My Travels And A Little Bit of This And That: Guilvinec, Bretagne, France 2014-201

My Travels And A Little Bit of This And That: Guilvinec, Bretagne, France 2014-201: This trip started on November 26th.  We spent only one night in Paris close to Gare Montparnasse so as not to have to take a cab from hotel ...

Guilvinec, Bretagne, France 2014-201

This trip started on November 26th.  We spent only one night in Paris close to Gare Montparnasse so as not to have to take a cab from hotel to the Gare.  The hotel I booked had a weirdly sounding Canadian name: Tim Hotel, no relationship to Tim Horton which in any case has now passed again into the grubby fat hands of Burger King who is now using this recent acquisition as a tactic to claim Canadian ownership and defer paying taxes in the U.S.  That's what happens when you're rich and powerful and have a bevy of overpaid lawyers ready to do your illegal bidding.  Things that ordinary citizens would have to pay dearly for and would never attempt to do in terms of circumventing the law and not paying income taxes suddenly become fair and reasonable for corporations.  OK. enough of the rant which has nothing to do with travel in France.   Paris is still vibrantly beautiful as long as you avoid the outlying areas and stick to the main touristy sections.  Tim Hotel which is actually a little French chain was surprisingly pleasant with rooms a little bigger than the standard we have gotten used to in Paris.  A bonus was the big bathroom, you're not able to pee in the bowl and shower at the same time, not unusual for French hotels.  Luckily neither of us are very big we can manoeuvre in fairly small spaces.

We didn't do any real visiting except some walking around which was very pleasant after the plane ride from Montreal.  This isn't our first time in Paris and although the magic hasn't warn off it's not as potent as it used to be.  The next day we took the TGV to Quimper/Bretagne which is a pleasant four hours much better than by car which would take you 6 hours at least and through numerous paying slices of highway.  The highways are privately owned and beautifully maintained but they do cost a pretty penny.  Everything has gone up here.  With the Canadian dollar's rather precipitous decline it's very costly buying Euros.  Three hundred euros will cost me around $438.00 sometimes more depending on the current exchange rate+there are bank fees at both ends.  I don't understand why currencies have to be speculated on every second of every day.  This kind of reckless speculation only benefits the odd few and is punishing for countries not just for travelers.  At this rate I don't think we will be able to afford travel in Europe much longer.  We're luckier than most since we get to spend time at our daughter's house otherwise it would be impossible.

Guilvinec where she now lives is known as the biggest "artisanal fishing port" in France.  The boats here are rather small in comparison to the huge factory ships which plow the oceans relentlessly and without remorse.  The bigger vessels still use nets even if on a smaller scale it's still pretty impressive and scary when they all come in to unload their catch.  It's hard not to imagine an endless emptying of the oceans till there's nothing left at all except garbage fish and jelly fish.  Her husband fishes for lobster and crabs and his is truly a boat of Lilliputian proportions,you can't get more artisanal than that but he's one of the few.  I hope the fishing lasts long enough to provide for him and his family.  I'm not too hopeful for the future.

This was our first Christmas in France in forever.  I was born in France but the last time I spent a Christmas in Marseille I was much younger.  Predictably the dinner was very very long and tasty.  We had to take breaks in between.  We sat down around 7:00 and we're still edging towards the cheese platter around midnight.  We left before dessert (the traditional French buches) because we couldn't eat any more.  We did have our own individual buches the next day.  There is a list and you order the one you want from the Patissier.  The deserts are as exquisite as ever even if there is some grumbling that the taste has gone down.  Baking/Cooking are still arts here, the French value their eating time.  Kids eat everything there is no complaining or whining about the food.  I love that.  I know kids in Canada who never eat proper meals with their families and only care for fast food.  It's creeping in here too especially in the bigger cities but for now the French are holding fast.  It's the last bastion of civility and it won't be easily given up which is a great thing.

Days have been lazy with daily walks into town and some walks to the beach.  There are kms. of endless beaches here, too bad the outside temperature does not allow for swimming.  I could be tempted on a dare but nobody wants to give me $500.00, that's my minimum dare. LOL  It probably won't happen any time soon if ever.

We were going to take a trip to Morocco but the weather has not been good there.  Our travel agent suggested the Canary Islands as an alternative.  We're delighted, I've been to Morocco and although it would have been cool the Canaries will be totally different not a place we would have ever expected to visit.  We usually travel on the cheap, never in all inclusives especially not 4 stars but it was the deal which was available, we decided to splurge.  We wanted to give the family a break from our presence and bask in the sun a little as well.  Temperatures there should hover around the 19 to 23 mark, perfect.
I will be updating my travel blog from there.  Love it when I have something new to report and comment upon on my travel blog even if it's not widely read.  I enjoy the writing regardless.

Terence Trent D'Arby - Who's Loving You

You've Got A Friend - Carole King

A few thoughts on Interstellar

Verdict on Interstellar: A gorgeous at times trippy ride through our known universe and beyond but filled with too many WTH moments and plot holes bigger than the Grand Canyon. Laudable that Christopher Nolan and his co-writing brother wanted to tackle the big question of LOVE as a thread bigger and stronger than anything else the world has to offer in particular the love between a parent and a child yet wrapping that in a lot of mumbo jumbo quasi scientific jargon or perhaps even barely scientific to the uninitiated, which is most of us, feels like a bit of a cheat. If we don't understand too well we'll simply assume that they know what they are talking about and won't question too vigorously. That sort of thinking bugs me because it points to a desire to remain deliberately opaque in order to float above the viewer's understanding. It didn't really work for me, I couldn't leave my critical brain behind let's face it a lot of the film simply did not make sense, black holes, gravity, time warps, "possessed" library, tesseract etc...What did make sense was the bond across the distance although even that left me strangely detached. I should have been responding in a more emotional way, either the film was too manipulative on that score or I've become progressively desensitized, still not sure.

My Travels And A Little Bit of This And That: Get ON UP - very short take on James Brown biopic

My Travels And A Little Bit of This And That: Get ON UP - very short take on James Brown biopic: For a film about the hardest working man in show business, the godfather of soul and x other number of monikers this film was surprisingly l...

Get ON UP - very short take on James Brown biopic

For a film about the hardest working man in show business, the godfather of soul and x other number of monikers this film was surprisingly lackluster and I'm not sure why.  The acting was top notch throughout by both main and supporting actors.  There was something a little schizophrenic about this film, at times it felt right on the money and at other times it completely let me down.  Can be summarized thus:  it's both dazzling and boring in equal measures, at least it was for me.

Ultimately it was a meh for me never really liked James Brown only like a few of his songs, not surprisingly one of the standout sequences, for me, was the performance of "This Is A Man's World" which given the volatile nature of his relationship with women turns out to be quite ironic indeed..  Story is told in episodic fashion, not chronological which would have been OK if there had been more emphasis on Brown's creative processes which were totally given short shrift in this film. There was little in terms of the civil rights background and struggles  which were going on at the time except for one totally gratuitous scene staged more for effect than for enlightenment. His relationship with women was also poorly done, still don't know how many wives, kids he had etc....he was an abuser but that was barely touched upon. It's significant that the one time Brown hits one of his wives the director chooses to only show the after effect of the hitting so as not to somehow taint Brown's image.
 Chadwick Boseman was phenomenal as Brown although he was difficult to understand, he could have kept the cadences of Brown's speech, which were quite particular, and placed a lot more emphasis on refining the  elocution. It's frustrating when one has to fight to understand the main actor throughout most of the film. Also a stand out was Nelson Ellis as the long suffering band mate Bobby Byrd who only gave up on Brown towards the middle of Brown's career when the singer was at the height of his success and received rapturously in France.  Felt that Dan Akryod did an OK job as Ben Bart, Brown's manager, a mere sleepwalking role for him with a paycheck at the end or maybe I'm being cynical. James Brown's legacy as a musical prodigy still holds.  He was an uncompromising genius when it came to his music, would have loved to feel the beat more in my heart rather than be told about feeling it.