The Door

Today, a BBC producer said to someone he was hoping to get an interview from:

"I will be as discrete as you would expect me to be"

To find the truth, please lie or replace politeness with redundant hypocrisy.

Lia shoke my eye

Lia Perjovschi. Lia Perjovschi. Lia Perjovschi.

Listen to the interview here .

We saw her work at the Gallery Yujiro. To get there, we had to read carefully what I had conscientiously written in my diary the day before: endless intructions, a map leading to antisepsis. Then, you take that squeaking lift that reminds you of those American movies shot in New York.

She draws birds with words and takes pictures in black and white "to reduce the noise" she says. But she is not that kind of artist who speaks useless sentences. She is building a dialogue. Let me try to describe: she draws brainstorming. There are white sheets of paper on the wall, and a word in the middle, basic: "society", "philosophers", "Art History", "Communism", circled with hundreds of words. "The unhomely phantom scenes in Global society" says one picture. Then an arrow is leading to "New kind of indifference". If you watch them too close, your mind will get hurt. But from a certain distance, those pages of words look like birds. Or flying ideas, embracing freedom.

The concept seemed familiar... Oh, but no, I have never seen anything like that before. Lia is challenging what I knew.

One Cross

Le temps glisse à t'en faire perdre la tête. Alors il faut écrire en Français. Sentir encore cette pesanteur qui manque tant à Londres. La mélancolie.

Because, in London town, everything is driving us too fast to a place that we ignore.

En France, le passé, elastique, empiète sur le vivant. On écoute la B.O des Choristes sans se poser trop de questions.

In England, life is too short, so we drink Guiness.

Là bas, il fait chaud on boit l'eau du coco, est-ce juste mon imagination?

The tube is crowded with empty eyes. Only after 10pm, souls wake up.

Le métro Parisien sent l'indélicatesse du peuple. Le soir, les regards sont en chien de faïence.

Let me interview you. I don't want to be impolite, but please let me insist.

J'aimerais habiter sur une île deserte et me baigner dans la mer au réveil.

Maracuja.

Out of Time

When I got an internship at French public radio station France Inter, I didn't mind being on a coffee machine duty. I was going to work for one of the biggest station in France, and share my office with famous names in international news. Que demande le peuple?

I got there last Monday, and met another intern starting the same day. She's doing radio in a journalism school near Strasbourg. We attended the morning news conference and were sent to our respective departments. An hour later, she was interviewing the lawyer of a famous French prisoner. The next day, she was on the field doing a report on the sales. I am not allowed to use Radio France's technical equipment because, unlike that girl, I don't study in an école de journalisme reconnue par l'Etat [a journalism school recognised by the state]. When my editor told me that insanity, I didn't even dare to answer that the statement was totally irrelevant as I was not even studying in France. He added: "I wouldn't like that the trade unions come down on me because I asked an intern to work". I didn't think I would ever hear nor write anything like that.

Anyway, the French administration is just about irrelevance, and I should definitely understand it will never change. It is old fashion, it is blocked, it is definitely naff. Naff like an old tie that you keep wearing because you don't have the guts to throw it away.

As I am writing this post, the journalist sitting next to me is on the phone with the French foreign ministry. There is a conference in an hour about Bush sending more troops to Iraq. I can see him glancing at me . No journalist is available. I'm the only one who could go. But I probably won't because... that's the way it is.

Everything is Under Control

A couple of days ago, my friend Jud told me: "you know this weekend is la chandeleur. I would like to have a little thingie at home to celebrate." I immediately accepted the invitation as it involved eating crêpes and share a nice bottle of red wine with my two best friends.

On my way to Jud's house tonight, I almost crashed into a tree when I realised... "But... isn't la Chandeleur some time in February?". Yes it is. I looked in my rearview mirror. Close up. Two black stripes. Thriller.

Today is actually la Galette des rois - understand "the King's Pudding". In Spain the three Kings bring presents to children. In France, they bring another excuse to eat (a frangipane cake on this specific occasion). Tradition says that the yougest person has to hide under the table and decides who will get which slice of the cake, while someone else serves. The one who gets the charm hidden in the frangipane gets a crown and chooses his queen or her king - that only happens if the winner does not have to run to a dentists'. It usually is (relatively) amusing.

As French people would use any pretext to give up working for a day, eat, drink or party, they forget what they are actually celebrating.

The funniest thing is that yesterday, believe it or not, I received that text from another friend: "We are going to eat some crêpes tomorrow. Are you coming?".

Cold Blooded

When you type "Saddam" on Youtube, you get 7,461 videos. Some of them, you know what they show. Those who uploaded that death did not dare to comment much. Their only few eccentricities: exclamation marks or capital blocks.

"SADDAM". The name sounds scary, it sounds like the devil is going to come to your room at night and kidnap you. However, what sounds even scarier is the will to put him on YouTube. People's hate (although justified), in short. So when I typed Saddam, I had the impression that I was heading to hell. And now, I do not feel that confortable writing "I watched that video".

"Why did you do it then?". Because I thought, as someone who pretends she wants to be a journalist, I cannot simply not do it. Everybody heard about that video, but few made the step to watch it. Maybe that's the difference between journalists and the rest of society? "Will I cross the line and be a little bit more of a journalist if I see Saddam falling down? I will analyse my material, and make an objective report. Like a doctor, I will witness raw skin coldly. Scientifically. Because everybody talks about it, I cannot ignore it". Checkmate! I'm still questionning myself. Ethics, professional ethics, fraud, voyeurism.

Sometimes, journalists go to war, journalists are hostages, journalists meet death. In those extreme situations, do they naturally lack humanity, simply by accepting to be there? I am not talking about empathy, the taste for challenge, for money, pride or fear. Do journalists have the right (Kant's definition) to see that video? What is the limit?

I don't know. I wonder if that video is a taboo subject. I wonder how many journalists have seen it, and how many of them admit they have.

Maybe I'm just being mad? I'm going to wash now. "All the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand" (Macbeth, V.1)

Ps: No, I was not attempting to re-do The Ring here.

Party at 27

Does culture really make the identification process happen?

The BBC news website has published links to videos of Romanian and Bulgarian music and TV shows. The best way to finally accept that we are, somehow, on the same boat is probably to know each other's culture. Differences and similitudes.

So, could you think of a better way to start the year than with a Bulgarian Rap duo and a 3 year old pop singer?

2007, let's find out how much the new member states can save from their cultural patrimony, and how much of it crosses the borders...