, as I personally thing it's doomed anyway (S60 that is), but this week some of Freescale's previous victims dragged us out for another picnic, as they had found no work yet and were bored. We happily accepted, as we were bored too. It was also sunny, which has been an all too rare event in April. So more pizzas by the lake near work and more "working in France".

Something New

Well time may be running out here now, as there are less than two weeks to go and then everything depends on finding new work, in a market flooded with Freescale cast offs. Net result? - got to make the most of what's on offer now.

So today I let Peter talk me into climbing. Yes, as someone who's petrified of heights, I went climbing. I went once before in Marple, and it's not as mad or dangerous as I thought it would be. In the Marple indoor centre I went to the practice wall, and after a brief induction, then climbed straight to the top on my first attempt. Feeling more than a bit flushed with pride as I absailed down, I was greeted with a new rule - you are only allowed to use one set of coloured pegs. ie red. Or green. Or blue, etc. You are not to use any and everything that you can see. I thought that first ascent had seemed a little easy.

Anyway, here in Toulouse, I tried to do it propery. I used only the correct colours, and started with a 4b, which is pretty easy really, given how things progress, and did another 4b, then another. I also tried a 5, but by now I was rembering just what it is about climbing that makes it difficult. It's bloody hard work! Gravity is older and wiser and very much top dog. For the untrained/unskilled there seem to be two problems: (1) you're not likely to be using your legs enough, or getting the balance right, and this is going to lead to you using your arms too much (2) your arms are not likely to be strong enough, mainly for gripping rather than outright lifting, but that too occasionaly, and it can be hard on the forearms. I enjoyed it though, and will definitely go again. There is something quite attractive about clambering up things, especially when you are not responsible for getting yourself down again, and generally it's only the threat of immediate death that puts me off the idea of outdoor climbing in general; but indoor climbing, or sport climbing as Peter calls it, is safe enough. Even if you tumble off the wall, you don't fall any distance, because the ropes are effectively anchored above you and the slack is taken up by your buddy.

I also got quite a kick out of watching some of the experts do it. There were people clambering about under overhangs and leaping from pillar to post to complete some of the harder routes. I doubt they'd be so cavalier without a rope mind you, but being completely unattached to the wall for brief periods does look bloody spectacular. There was one wall that was actually a ceiling, and yes, people were expected to 'climb' the ceiling ie to crawl along an upside down floor. I've seen people do this in the Climbing World Championships, so I know it happens, though no one here was trying it today. That really does look spooky, and no doubt takes a lot of strength too, as well as good technique. It will be a while no doubt before I have a crack at that.

There will be more of this.

Le Fin?

Last night just before I set off for my French lesson, my agent phoned and told me I was sacked. All contractors are sacked, and we have until the end of April. So much for a 12 month recession busting contract then, huh? This news was then broken to me and Peter again this morning in English in the boss's office - nice touch I have to say. We then got sacked again in French along with everyone else an hour later. By this time I had been asking around for the French word for sacked (virer or licencier), and it didn't dawn on those I'd asked until they heard the news themselves. Duh!

I'm a bit unsure of where this leaves me now. Other than being 20 grand out of pocket for missing out on the SEMC loyalty bonus that is. That is quite gutting to be honest, as I am not flush with cash, and things are going to get quite hairy if I don't find something soon. I'll be staying in Toulouse for May while I try for a role at Airbus or Thales, and perhaps some others, as I don't think there's anything in the UK at the moment. My lodgings here are cheap (thank god I didn't rent!) so moving back to Manchester immediately won't save me much money.

At least the local bakeries will be able to take the rest of the year off, such will be the demand for croissants. Two thirds of the staff here are contractors, which also puts the remaining staff in some peril, as all their projects are now screwed. It probably means the end of Freescale in Toulouse according to the more pessimistic, but I doubt the US owners give a shit. Incompetant bastards.

Be My Baby

There's been a gap mainly because I went back to Manchester for the Easter holiday to tickle some free food off mother. I initialy thought this would be a 4 day weekend due to the Good Friday & Easter Sunday bank holidays, but oddly the French only have the latter as a public holiday. It is nominally a Catholic country, and even though officially secular, I was surprised at this. So surprised in fact that I booked my flight for mid-Friday without checking. Sod it, the boss is away, and as I'm paid daily rather than hourly, so it will work out better for me. I also had to return on Sunday, as my carrier of choice this time was BMI Baby. Direct flights from Toulouse to Manchester at last, and for the price of a tin of beans. They weren't half bad either; fuck loads better than either EasyJet or RyanAir if that first encounter was anything to go by. The one snag is that there aren't that many slots in either direction, but they are certainly good enough for weekends back in Manc, as mid-Friday 'til late Sunday evening is perfect. The weather in Manchester was better than in Toulouse too, as currently Toulouse is going through April showers. I'm told these will last for, well, until midnight 30th April, when they will suddenly stop and summer will officially start. Can't wait.


PS. I recommend any international travel should be conducted on Easter Sunday if you get the chance. It's dead, yet everything works (services, shops, taxis etc) and it was probably the most pleasant flight experience I've ever had. Probably best not include Greece in that though. I had a really bad time there once at Easter.

Growing Pains

I played footy again today, for the fourth time since I joined Freescale, and also the fourth time in about 8 years. Something funny has happened to my feet in that time - they seem to have grown! My trainers are now so tight that my toes went black after being cramped up for so long. This isn't supposed to happen after you turn 30 surely, or even 20 (a very long time ago)? I know that noses and ears keep going, but that's a cartilage rather than a bone issue. Oh hum; I'll be shopping again next weekend then.

There's also a snap of the suicide by football in a box thing they call "jorky ball". This picture is of a kids game, but trust me, 4 adults in that box is plenty, given that it's only 2 adults wide in the first place.

I stuck to the 4 a side on the larger pitch and am happy to report that I finished as top scorer today, with about 12 goals, including the winner. No injuries to report yet, but a night's sleep needs to pass before that can be confirmed.

I can run quite well again now, almost back to my old self, and I am now outlasting quite a few of the "youngsters". By the time I get sacked, I'll probably be the fittest there, as long as I can avoid the bane of my sporting life, the twisted ankle. I strap them both up before playing, but this only goes some way to keeping them in good repair. Not lunging for silly tackles and other people avoiding doing the same to me is what really makes the difference. The games within work are quite good natured, but someone has now registered for a local tournament. Well they can count me out of that, as it will be full of wanna be pros with axes to grind....

The Morning After

I felt surprisingly good when I woke today, although it took me a little time to get my bearings as I hadn't made it back home and had stayed over at a nearby friend's (thanks). This was also going to be a busy day, as I had to get a crown fitted accross Manchester (the prep work was done on Monday) before scooting off to Blackpool to meet up with 4 SEMC friends (Dave, Ian, Ray & Stuart) for another mini party. The crown was fitted without too much fuss, although it took about 10 minutes longer than was scheduled, which took ten minutes out of my travel time, and pushed it ever deeper into the Manchester rush hour. As it happens my only mode of transport in Manchester is now a motorbike, so rush hours don't cause quite the problem they do in a car, and, grateful that the weather was very good for this time of year, I still made it to the appointed hotel in Blackpool for 6PM. I even had time for a shower before meeting the others.

We got a taxi into the main drag and ambled around a couple of bars, taking in the first half of the football before getting bored of it. We also passed the Antiques Roadshow caravan on the way to the large amusement arcade near the North Pier. God knows what they think they will find in Blackpool other than those funny little dunking ducks that you attach to the side of a glass. I think we spent about an hour in that arcade too, basically warming ourselves up by shooting, driving, kicking and thumping anything that flashed. Best ask Stuart who won the driving games, as I'm too modest to say.

It's still off season though, and most bars were empty as we reached them, but it did start to pick up towards normal pub closing time, and there was a late night clubby type place that was happy to sell us flaming sambucas and every other spirit they sold for a totally ludicrously cheap price. In Toulouse, one pint of Guinness (actually 0.5 l) is six euros. Here you could buy a barrel for that. We had a bloody good time all in all, especially having reached that bar, and predictably I can't remember much after this picture was taken, and as I haven't had time to catch up with the others yet, that's were it ends!

SEMC Wake

The end of life party took in the Scholar, then onto Dukes for the main part, and then onto Baa Bar. I'd prepared for this party by making some jelly for the first time ever - lime jelly made with tequila, and lemon and orange jelly both made with vodka. It went down with some better than others I have to say, but I was very pleased with the result, and I was in the Scholar at 5PM handing some out. There were already a few in when I arrived, and quite a few arrived on the train shortly afterwards. We stayed there for an hour or two for some warm up drinks (some didn't need too many as lunch time hadn't been wasted) and it seemed to be pretty much the usual Scholar crew with some additions.

Next stop was Dukes, and we seemed to be amongst the first there too, and took the chance to get some food before things got too busy - duck pizza, if I remember, a first for me and not bad actually. People seemed to keep arriving all evening and there were groups of SEMC staff all over the place. Dukes was well and truly taken - even outside there were a couple or more groups and it was a fine enough evening to make the most of that. There were also a few people there, who, like me weren't actually at SEMC on the last day, having left a while ago, but who still wanted to say good-bye. SEMC was a great place to be; highly stressful at times, managed (from Sweden) by obstinate lunatics at times, and sometimes bloody difficult to actually reach owing to the fragility of the local motorway networks, but it was still the best place and the longest place I've worked. It also had the most girls too, which is not to be sneezed at in this industry - it is very male dominated.

The third venue is much more hazy. The Baa Bar on Deansgate locks was where quite a few of us went after Dukes closed. This seemd to involve a lot of shots, with 'mini mexicans' figuring largely, as well as others like 'traffic lights'. I'll perhaps add more to this section as I remember it or as it gets passed back to me from others who were there :-) The photos here were taken relatively early in Dukes, and don't really reflect the number of bad heads that were evident next day.

At least most people seem to have used Facebook or LinkedIn to keep in contact and within these 2 networks there have been a host of groups set up to make it even easier to stay in touch. What did we do before these? It's similar to the "what did we do before mobile phones" question. It will be great to stay in touch with everyone though, and this is the first opportunity these types of sites have had to prove their worth in my lifetime, so we'll see. It seems a few have now got new jobs, although not most obviously. Of those that have, many have had to accept contracts in London, or have even taken permanent roles there. And therein lies one of the sad things when a major employer in an area closes. The sudden dumping of a lot of people with the same skills set, particularly in a recession means that poeple inevitably end up leaving that area, at least in the short term. A few have even left or plan to leave the country.

There were a couple of other unexpected bonuses afterwards too, including another new Facebook connection which cheered me up in the aftermath...

A Little Sanity Break

In small gaps between trying to deliver on 5 birthdays, Eva suggested a trip to Dunham Massey. Other than regretting only having a shit SEMC camera phone, the one thing I noticed was that all the trees on this estate looked fucked. I know it's still not spring proper, judging by the lack of life in them yet, but those that were still standing looked like they were survivors of a nuclear blast, and would soon join many of their mates who had already gone 'roots up'. Is there something wrong with the country's trees? In a few years time will I come back to find that the only trees left are conifers? Perhaps things will look better when they get leaves, but if I were one of those deer I would be wondering exactly what was to become of my 'sanctuary' other than a small sign saying "do not cross" at the edge of a large moor. The deer do seem a lot less timid these days, perhaps as a result of seeing so much more of us, and having no choice in the matter.

Au Revoir Again

Another leaving do. Isabelle (head of table) got 7 months out of her contract and is the fourth or fifth (I've lost count) of the audio team to be axed. She actually finishes on Tuesday 31st of March, so I'll miss out on croissants on that day, as there's a far more important engagement back in Manchester, which is where I'll be. We all met up in a Mexican restaurant for the obligatory meal before the party got underway properly. Interestingly a couple of the previous victims turned up too, though not all, as it seems there is some selective 'keeping in touch' going on. The main thing I remember about this evening is that a night club basically opened up out of the floor after the restaurant business had finished. The owners simply carried the tables and chairs away and the music got turned up, and the captive audience simply got on with the next stage. There were also quite a lot of English people in the (by now) bar too, which made it more interesting from a lone English male perspective. At the end of a busy night of partying, a few carried on to another night club, as they often seem to do, to continue until 5 AM. I didn't because, (1) I'm too old for that, and (2) I had a flight to catch on Saturday at 11AM, and I would be up at pretty much my normal workday schedule. Next week would be very hectic, as I would have 5 birthdays to deal with, and one if not 2, leaving does to squeeze in.

Chez Moi

I've just got back from my fourth French lesson in my third different group. This one felt right; not too easy, not too hard. It's only supposed to be temporary though, for 3 weeks, but I think I'll end up staying in this one - I hope so anyway. There were 4 others in the group too, and it was much more fun all in all. School would have been much more fun if you could have tried the different class/teacher combinations for each subject before settling on one. I won't be having another lesson for 10 days or so now anyway, due to an imminent return to Anglettere.

Once again though, on returning home, I find that the guy who's house I'm sharing is not here. He never is. Most, if not all weekends, he buggers off on Friday night and returns on Sunday evening. So henceforth, I am going to reverse the relationship. From now on, I will be referring to my French residence or something like that, and my lodger - that's Michel, the guy on the deeds (pronounced Michelle for those too bone idle to read the earlier posts). Right now, he'll either be refereeing football, watching football or playing darts, and won't return until midnight. If he gives me enough notice of when he's going to be about (or not) at weekends I might consider double letting his room. I must make an effort to see where he leaves my motorbike keys too...

RHS=0

Four Months and Counting

Well I've been told I have until the end of April here to look forward to at least. Peter, my English buddy was only told today, but I was told about a week or so back (he's in a different team). There was a bit of a panic generally with the remaining contractors, as they were being pushed unusually close to deadline day before being told. One of our team, Isabelle appears to be leaving next Tuesday, although we hope there may be a late reprieve, but it looks like another of the Audio team bites the dust. That's number 4 out of the original 12 when I started, and I guess there will be more croissants - not good. I won't be here for them on Tuesday though, as I will be returning to Manchester for a few days this coming weekend, mainly for the final SEMC leaving do. My carrier this time is Air France, and the flights are quite a bit more expensive than the BA flights I got last time, but the connection times are very much better. I'm wondering if I'll ever be able to make use of the dirt cheap BMI Baby direct flights that are running during summer, as they're not all that convenient, timetable wise, for someone working, and there aren't that many flights anyway and are subject to oversubsription.

Back to School

I had my third formal French lesson today, and this time there were 2 other people in the class, one Spanish and one Polish. They are both way better than me and I'm starting to think that joining 15 lessons into an intermediate class is not going to work. I'm going to get a 3 week reprieve though, as the classes are being divided up between the remaining tutors as one is going to have some surgery. I will be back in easy street again for these 3 weeks, although not back in the "je suis" class. I still find it very difficult to understand what people at work say, but not so bad understanding the tutors, presumably because they enunciate better. I'm also trying to locate a crib sheet with the 1000 & 2000 most common French words, as it is reckoned that 80% of conversation uses roughly just 1000 words and 90% about 2000 words. The other 10% can bugger off as I've only one lifetime to spare on this, and I reckon 90% will do just fine. In practice, any other new words will then be acquired as needed, perhaps as a result of a particular role or interest etc. I'd rather concentrate on correct grammer after that point anyway, as I'm a bit of a grammer natzi with English, and I reckon I'd enjoy being able to do the same en francais :-)

Pique-nique

The sun was shining again, as it has been now for a couple of weeks, but now it's starting to get pretty warm too. It was 24'C today, and it's only mid March, so one of the main reasons for coming here is paying up. Symbian in Sweden? Too cold, dark, and expensive thanks. There isn't a great deal of work on at the moment so people are barely in the office for 7 hours, let alone working for 7 hours. Case in point; today a few of us went for a picnic instead of lunch. A big bunch of pizzas, soft drinks and vino were collected on route to the park near work, and after eating we just sat and sunbathed for a couple of hours before returning to work. This included our boss BTW, so no guilt got in the way. As it happens, I do have a lot of work to do, as I'm busy trying to get a silicon vendor's software running in a PC environment (ie Carbide & the emulator), so that they have a better product to sell come the inevitable carve up. No one else here has any emulator experience at all, as they've never used it, so I get to do the brunt of this work, which suits me just fine as the further I get my legs under the table in this job climate, the better.

In the evening I had another French lesson. My first on Monday was far too easy, given that I studied French for 5 years at secondary school. Tonight was different; I sat in an intermediate class, and one that was already 15 lessons in too, and this was far harder. From the moment you set foot inside the building, only French is allowed, and it is very hard to be put on the spot and asked to form sentences in real time. It's hard enough writing it in an email, but this is what it's all about, and I'm sure in a couple of months it'll get easier. It's going to be two 2 hour lessons a week from now on, which should make a big difference in three months I'm told. The advantage of the place I've enrolled at is that I can pay lesson by lesson, so if I'm sacked after April, I'll at least not loose out on the 500 euros a three month course costs.

The Bad, The Ugly & The Good

The less said about the start of the weekend the better, but I won't ignore it completely. Friday's weather forecasts had promised blazing sunshine for many days ahead, so on Saturday I woke feeling quite chirpy at the thought of a couple of lunch time pints watching the dippers get thrashed at Old Trafford, followed by a day in the sun. So, in the De Danu Irish pub again, and a full Irish breakfast to start with. After that though it all went pear shaped quite quickly, and was even more unrecognisable by the end of the match. The so called beautiful game, summed up by the dippers' heroes with the phrase "pass & move" had been hijacked by a couple of set pieces and two hopeless punts down the pitch by a keeper fit for fuck all else. That said, the silver lining here, and I will find one if it kills me, is that there are now estates all over Liverpool feeling all smug that the title race is back on, and when they come back down to Earth in May, the crash will be all the harder. Shame. And long live the Manchester Ship Canal.

I did manage to get out & about in the sun afterwards though, and had a potter around Toulouse. It is smaller than Manchester I think, or at least Manchester seems to have several focal points, whereas Toulouse only has one main centre point. I squeezed in another haircut and tried to locate a decent gym in the evening, which is proving quite hard. Nothing here opens early, in case I haven't made that clear yet. The working day doesn't really start in the office until after lunch, there are no shops open other than the bakeries when I set off to work, and there are no gyms open before 9AM. In Manchester the gyms have queues at the doors at 6:30AM, mainly silvertops who wake up with the birds after 3 hours sleep, but usually with a light scattering of professional types who can't fit a session in anywhere else. Here things are different and while it's not as hopeless as Greece for getting things done, it takes some getting use to. I imagine the Germans would be horrified. I still don't understand how they lost the war(s), and I've read the books. My gym choice has boiled down to one really, a chain, which would entitle me to use any of their facilites throughout Toulouse, whenever I can find one that is open, and all for the reasonable price of 110 euros a month of 600 a year. WTF!? Well over twice what I would expect to pay at home. I haven't decided yet; partly because I now seem to be on a one month rolling contract, which makes proper planning a problem.

Sunday was to bring lesson 4 in my skiing carrer - obviously without an instructor. I chose Guzet this time, as it is supposedly a bit nearer than the previous two places I'd been to. In fact, it took longer to get to because more of the journey was off the motorway, but it did have the cute advantage of taking me off at the exit just before the toll booths and after a free 80 mile blast. I also got to see some fantastic countryside with picture postcard villages and great scenery. At one point I was stopping to take pictures so often I was in danger of not making it to the resort for a decent time. Guzet itself is comprised of three resorts in one, and I was aiming for the very top, where the slopes were flatter (presumably before heading into vertical drops down the sides of the mountain). I'm still impressed at this stage that my car is running so well - a true testament to German engineering, as it will be twelve this year and there's been fuck all wrong with it, ever. It's still bloody quick and goes round corners on rails, and it halls itself up these mountains like it was 6 months old. It takes nearly half an hour to get from the foot of the mountains to the resorts on top, as the roads are pretty twisty and there's a fair height to make up.

When I did climb out of the car, I found a pretty small resort, but one I immediately liked. Everything was in easy reach - important if you're wearing ski boots - there was plenty space to park, and it was clearly a beginner's atmosphere. I'm not generally thrilled to be surrounded by ankle snappers, but I make an exception for skiing, as it seems to indicate a lack of anything too dangerous. Says he. I started with a few laps of the warm up slopes, and then decided to tackle something a bit steeper. A bit too much steeper as it happened. I reckon I got about halfway down before I hit the deck - none of it controlled and speed increasing all the time. It's a good job I hit a bump really, as at least I hadn't yet reached terminal velocity. I spent a minute lying on my back when a couple of attractive female skiers sauntered by, very slowly, and controlled, and they seemed amused to be greeted by a middle aged man saying "bonjour" whilst lying on his back halfway down a mountain. I got to practice my 'getting up again' technique, which I had perfected by the end of the day. Basically you push yourself up with both your skii sticks, and it reminds me how you do can do a similar thing with the paddle to right a canoe that you've gotten out of shape. I tried this slope 7 times in all, and it didn't get much better as things went on. All I managed to get right in the end was that I didn't overshoot the lift to get back to the top again after the first few attempts. I ended the session going back to the practice slopes for some skills training. Here, on a gentle slope I found I was pretty good now, compared to four visits ago, but translating this into something meaningful is proving a bit harder.

I quit about 4:30PM with a beer, and by the time I had got changed, the second half of the England vs Francy Rugby match was about to start in the bar. The slopes shut at 5PM, so the bar also filled up with the ski instructors. We couldn't believe our eyes, as England were 28-0 up at half time. The South of France is seriously into rugby, and there were a lot of unhappy bunnies in that bar. England then scored a try a few minutes into the second half, and my cover was blown. The locals thought this single cheer was quite funny though, and I was spared being thrown off the mountain. More fun can be had with this at work too, so the weekend ended better than it started :-)

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Mental Note

...that next time I decide to go to the De Danu, to check the sports calender. Tonight they had three of the four European Cup ties on at once. What a hopeless chaotic mess.

Five-a-Side - sort of.

I got roped into a five a side game today. I was sent an Outlook appointement last week, and tentatively accepted, but then lots of others dropped out, so I was required. Actually, it's 4-a-side and on a smaller pitch than we would use in England, and with proper fake grass too. At least 4-a-side is close to a normal game. They have another game here, called jorky ball I think, which is two teams of 2 in a box like a squash court. It's suicidally fast and requires a level of skill & speed I have never possessed (I was a career goalkeeper). I've been asked to join in with this in the past, but they don't bother anymore now! I expect Thierry Henry stared in one of these cubicles..

This game was my first in my entire time as a Symbian programmer. Until I went to London to join Symbian, I'd played footy twice a week and done kickboxing twice a week in Manchester, but since London.....absolutely nowt. I was expecting the worst, but all in all it wasn't too bad. Obviously I stopped being able to run in any meaningful way after half an hour, but a more considered approach allowed me to take out the oppostion's strikers just at the end of their mazy runs, ie when they were knackered too. There was quite a strange mix of players - two of the best were also the two biggest, to put it very politely. I've seen this before actually, they often have very good balance, and are hard to knock off the ball. The audio team architect is quite good too, and not on my team, so he ran me ragged. But I was by no means the worst and I will improve as my fitness increases and allows me to maintain a decent pace for a full hour.

The only drawback for me really is that these games are lunchtime, which means (a) missing a fab lunch in the canteen (b) feeling hot and sweaty for the afternoon in the office. Same again next Tuesday though - hooked again now...

Toulouse Cathedral

Otherwise known as Cathédrale Saint-Étienne de Toulouse. What more can I say about this monstrosity. If it were a person it would be called Quasimodo. It was started sometime around the 13th centruy, and then various setbacks occured, such as the death of its architect and lack of funds for completion, and it was still being completed as recently as the last century. I think officially it is two almost complete churches bolted together, but three are pretty obviously there at least in large part. The rose window is in one structure, the clock tower is another, and the third, a gothic design, which can't really be seen from the front is to the sides and forms the majority.


It is very scary to look at and shows how art has the power to stir emotion. I think picasso would be proud of it anyway. Inside the problem gets worse, although they have managed to distract from it here with an abundance of classic religious art, and many other fineries, such as wood carvings, sculptures, dozens of satellite chapels etc. The main problem seems to be that the two main structures do not line up and do not even cross in an orthodox manner. There is a huge central column inside which is supposed to rectify these shortcomings, but which just looks out of place like nothing I've ever seen in a building like this.


It's quite interesting to see how other project types than software can go badly wrong and yet the powers that be will simply keep driving the death march to its inevitable conclusion. I'm pretty sure they would have just kept throwing bodies at the problem in exactly the same manner, until at the very least it had a roof, and they could crack a bottle of champagne against that central pillar. Eventually the project would have been in such a mess that they would have got contractors in and that's perhaps why the money kept running out...hmm...


I feel kind of sorry for the old dear, and it is after all Toulouse Cathedral, so it certainly pulls rank over St Sernin, which is much more classically beautiful. Above all though, when I step into a building like this, it always fills me with awe that men could even contemplate building such structures without JCBs, dynamite and power tools, especially given its start date, though I'm pretty sure the body count would have been high. We're lucky in the UK to have so many post Norman specimens about...

Two Good Results

Man Utd won the League Cup Final , and Peter and I watched this in "De Danu", the Irish pub we'd visited previously. The pub had a predictably partisan support for the home side (Wembley being nicknamed 'Old Trafford South'). That's 4 out of a possible 6 trophies won this season now, if the Charity Shield and World Club Cup can be counted, and I'm already including the league in the completed list as we will not loose 25 percent of our remaining games. Fact.

On a completely unrelated note (to my French adventure), Facebook has proved its worth by turning up 2 friends I haven't seen in years - one for 25 and one for 15 in fact. The odd thing is that they were lurking in someone else's friends list (thanks Bill), and suddenly sprang out while I was 'chatting' with him. Small world...

Lesson Three

I went back to Le Mourtis for another skiing session. I am actually starting to get some confidence now. That's partly because I have got better, but also because falling over isn't the end of the world. I still worry that I'll wreck my knee ligaments, but I'm not doing anything stupid, and I've got the hang of falling flat. Sort of.

On the way I waved two fingers at the big speed camera gantry about half way as I flew past at 100 mph again (both directions). I've been past this 7 times now, and if there is anyone paying attention, then maybe they will try to predict my movements and have a patrol car waiting one day. This is the only way they'll catch me as I've now come to an agreement with my UK insurance company, whereby they will insure me for an exhorbitant fee (£100 per 90 days on top of my normal rate) and I will be able to keep my car registered in the UK - hence there is no way for the French police to track me. I haven't asked them about whether this means I should be paying UK car tax, as I declared my car SORN last time I was home. That was £170 well saved as far as I'm concerned. The French don't seem to have any equivalent.

Anyway, as for the skiing, I only fell over twice today. Both times near the end when I was knackered, which is perhaps a good sign. One of these was coming off the button lifts too, which is embarrassing, but it is actually the first time it has happened. I'm not saying I'm a picture of elegance letting go of the darned things, but I had managed ok. This also puts you in a precarious position, as the things keep spewing out more skiers at a steady rate and if they were all as crap as me, there would be quite a tidy pile of bodies in no time.

I now have a handy cornering tip for myself, which is a joining together of two tips my instructor told me in the one hour primer I had: (1) lean forward (2) put your weight on your lower, outside, ski. My version is 'try and get your head over your outside ski tip'. Works a treat for me anyhow. I came quite close on a few occasions to performing parallel turns, which will be quite a coup when I manage it, as I'm basically winging it without lessons. The next step will be those big swoosh parallel stops, and then the red runs and then.... oh hang on a minute. Much better today though than on the previous two occasions.

I've worked out why Doctor Who keeps beating the Cybermen. If they ever got him on their natural habitat ie ski slopes, things would be different. This dawned on me when I noticed how clumsily people walk in ski boots. The mechanical thwak, thwack, thwack as they march is a dead ringer for them. Wait 'til they get a chance to put their skis on, Doctor, then you'll get your arse kicked :-)


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Leaving Party

The week began with a cock up. Last Friday I had ordered 30 croissants from a baker near where I live, for "mardi matin". This as everyone knows means Tuesday morning, not Monday morning, so I was a bit embarrased to have this explained to me by the shop assistant on the Monday. I tried to collect more successfully on the Tuesday. Why 30 croissants? Well Gregory, our architect, has spent the last 2 months spinning me a tale that it is a French custom for a newcomer to buy croissants. A likely tale, but he had garned quite a lot of support, and the team was threatening to withdraw its foreign language skills. In other words, I was being blackmailed! It was worth it though; it seems odd that a big bag of croissants can bring so much joy, but they practically worship them over here. I must say I am growing quite attached to them myself. Apparently they are a symbol of a successful repulsion of another Turkish invasion during the expansion of the Ottoman empire. Some baker baked bread in the shape of the Turkish crescent, and voila, an institution was born.

It's been much warmer and sunnier this week too. In fact it really does feel like summer is here already, albeit the French don't think that. They haven't spent most of their life in Northern England though, and it feels like May to me at the moment. These funny little beetles only come out in warm weather too, so the evidence is mounting :-) They're called gendarme beetles, and they're very common down here. I've also been told that there will be some quite spectacularly large insect specimens appearing as things warm up; praying Matii for instance. I've only ever seen these in pet shops or elsewhere in captivity.

The week ended with my mentor's leaving party (Friday). I'm feeling a bit less guilty about having his job now (by breaking the last in/first out rule) as he quickly found another, and in fact he is leaving one week earlier than he has to. We went for an Audio Team meal followed by a boozy session in some English pub called The George (I think). It seems that there are some members of the team who have decided to try and fix me up with a French girl. Any French girl will do it seems, and my input doesn't seem to be required, so we'll just have to wait and see how that works out, but they could at least have waited until we'd left the restaurant before starting tonight!

Chez Peter

Yesterday was a gorgeous sunny day, and quite warm too in the sun. I had arranged to meet Peter at his new apartment, prior to a quick cafe/bar tour of the town centre. His new apartment is very close to the Capitol Square and is pretty cool. It's on two levels with two double bedrooms, and there's a little mezzanine floor between the two proper levels. It's on the third floor of a side street, so will propably be far enough removed from the main square to be quiet in the evenings. He also has a great view onto the street below where there are numerous cafes and handy shops. He is now bound by a 3 month notice period though, so he'll be hoping our jobs are more secure than we think they are, and at 800 euros a month, the 2 months of rent he will forfeit otherwise is a tidy sum. He'd had time to do some shopping anyway, so the afternoon started with some wine.

Next was a cafe bar in another little square just off from the Capitol Square, where we sat outside in the sun. We both ordered what I would describe as duck pie, but which in French sounded much more appealing, and proportionately more expensive. I've now given up expecting the food and drink to be at the bargain end of the price range. The blonde beer we had to accompany it (blonde means lager over here) was typically expensive, even though it was just Heineken. This is a pain, as it's no better than you'd get anywhere else in Europe, but at least when buying the food I can console myself that it is very good. We stayed here until the sun ducked behind the buildings, when it became too cold to sit outside, and then tramped off to the nearest Irish Bar, of about 5 in Toulouse. Unlike the English bar we had previously visited, but which had no detectable English people in it, this Irish bar was definitely full of Irish. There were also plenty of locals, but it was quite incredible to see what could have been my local in Manchester at one point. I'm sure it even had the same two Irish girls in the corner commisserating each other on being football widows.

We finished the evening by wandering into a French bar where there was just one bloke stood at the end. He was very friendly and between his broken English and our crap French, we had a bloody good time. He introduced us to a French drink which is very popular in the South and which I'd heard about at work - pastis. It's basically oozo, and is drunk the same way as the Greeks drink that, ie mixed with water if you're not daft. We had a lot of these over the course of the next hour or so, which probably explains a lot about how I felt when I woke up this morning.

Getting a taxi home at the end of the night seemed harder than it should have been. The first 3 drove off as soon as they realised there might be a lanuguage problem. Whether this was entirely language based at this point, I'm not sure, but it took about 20 minutes or so before I was on my way home...

Guilt Trip and Meal Ticket

Well Monday was the first morning back after finding out about the first cull just before the one week shutdown. More details have emerged, and it seems my team didn't escape at all. There are 3 teams in the S60 departement (I am in Audio) and their managers were each told to loose two people. Each used the tried and tested last in/first out method to determine the casualties, and I was second last in. Oh dear... but, it turns out that the manager in overall charge of the three, overruled my manger due to my application development experience. He thought this would be a useful skill to have on the team, even though they deal in middleware and drivers. So the next one down the chain was - my mentor. This was broken to me and my mentor at the same time in a short meeting to discuss defects. My mentor had only been there one month more than me and wasn't really a mentor at all in the usual sense, as he knew pretty little too, but it came as a bit of a shock both in terms of the delivery and the reason. I am now effectively mentorless as I cannot bring myself to keep bothering him with questions when he and I now know that I have got his job. He was off this afternoon for an interview, so I do hope he's successful. It also means that I am very definitely staring at the guillotine myself, as everyone else left now has significantly more experience than me, and I doubt I'll get the same rub twice.

I found out why the original plan for the shutdown was brought forward by one week, which undermined my flight ticket purchase. It was just for the cellular products group's benefit, and the rest of the site is off this week as originally planned, and that unfortunately includes the canteen. What do French engineers do when the canteen is closed? Do they bring in sandwiches? Do they bring in tupperware boxes full of last night's chilli? Do they fuck - they go out every lunch for a three course meal with wine, and take two and half hours over it! I'm not sure my wallet can stand a whole week of this, but what the hell, it's fun, and it reminds me of Minder on the Orient Express, where an English detective makes a sarcastic comment to his French counterpart about another investigation only being started after a three course meal. It's another classic and true stereotype :-) Today was the third day of this extravagence, and the organisers of the events have now sussed that they can negotiate discounts for taking 30 people en masse to a restaurant for lunch. I did notice the beaming smiles on the restaurant owners' faces myself on the previous two occasions.....

Home Sweet Home (And Back)

This last week has been spent back in sunny Manchester, which ended up very much busier than I'd have liked, and in the end I was glad I had a full week. I'd wondered if this might be too much at one point!

As I only have a motorcycle now in Manchester I was hoping that the recent talk of snow was exaggerated somewhat. The photo taken from my flight from Gatwick on Saturday 7th shows otherwise. It was like this from takeoff until a few minutes before landing - a complete whiteout from the South of England to the edge of Manchester. Luckily for me Manchester appears to be mostly immune to severe weather due to its physical location, but it was still bloody cold all week, and ice patches remained a threat. I did cope with the switch back to clockwise roundabouts ok though.

On first arrival home, I got to inspect my path which the gasboard had dug up to fix a leak accoss the road, and was pleased to see they'd done a good job. Lucky I think, because they'd screwed my neighbour's up. My second check showed that my fish were all ok. I guess six weeks at this time of year isn't enough to test their resolve without regular dinners anyway (they don't eat when cold), but it was nice to see nevertheless.

I also had a stack of mail the size of my arm, not including the free crap like charity bags, flyers and newspapers that I can't disuade some dizzy bastards from delivering. I mention this because much of this correspondence could have been dealt with over the phone or via the internet. Cue BT's surprise gift - they'd knackered both, and then couldn't get them working again until 5PM Tuesday. Cretins.

My final welcome surprise, also on Tuesday, was a fixed penalty notice of £30 for riding on the pavement (for 6 feet max) to get around some muppet who had lodged himself diagonally across two stationary lanes of traffic at the Dane Rd lights. The jobsworth copper had been going the other way and couldn't have even seen my wheels through two stationary lanes, but he still felt obliged to fulfill his oath and so he turned round, parted the blocked traffic with his siren and followed me through to Glebelands where he collared me at the off-licence. A narky little twat he was too: "What seems to be the problem?" followed by "You what?!". I went first in that exchange BTW. He was already thumbing through his bumber book of tickets by the time I'd sat in the car. Purely out of spite for this idiot I've written to the Chief Constable explaining that I can't possibly plead as the idiot failed to record the time and date on the ticket. Oh, and I've asked that he contact me at my current address in France if he wishes to take this further too.

In between all this fun I managed to visit a few friends and see my mum (who always feeds me when I visit :-) I also got to see some of my old chums from SEMC for Friday lunch and they seem to be counting down their days with some fine black humour. It makes me wish I'd stayed, more-so given that they might yet outlast me in the works stakes. I'll be doing my best to get back for whatever end of term party they end up throwing.

Not much else to report about the week really. I was pretty glum leaving my house behind again as I set off to the airport on Sunday, and there seems to be a lot of organising/checking involved with this. I'll have to streamline it a bit or it'll start to overshadow the last 24 hours of each home visit too much. Part of the glumness was definitely due to the 5 hour connection time at Gatwick on the way back (which serves me right really - see previous entry). This turned out better than anticipated though, as The Red Lion showed both the rugby and the football on Sunday afternoon, which soaked up most of the time, and a meal plugged the remainder nicely.

BTW Toulouse airport only charged me 23 euros for 9 days of on site parking. Puts into context what Judge Dread wanted to charge me for 6 feet of whatever he couldn't see ...

Frying Pan & Fire

Well this week ended a whole lot better than it could have done. There had been some uncertainty about the long term security of Freescale since they couldn't find a buyer for the cellular products division. This meant it was taken back off the market and subject to the same cost cutting drives that were being implemented throught the rest of Freescale. One of these is factory closures planned for every quarter this year and the other is the dreaded contractor cull. Contractors don't get paid during the closures either.

The first week long closure was to be the second week of Feb which I intended to spend in the UK. This was orignally supposed to be the third week though, and I must have had that in mind when I booked the flights, because when I tried to online checkin 4 hours before the flight was due to leave on Friday, I discovered I'd booked the wrong effing week. Not funny. It cost me £85 to correct it and I got crap connection times too. I also had to wait until Sat morning for the first available flight, but in the end I was just glad to be able to get home, and it serves me right for being a numpty.

So Friday afternoon at work I was a bit pissed off, as I wasn't about to go to the airport as I'd originally planned, but just before I left for home, I got some much better news. I, or more correctly, my project had escaped the first contractor cull. At this moment I don't know how far reaching this has been in Toulouse, but the first wave will be kicked out on March 6th. Maybe this will be the end of it, but unless people start buying mobile phones again soon things aren't looking too good.

I calculate that I will have to still be here at the end of May in order to benefit from my decision to quit SEMC early, so fingers crossed. I'm safe for now though, and there are some here that can't say that, but I guess I'd better accelerate my attempts to learn to ski and speak French just in case.

Lesson Two

Yesterday I bit the bullet and bought some teach yourself French books. I got an Assimil course, which everyone at work says are amongst the best, and a little noddy book to fill gaps at airports etc. One of the things I like about the Assimil course is that you get a book, with the French on one page, and the English on the facing page, which accompany the audio CDs. This seems like a sensible approach, so we'll see. I will be enrolling on a course at the University at the end of March, but I missed the boat for the current 3 month course which started as I arrived in France. Trying to organise a course has been much harder than expected, because when I phoned a few up, I was greeted in French. I know enough to ask if they speak English or even if there's someone else there who does. Invariably there was no one. Not much bloody use for lanuguage schools methinks, and the guys at work were in hysterics as they took the phone receiver off me to bale me out. Anyhow, these DIY courses are really just to use the 2 months before the course starts to try and get my standard up a bit from the O-Level French I recall from years ago (which is more than I ever dreamed I would remember and is certainly more than most other O-levels I did).

Today I went skiing again, for my second time ever, this time at Le Mourtis. I tried to ignore any obvious Latin derivation as it was supposed to be a family resort and I doubt they would be getting away with killing infants on black runs. I thought I'd have started a bit better than I did too and was soon quite glad I'd opted for the insurance option for 2.50 euros. On my first run down, on a proper slope today and not the practice area, I think I invented a new stopping technique. It is loosely modelled on a fairly common one used when hurtling into the run off area with no chance of coming to a gracefull halt; after falling over as in the standard method, procede to rotate 180 degrees before sliding into the netting in a starfish pose head first. No damage done other than to the ego, but there were lots of beginners here and I wasn't the only one falling over, although I did seem to be the only one all over the place. The next few runs were much better, and in fact there was no more falling over after the first 20 minutes. I did about 8 0r 9 runs altogether, and although I wouldn't say they got progressivley better (the last was another shocker which I'll put down to tiredness) there has definitely been a big improvement. I reckon if I did a week solid I'd be flying, but I suspect it will be two steps forward and one back as a weekend skier. If only the job didn't get in the way of the real reason for being here! I'm even more convinced now that skiing was the right first choice over snowboarding. I've now got the hang of button lifts, which basically drag you up the slope by your arse, and this is actually not so difficult with one ski either side of the pole as you balance. The snowboarders seem to find this more awkard because they don't get to face forward up the slope and it's easier for them to get dragged over. It really does look much harder than skiing, although it definitely looks cooler too.