DIARY
QUENTIN CREWE The pleasures of homecoming, so often marred by burst pipes, burglaries, pet deaths, melted deep-freezes, sickly plants, fallen ceilings and other unlooked-for catastrophes, were unconfined when I got back to Haute Provence. A soft mistral had swept the sky clean and the green scrub oaks of summer were turning into what George Melly once described as 'rice crispy trees', the old brown leaves waiting to fall until next spring. Better even, it was still light at six in the evening. Britain persists in being the one EEC country to revert to Greenwich Mean Time in the winter. (The French assume that this must be another perversity of Mrs Thatcher's.) During the war, we had Double British Summer Time, presumably because, when we really had to do something, it was an advantage. One argument produced against it is that chil- dren have to go to school in the dark and may get run over or set upon by sex maniacs. But if they go in the light, then they have to come home in the dark, at a time when there are just as many cars and, I would suppose, many more sex maniacs. Farmers have to milk in the dark, it is argued. The answer to that is that they milk in the dark anyway at both ends of the day. Of course, it is in the far north that the pro-GMT advocacy is loudest. They have so few hours of light in any case that I would have imagined that the Scots, an adaptable people, could adjust their day to fit in with the few flickering rays the sun grants them.
The Welsh are a less adaptable people. A friend's cottage in Wales was damaged last week by nutty nationalists. Compared with the people of Provence, the Welsh extremists are plain stupid. Much of Prov- ence was faced, 25 years ago, with rather the same problems as Wales. The farmers of the hilly regions found that their tradi- tional crops and produce — lavender, goats' cheese, lamb — were uneconomic The villages went into decline. The people were poor. They had one stunning asset the beauty of the landscape. They learned to capitalise on it. The Riviera being ruined, people who wanted holiday homes began to look inland. They bought tumble- down farmhouses, at first quite cheaply but recently for huge prices. The superfast train from Paris gets to Avignon in four hours. Parisians pour down every weekend. Several government ministers have houses in the region, as well as the head of the Communist Party. M. Mitter- rand is a regular visitor. Indeed, my friend Elizabeth was offered one of twelve golden labrador puppies that the President is anxious to get rid of. The Provencaux, far from burning down the strangers' houses, encourage more and more of them to
come. With the huge prices they get for their rambling old buildings, they build themselves neat, modern houses that they far prefer. The newcomers bring money and create jobs. Certainly it can be sug- gested that the social fabric has been fundamentally changed, but this is true of anywhere that, having lingered in the past, suddenly moves into the modern age. From being an almost derelict area, the valley north of the Luberon has become extremely prosperous. With the advan- tages have come the disadvantages. In Apt, there are large numbers of victims of drugs and Aids, but overall I feel that the people are happier. The Welsh meanwhile, in their mean-spirited way, compound their miseries by driving away the strangers who are their one hope of prosperity. They, I feel, are no happier.
Wbile British Telecom seems to have improved, I am always pleased to get back to my Minitel. This is a very small compu- ter, given free by French Telecom to their subscribers. It serves primarily as directory enquiries. You switch it on, dial 11 on the telephone, type in the name of the person you want and their address. It need not be very precise. The name of the departement will do; though if the surname is a common one you may have to wade through 150 screensful of Blanes or Leclercs. It covers the whole country and works at astonishing speed. In order to pay for the machines, there are hundreds of other things that the Minitel can do, for varying sums, which are added to your telephone bill. It lists timetables and can reserve seats on planes and trains. In Paris, you can tap out shopping lists from your office and the things you order will be delivered to your house after you have got home. The more - ,1E
frivolous the service, the more expensive the charge, as many parenjs with children who get home from school before they do have discoVered. An hour or two playing Space Invaders in lieu of doing prep for a couple of months can push the telephone bill into the thousands. Most expensive of all are the shadier aspects. You can contact call-girls, respond to heart-rending appeals from girls in leather seeking boys in chains, or join in group dirty talk and gay gossip. When Jacques Chirac was in power he was shocked to discover that 40 per cent of the use of Minitel was sexual. In his puritan, right-wing way he determined to tax it. Mitterrand, with his languid sophistication, lets it alone, apparently deeming it more useful to keep down telephone prices.
During the war this was a brave area of the Resistance. There are many, many small monuments on the hillside roads to men who died fighting to free their coun- try. One in particular has always touched me. It reads: lci est mort pour La France Roger Bernard. Assassins le 22 Juin 1944 par la Gestape a rage de 23 ans. I am told that the young man was not fighting. He spat on the ground as a patrol marched by. They shot him. This month I noticed a new, small block of stone attached to the base of the monument. On it is engraved: Roger Bernard a sa memoire la douleur d'un Allemand. I am not sure which I admire the more — the contrition of the German or the forgiveness of the family of Roger Bernard in allowing him to express it.
There is a new game around called Perudo. New to Britain, that is. I have seen it being played in bars in the Andes, where it is called Dudo, and wondered at the enthusiasm and indefatigability of the play- ers. Now that it has caught on in Europe, I see the same eagerness and untiring deter- mination in the faces of its devotees. It is a simple enough game — a cross between liar dice and spoof — but it has been lent a greater elegance, being played with pretty leather cups imported from Peru. I learned to play it and became fascinated. I spent ages calculating complicated odds, giving weighty thought as to the call I should make when my turn came. If I won a round, I marvelled at my own skill, at my crafty combination of mathematics and bluff, coupled with a tiny bit of luck. Then, one evening, I realised that this is the charm of the game. There is no skill in it at all, but it gives the illusion that intelligence has triumphed. As it is all luck, everyone wins once or twice in a session. Neither rancour nor envy develop. I only wish that all games were so anodyne.
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