Glissant sur la Med

If I have ever been sailing, it was so long ago that any vague recollection of it has long since been erased from my mind. Of course, I've been on boats that have been sailed by other people but never involving me having to actually do anything. Today was my last morning in Cannes and I got up early so that I could go for my run and then meet the parents at Palm Beach for a swim and breakfast before Dad's and my date with our sailing instructor.

Tom was a beach bum who looked as though he spent nine months of the year in the sea or on the beach 24/7. Dad has done a few trips on the little Hobie Cats whenever he's been able to persuade visitors to Cannes (my brother and young cousin, mainly) to join him. I, meanwhile, know nothing. Exhilarating therefore as I found the outing, I felt extremely incompetent throughout. It didn't help that Tom tended to give instructions that only make sense to people who have a vague understanding of how one might get the boat to move in the right direction, such as, "poussez la barre," (yeah, all right, Tom, which bar (Dad eventually clarified that this was what WordReference.com translates as the tiller (possibly))? And in which direction?) and "lachez!" (release what? And how?). I was, naturally, completely confused and so just tried to follow any commands as best as I could.

It was incredibly windy today and I was impressed at how fast the little boat was travelling. At various points, the waves were pretty huge and I had to hold on pretty tightly to avoid falling off (not least because I was gripping Dad's waterproof camera in one hand, which was also threaded through one of the hand holds, and the barre in the other). Eventually, though, I sort of got the hang of it and while I still don't think I understand the principles behind going the way you want to go, I did at least learn the rules for doing this in given situations (I am, at present, an autistic sailor).

I managed to make the damn thing go in a straight line, between two boats that were fairly close together, and even from the Ile Sainte-Marguerite back to Palm Beach in a vaguely direct fashion, no mean feat given that a) my sunglasses were practically opaque from the salt water and b) there were many obstacles such as giant cruise ships and little police boats, fishermen and ice cream boats. I'm sure Tom thinks I was a complete muppet but I had a good time anyway--definitely enough for a repeat performance (preferably after at least one training session en anglais so I can at least attempt to get the vocabulary right)...

On the Rocks

Each Tuesday during July and August, a fireworks display is put on from a boat in the middle of the bay just off the Croisette. Each week, the fireworks are sponsored and/or designed by a particular country (although the relevance of this seems limited to the background music) and the citizens of Cannes can then vote online for their favourite at the end of the season. Tonight's fireworks were provided by Spain and were called, "Pyrofantasie" (the titles are all variations on a theme--the Austrian entry is called Pyrovision, for example). The beach-restaurants along the Croisette are all given special permission to open in the evenings (for some reason, they aren't usually allowed to do this) and you can pay 60 euros for a meal on the beach (or on one of the restaurants' little piers on which you can pay even more for sunbathing rights during the daytime) or you can rent a sunbed and sip a glass of champagne or a cocktail and watch the sunset and then the fireworks.

As we'd spent all day at one of the beach/restaurants, we raided the market and made a picnic to take out onto the rocks so we could watch the fireworks from there. First, Mum and I had a pre-prandial swim. All week, I've been waiting for the pontoon to be empty so that I could be photographed doing one of my leaps and when I spotted that it was empty tonight, I swam out as fast as I could although it seemed that about 10 other people had the same idea. I hadn't agreed with Dad the arms signals we would use either (it would have been fine if he were a scuba diver too) so I had no idea whether, after about 15 jumps into the sea, flinging myself up and out and trying to be visible on camera, he had actually got me, especially as he was using his inferior camera and not the digital SLR. Finally, though, he did yell "Yes" so I assumed he had caught at least part of me. That photo is on another camera, though, so I've uploaded a couple of the inferior shots from mine instead (I'm loitering with intent in the middle of the top photo and on the left, about to take off, in the second photo down).

Then, it was picnic time with huge Madagascan prawns, avocado, mozzarella, tomatoes and yummy rotisserie chicken (oh, and a Cornetto but I felt I'd earned it). And then the fireworks began--amazingly, only two minutes after schedule. They were very impressive, not least because of the way the fireworks reflected on the water and the bangs echoed across the bay. The big hotels along the Croisette even turned off all their lights and it was fun being on the rocks with so many other people. Afterwards, the yachts moored in the bay all tooted their approval and the applause was pretty thunderous.

Perhaps the fireworks themselves weren't as impressive as those St John's put on for each May Ball but the overall effect was very nice indeed. Well done, Cannes (and Spain)!

Bienvenue au Club de Jazz...Nice

I was quite surprised to find myself getting up at 7.30 on the first day of my holiday. I'm not a particularly late riser but 7.30 is still a little too dawn-like for me. In any case, out we went and down the Croisette I ran. It was very hot, even at this early hour, and also extremely windy as the mistral swept its way through. It was all worth it though when 40 minutes later, I ended up at Sunrise Beach, stripped down to my bikini and plunged myself into the sea before swimming out to the pontoon for some somersaulting and diving before drying off and returning home for breakfast, via the boulangerie. It was certainly a very refreshing start to the day.

We spent much of the morning and early afternoon on the beach (well, another beach--Bijou Plage). It was still extremely windy but although this made swimming quite difficult, the mistral was actually very refreshing and I powered through my next book, Curtis Sittenfeld's American Wife.

In Juan Les Pins, a town a few miles east from Cannes along the coast, an annual jazz festival was taking place over the past fortnight--Jazz à Juan (this name reminded me of my college's jazz society, Jazz at Jocks', which used to organise parties once a month, usually with some decent jazz musicians providing the entertainment). Nice Matin, the local rag, has been raving about Brits Jamie Cullum and Alice Russell (who "comes from Brighton, where the biggest festival in Britain is held"--apparently...) and the other J@J acts all week. Yesterday was the final performance--Keith Jarrett (or "Keet J'arrête" as they call him) and his trio (consisting of Gary Peacock and Jack DeJohnette).



We decided to go to JLP to see whether we could get tickets for Keith and got ourselves some tickets from the cheapest section as the rest were sold out (incidentally, it turned out that our seats, which were in a section that was at the back and slightly at an angle to the stage, actually had a better view than some of the more expensive sections because we were raised from the ground and we were sitting at the front of the section and had a great view of the stage). We had a few hours to kill so we went to the Belle Rive hotel (an old haunt of Fitzgerald's) for cocktails on the terrace of the Fitzgerald Bar overlooking the bay. I had a Violette Fizz, which was very refreshing (violet syrup, gin, lime and Perrier). One guy was sitting there, scribbling away into a leather journal, obviously hoping to capture some of Fitzgerald's spirit. We then went for a quick dinner at Vesuvio before joining the queue to get into the concert venue. JLP is probably the Newquay of the Riviera: it has great beaches but is full of cheap bars and therefore hen parties and similar on a sunny Saturday soir and so had a little of a nightmarish vibe.



As for the jazz itself, it was fun enough, although I prefer my jazz to be a little more vocal than Keith and co. offered. This in itself wouldn't have been so bad if he had been chatty between songs--giving a little background and context or just banter. However, he didn't utter so much as one word all night--not even bonjour or hello, merci or good night. I thought this was somewhat rude given that because of his requests, anyone trying to take a camera into the event had it confiscated (luckily, I got to keep mine as the woman was too busy confiscating Papa's). OK, so a lot of events don't allow photography but they don't usually take your cameras off you. The phrase the staff used was, "out of respect for the artist"; unfortunately, because of his failure to interact with and engage the audience or even acknowledge their presence, I didn't have much respect for him. As such all of my photos are either blurry or have bars through them as I had to stick my camera ever so slightly out of my bag and through the bars...

Nonetheless, he is an amazing pianist (I particularly liked his take on Somewhere from West Side Story, even if I'm embarrassed to admit that I bought the CD single of the Pet Shop Boys' cover; On Green Dolphin Street was good too and not just because it reminded me of the Sebastian Faulks novel by the same name) and the venue itself--the town square in JLP, which is right on the shore--was dramatic enough to make the event feel quite magical even for those who weren't connoisseurs. Watching the sun set over the hills and then the twinkling lights come on in the hills of Vallauris and Golfe-Juan was really special.

The train system in the south of France is less special. The train we had intended to catch to JLP wasn't even shown on the departure board. Returning home, meanwhile, we left the second encore (well, third, technically, because during the first, Keet didn't perform a song) so that we could catch the 11.14 train to Cannes. We arrived with about three minutes to spare and the train was shown on the departure board on the platform. Then, five minutes later, the train disappeared from the board and was replaced by another train 40 minutes later. We weren't impressed--perhaps I will complain less about English trains in the future; they might be expensive and unreliable but at least you are told when they are late and/or cancelled... Never mind...

The Gags Remain the Same

I probably wouldn't have gone to see Brüno if a friend hadn't offered me his spare ticket at the last minute but I have to admit that it was pretty funny. It was grosser than Borat and, probably, funnier (although maybe that's because I've forgotten many of the jokes in the latter by now) but ultimately, it was much less shocking and the shock value, along with the "let's laugh at Americans being racist, sexist, ignorant and just plain stupid" factor, was one of the best bits about Brüno's Kazakhstani predecessor. I gave Brüno 7/10 on IMDb (really 6.5, but there are no half-points), which was the same score I gave to Borat when I first saw it.

Borat was released at the cinema in the UK shortly after I had returned from a three-week trip to California and one of my travelling companions was quite obsessed with doing Borat impressions (it didn't seem to work as a pick-up tactic; funny that). He had been doing them for months but three weeks of them made me decide that I had to actually see the real thing so I went to see Borat at the cinema and yes, it was funny, yes, it was gross, and yes, it was cringe-worthy (though I was cringing far less than most people there).

Brüno was sold out at the Odeon at Marble Arch tonight and the cinema was heaving. The laughter was constant and raucous, as well as a few groans and "oh gods" from the American women sitting behind us; whether they weren't impressed by Brüno's bondage gear and handcuffs or were just embarrassed by their fellow countrymen making fools of themselves on camera, it's hard to say. Amazingly, the film got a round of applause at the end--this is the last time I've seen that happen in the UK since Titanic.

It was quite entertaining and, in a few places, even quite hilarious but it didn't merit the applause because it wasn't anything new. Sure, Brüno wears different costumes from Borat, comes from a different, random country and invites his victims/participants to reveal different prejudices and bigotries, but the mechanisms for achieving the laughs and the groans remain the same: make people feel uncomfortable and out of their depth, then film them making ridiculous comments on camera.

Well, if it ain't broke...

"Vaya Con Dios, Bro!"

I've been neglecting Keanu a little, lately, usually in favour of Clive or Christian and a range of other supporting characters. It doesn't help that much of his back catalogue is pretty cringe-worthy and there are only so many times I can plausibly watch Speed without wanting to tear off my finger-nails--yes, even I can only watch Speed so many times--and weeknights are a little heavy for The Matrix. However, I recently (finally) acquired a copy of Point Break and watched it tonight in all its good-bad glory.

I watch so many serious films that occasionally, it's quite nice to just watch something silly--not a clever comedy, just silly. Silly characters (OK, so it's quite funny that Keanu was supposedly this hot shot at the FBI academy and all of his new work colleagues still think he's a dumb-ass jock), silly plot (the bank robberies, carried out by a group of four robbers who always wear masks of former US presidents which Keanu is trying to solve, almost seem like an annoying sub-plot in comparison to Keanu's totally awesome awakening into the amazing world of surfing), silly dialogue ("you gotta go down, bro!" or "This is your wake-up call! I am an F...B...I...agent!") and other assorted fun. The last scene, in particular, is set on some Aussie beach in monsoon conditions and with waves the size of cruise ships ("a 50-year storm"), is, like, totally melodramatic. Because southern California is just too cheerful and sunny for the final battle of morals and wills so only freak weather conditions Down Under will do. I'll even forgive Keanu for wearing a denim shirt and jeans in the final scene because a) it was 1991 and b) he still looked quite hot, in his bedraggled, early '90s way.

Incidentally, I am so out of touch with late '80s/early 90s' films that I only realised in the credits that Patrick Swayze was playing Keanu's surf buddy Bohdi and not his partner. OK, so I wasn't really paying much attention to the other characters but it's still pretty embarrassing to have mistaken Swayze for Gary Busey.

How to Watch the Radio

Today's Now Show has now aired and surprised me with a few of its inclusions, although to be honest, in the haze of today, I've probably forgotten about half the stuff they left out, apart from the intentionally for-the-audience's-eyes-only bits. The experience of going to the BBC Radio Theatre and watching a show (any show) live was great fun but hopefully, next time, I will be less of a n00b and will be able to enjoy the next one even more.

1. Arrive early. The tickets say that entrance to the building starts at 6.45 and entrance to the Radio Theatre begins at 7.45 for an 8 p.m. recording start time. They also cautions that having a ticket doesn't guarantee entry because they know some people don't turn up and so tend to overbook. In my days at the Nike Town Running Club, I used to run past the Radio Theatre on Portland Place as part of the home strait back to Nike Town and there would, some nights, be a big queue outside. However, S and I decided the ticketing would be rather like on an airline where being bumped off would be very, very rare and so we decided to meet for Thai on Maddox Street at six and then head to Portland Place when we were done. We got there at about 7.15 and although there were only a few people queueing, once we'd passed through the airport-style security, our tickets got stickers with the numbers 255 and 256 on, suggesting most people were already there.

Of course, not getting there super early didn't prevent us from getting in (in fact, there were a few free seats) but it did mean that a) we didn't receive the audience-participation forms where you could get the chance to have your suggestion read out on air (people were handing them in as they went into the theatre but we somehow missed out) and b) we didn't get the best seats as we were in the balcony. However, we were in the front row of the balcony and had a perfectly unobscured view of the stage (and there were a few mics within laughing distance). During a part of the show that was unaired, someone from the audience yelled out that they had queued in the sun for 90 minutes (this was referred to later on in an (unaired) bit where a joke hadn't gone brilliantly and one of the comedians said we must be regretting having queued for 90 minutes for that).

2. Positioning. When we arrived, we had to wait in the cafe for about 50 minutes until they were ready for us. This room is shaped like a very long corridor and people kept pushing past us to get nearer to the entrance to the theatre. We probably should have pushed our way along to help with the seating later. We didn't really feel like a coffee having just eaten but at least they had the tennis on. S and I used the time to prep each other on the week's news stories to try to predict which ones might come up (this was mainly him prepping me as I don't tend to hear about non-news stories unless they're really big). We agreed that in the past week, there had only been one major news story (even I had heard of Michael Jackson's death, possibly because it was just before the weekend and I do read the Grauniad on Saturdays), a fact with which Mitch Benn also agreed because his third, unaired song commemorated the fact that when he had tried to look up which "national appreciation" weeks were happening, he didn't find anything (unfortunately, the song was a bit mediocre but you can't win 'em all).

3. Preparation. Although it probably isn't always very easy to guess which question they might ask the audience to answer in a segment that is sometimes aired, reading lots of news stories (and the "and finally..." style pieces on the BBC Magazine website) might help. This week, they asked the audience to write a modern-day, 11th commandment. We (and Hugh Dennis) agreed that the best one was, "Thou shalt not covet [originally, steal] thy neighbour's WiFi" but it was only read out after the "official" end of the show and didn't have the right delivery to get used. During the recording, Hugh Dennis was separating page and pages of what I thought was his script into two piles on the floor. I realised later he was sorting out the audiences' answers into two piles: "to be read during the official recording" and "to be read to keep the audience entertained in between retakes." About 50 of these were read out and for me, seeing whether the audience (and the comedians) laughed at my line would have been better than hearing it on the radio (although it would be a bit embarrassing if everyone thought you were an idiot; someone wrote, "Thou shalt not make spelling and grammer mistake's [sic]" but then felt stupid when asked whether they had done it on purpose).

4. Be loud and be bold. This one isn't for me but it seems that apart from having your answer to the audience question read out in the final cut, the only way to actually get yourself on air in a noticeable way is to heckle or call out. Not many people did this and one woman (protesting about National Express) got her "hear, hear!" style cry included in the final edit. Luckily, I didn't hear too much (if any) of the machine gun laughter guy in the edit. As I listened to to podcast of the show, though, it did seem as though the audience were laughing a lot louder and a lot more than they usually do. I'm sure it's my imagination--maybe I just thought it sounded a little fake because I knew that some people were trying to get their laughs on the radio and so did laugh harder, louder and longer than would be appropriate. He who laughs loudest may also laugh last in order to prevent embarrassment by laughing at the wrong moment and then being mocked by the comedians.

5. Go often. At the beginning of the recording a producer came on as a pre-warm-up warm-up act, mainly to tell us to turn off our phones (or else other audience members were entitled to kill you) and pointing out fire exits, but with some "jokes" or jokey bits added in. The end product was something that was slightly less funny than one of those Orange "Don't Let a Mobile Ruin Your Film" shorts after you've seen it approximately 97 times. The real warm-up from Dennis and Punt was a lot funnier and involved a lot of physical comedy. It took me a few moments to realise this was actually a warm-up and wouldn't be included in the final edit, which is a shame. They did also explain this to the "first timers" as they put it, although it seemed that many people had come at least once before.

Next time, I will have lost my n00b status and I'm sure the experience will be even better.

Laughter Is (Sometimes) the Best Medicine

I went to see The Now Show being recorded tonight, probably lucky as I definitely had a face for radio tonight. A full post will be coming tomorrow when a) the show has been aired and I won't be spoiling anything and b) I have more time as I won't be needing to get up early the following morning to catch a train to Nowheresville.

I haven't laughed so much and so hard for a long time but now, of course, I wish that each week, I got to listen to the full, 80 minutes of recording that get edited down to the 28-minute show (not least because although some of the less successful jokes get edited out in the final cut, some of the best ones also get cut out for legal reasons, presumably, including one very funny one involving Peter Sissons and Anne Robinson). Listening to the radio show, you also (obviously) miss out on seeing the bizarre and superb "warm-up" impersonations performed by Hugh Dennis (which included a pterosaur and a ski-jumper tonight), which is a big error, although part of the fun this week will be working out which bits will make the final cut (some were more obviously not going to make it than others).

I have also discovered that it's quite hard work to laugh loudly almost non-stop for 80 minutes. Obviously, I was hoping my laugh would make it on air (assuming I'm even able to recognise it) but I've come to realise that I'm not very good at laughing loudly. I'm more of an amused-chuckle kind of person, although when something is very funny I can laugh hard and fast. The brevity is the problem because when there are 300 other people laughing, you'd have to be really loud to be heard.

Or you could be like the guy sitting next to us who had a really irritating laugh that was like a deeper, more nasal machine gun. This in itself would have been OK but he was clearly laughing with the sole purpose of getting onto the radio show because he would usually start laughing after everyone else (implying he hadn't got the joke) and then continue for a few seconds after everyone else had stopped. It was immensely irritating and definitely not the least bit medicinal for me.

On balance, though, the benefits of my own laughter did outweigh the costs of having to listen to Stupid Laugh Guy and I would definitely be keen to see (or hear) the "outtakes" of The Now Show each week, as they have started doing for Have I Got News for You.