French Priorities…
I never cease to be amazed at the difference between the French and the British televised news. Today it started with the the strikes that will happen tomorrow. OK. No problem there as far as reporting goes. It still seems quite bizare that an entire country can go on strike all together…but anyway!
Then we moved onto the storm which happened 5 days ago. This took over 15 minutes of the program. We saw nurses going about on boats, freezers being collected and run all together in the town hall, the oldest lady in the village complaining her flowers had been submerged by water and a grown man crying with relief. The over riding theme was one of community. One man even said, ‘Things like this are good. They make people forget their silly disputes and help each other.’ All this is true and interesting. But would it have taken 15mins on British news and would it have been positive? I can imagine scary headlines, insurance figures, sad, long faces, threats of new natural disasters in the years to come caused by global warming…
Then at 21mins they reported that a policemans personal car had been blown up in the police ‘barracks’ presumably by corsican terrorists. Then at 22mins came a report of armed raiders getting away with 9 million Euros worth of Gold! I know where these 2 articles would have been on the BBC news.
It makes me smile. I think I like it better here. They are a lot more likely to say positive things in France, which is strange becuase they would caracterise themselves as pessimists and moaners. Not on the TV news!
Hi there
Has martina sold the leg on e-bay yet!!
We had a great time with Lemuel and Rachel after that course, they came to stay with us for several nights.
Comment by jane alvarez — February 15, 2009 @ 11:46 pm