John Talbott's Paris

Forced tipping in Boston: A new cute trick for sure.

Here's a cute one.

While coming in on a cab from Logan to central Boston, we asked if the cabbie took Visa; "Of course."  The kicker, however, was that one was forced to add a tip, calculated at 20% (even though $3.50 of the total on which the tip was calculated was the tunnel fee).

Later at Legal Seafood, the handheld Visa credit card machine also forced me to tip and suggested pricey choices.  What does one do when there's lousy service?  I guess pay in cash.

Random thots: Joe Nocera, velibs, TVA reduction, carbos and Figaro's math.

Since Joe Nocera has set the standard today with a piece of snippets, I figure I'll follow.  But Joe, what'der-we-gonna do without you?

The cherished program of the French and M. Delanoye is revealed to have problems: 80% of velibs are stolen, broken or wind up in strange places.

The TVA reduction to 5.5% applied to restos has been heralded as a success but listen to this: "Dans le secteur, le «black» ne reste pas intégralement dans la poche du patron."  So we the customers may not benefit after all.

Why do I crave carbos after trans-Atlantic flights and it's always croissants in the AM in Paris and pasta at night in the US?

Le Figaro flunks math, after two 1st places, next one is #3.  Anyway Stanford's slogan is 'The Harvard of the West" so, so much for this ranking:

Politics: An Open Letter to the Taliban and Osama Bin Laden.

Hello over there, it's me, John.

I'm sure you get a lot of advice but this is the straight poop, Quatre Verities Division.

You want the US and NATO and the UN out of Afganistan, right?  OK, here's how.

You lie low for 12 months and everybody will be gone; then you can go back to killing other Muslims, destroying Big Buddhas and resupplying the South Bronx with drugs.

Otherwise, well, who knows, but this will work.

John

Polanski, J Sarkozy, Chirac, Villepin and Berlusconi: A political rant about celebrities, political and otherwise.

In my last job, we were strictly forbidden to discuss politics, I was told by a sage historian because the founders were to the far right of Genghis Khan.  But here, I'm forced to, despite the lack of professional training, a degree in Political Science or any competence.  So feel free to pile on (me).

Last summer, it was Michael Jackson, like Hitler, he refuses to go away.  Now it’s a new bunch.

Every meal's discussion I have had since Roman Polanski was re-arrested has eventually wound its way back to this man/boy/scoundrel/jerk.  Disclosure: I have a 13 year old sophisticated, intelligent, beautiful, worldly, world-travelled, artistic and art-inclined grand-daughter.

So, I think I've heard all the excuses why he should not be extradited, for instance because:

- His parents were killed in the holocaust,
- His wife was killed in bizarre circumstances at a bizarre party at bizarre Jack Nicolson’s house,
- He was young then (a youthful indiscretion) at 43/13,
- He’s won an Oscar,
- Artists can’t be judged like other people,
- It was a long time ago,
- He’s served his time – 42 days for pedophilia, drugging and rape is enough.
- She (13) was sophisticated and probably “asked for it” by posing nude and dressing provocatively,
- She was looking for a starring role with him,
- Her Mother raised her poorly and pushed her,
- She (Samantha Geimer) has had enough publicity and has “forgiven” him,
- The standards of sexual conduct were different then,
- Americans are puritanical.

 

If I were asked by Polanski’s lawyers/public relations’ flaks for advice it would be that with friends and defenders like Woody Allen, Frederic Mitterand and Harvey Weinstein, who needs enemies.

 

Next, Jean Sarkozy, heir-apparent to Little Nicolas, who evidently until a while back lived with his mother (the President of the Republic’s first (of three wives) wife Marie Culioli); until realizing that some face time with Papa could mean he wouldn’t need to take any more exams at undergraduate Law School.  So at 23, with no degrees or credentials or experience, with a name like this, like all French-folk, he figures he can jump the line and go straight to the top of some never-before-heard-of organization called the Epad (L'Etablissement public d'aménagement de La Défense).  Well for once it didn’t work and as opposed to George Bush the lesser, Kim Jong-Il, Bashar al-Assad, Martine LePen and Marie Bove, it appears he settled for a mere seat at the table.

This morning comes news of the question whether the last President of the Republic - Jacques Chirac - will finally be indicted and tried for all the crimes that poor Alain Juppe took the rap for and was exiled to Quebec for a decade ago.  It’s all silly stuff about misuse of public funds, corruption and nepotism, doling out vastly underpriced housing to cronies and a few dozen no-show or false jobs as well as perhaps some William J. Jefferson-type funny money business.  The usual banana republic type stuff (indeed there was a manif outside the Palace at Versailles of folks holding bananas on high, granted about Sarko-Jr, but the point was made.)

And then there’s Dominique Villepin, he of the John Edwards-priced hairdo and books on Napoleon, who now wants a pardon from the very guy he was convicted of concocting a smear campaign against – said Little Nicolas - in an affair which carries the counterintuitive name – Clearstream (if ever there was a stream more murky, I’d like to know about it).  The judge, and I’m quoting from memory and probably mistranslation, said he was more guilty of silence than activity.  His sentence - 18-months reprieved was accompanied by damages of 45,000 Euros, but that’s not what hurts, it’s his public image and the death of his political future.

And finally we come to the personage, who except for Prince Charles, Madonna and Barack Obama, fascinates the French press the most – Silvio Berlusconi. Il Cavaliere, as he is referred to here, is widely regarded as a joke, a buffoon, a clown, but and this is what marks him, knowing all that, the Italians have elected him thrice.  When I was in Bologna earlier this year I asked a very smart friend how the public could have done this, he started by pointing out that we (Americans) had re-elected George Bush the minor, knowing his ineptitude, but then in that totally Italian way, he shrugged his shoulders and said “I don’t know, I have no explanation.”

Going Green in Gallons: Water and wine without wessels.

Today, I got to chatting with our amiable waiter at KGB, the spicy not the torturing one, about William Ledeuil's nifty new (1 month old) machine that "makes" bottled water (fizzy and flat), thus saving the environment all sort of polluting effects and afterwards Colette found an article in the IHT about the New York resto Sojourn serving red wine from 10 liter barrels instead of..... well you get the point. 

For historical accuracy's sake, the bag-in-box in restaurants was adopted by Christian Constant in his Les Cocottes de..... from its opening (in a terrific, groovy, made-for-him wine rack holding a dozen or so boxes) and I was introduced to the concept in 1989 by a French pal who kept his outside his kitchen window.

Paris Places Prices Plunge because TVA reduced to 5.5% - NOT!

Remember the Millennium cyberscare? All the computers in the world would crash, airlines would be paralyzed, VISA cards nulled, etc., etc. I do, I slept in my university hospital office waiting from the call from the E.R. that the world had ended. And guess what, the only negative result was that I missed my morning run at home.

So, on July 1st, 2009, the TVA in fine French places went from 19.6-5.5%. The culinary equivalent of Alan Greenspan, a man we trusted to tell us the truth and get us out of trouble, André Daguin, he of the Hotel de France in Auch (a great place in its time) and father of Ariane Daguin of D'Artagnan, sold everyone on this reduction in his role as the Président Confédéral of the UMIH (Union des Métiers et des Industries de l'Hôtellerie).

The blogosphere has been alive with the sounds of doubt if this rebate would ever reach the customer and even mainstream publications had full page articles on what everyone from Taillevent to McDo’s (fast-food places were not really in the game except for the “game”) intended to do. So,…… since the revolution, I’ve dined at and scoped several places’ chalkboards and menus and guess what? Darned if I could see vast savings.

To be fair; the Gov’t ran full page ads saying “lower prices, creation of jobs, investing [in the future].” And so it was.

One place said 12% reduction on all food; another listed the prices of each item (plat du jour, formule, menu, etc., etc.,) before and after July 1st, yet another promised 1 E reductions per dish. But in the places that we’ve actually eaten, nada, nul, nuttin.”

Two chefs I’ve talked to, both before and after July 1st, said they were just trying to hold their own, keeping costs down, not INCREASING prices, trying to hire a sous-chef and praying.

That’s it from your man on the ground in Paris.

Never a dull moment in Montmartre.

Just when I think I've seen it all, I realize I haven't.

I was sitting here typing and minding my own business when I heard drums out the window. I assumed it was our boy band, the Poulbots, who march occasionally up and down the street practicing.

But no, it was the "carnival pour tous," which meant everyone from scantily clad Brazilian types to veiled women pushing pousettes. What a hoot.

Random thoughts about French and American politics: early February 2008

In the United States right now, the nation seems poised to anoint either Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama on one side and John McCain on the other.  Disclaimer: I’m a Viet Nam War veteran, a co-organizer of Viet Nam Vets Against the War and the Viet Nam Memorial Reading at Riverside Church (NY), circa 1968 and I think that John McCain, while scary in his conservative and warlike views is honest and what you see is what you get.  Personally, I think only Obama can beat him, which trumps experience, brilliance and policy-wonkism.  Where is this going?  Toward results.

In France, I’m supremely disappointed in Nicholas Sarkozy, who ran a mediocre but effective campaign against an over-matched opponent, Segolene Royal, the only woman Socialist who had ever cracked a smile (think Elizabeth Guigou, Martine Aubry, etc. vs the ever-happy Mss Bachelot, Alliot-Marie and Dati.)   I’m disappointed because of his performance and I think the French press is dead-wrong in linking his fall in popularity to Ms Carla Bruni aka Mme #3 Sarkozy. He has crashed because he has not come through with anything but a pathetic call for help for Alzheimers’ victims.  We all know, as someone famously said a few days ago, that campaign promises are not enacted immediately into law, but come on!  Instead he’s acted like a lame-duck (vide Bush, Mitterand & Chirac) and gone on foreign trips, spouted lofty plans and given the paparazzi lots to do.

I’ve seen several things in the IHT suggesting that since the people of the world suffer from bad or prosper from good American decisions, they should have a vote in our elections: interesting idea.

Finally I’ve seen on French TV, a clock ticking down the seconds, minutes, hours, etc., until George Bush is gone; could be a hot seller here.

The symbolism and reality of things past: Proust, Chez Tony and an oven.

I never thought much about it but you don’t really value a lot of things until they’re gone. Take for instance my old (17-years old) oven. A few weeks ago it crumped. It just gave the ghost without warning and died. I thought, that’s OK, I’ll get by with my toaster oven, microwave and gas-powered stove-top. Meanwhile I’ll get an expert in and get it fixed. But for two weeks, it seems that everything I want to cook cries out for an oven - a toaster oven, microwave and gas-powered stove-top just will not do. Then today, I was eating at Le Petit Champerret, a resto based on cuisine of the Auvergne and ordered a gesiers salad. It was OK, but I immediately compared it to that from Chez Tony, a decrepit old relic of a place in the 18th, that too died, but 15 years ago. Ah I said to myself, good old Tony, I miss him. Proust summoned up a host of memories, who knows how many were accurate, in “À la recherche du temps perdu” aka “In Search of Lost Time and Remembrance of Things Past.” But however much poetry there was in his recollections, there was a reality too. Cherish what you have now, you may not have it tomorrow.