Ai am the Wei and the truth and the life -inside Ai Weiwei’s Istanbul exhibition.

“Life is art, art is life, I never separate them.” Ai Weiwei (AWW)….and everything is political.

If you take the view that I do, which is that even drawing breath is a political act, then Ai Weiwei’s exhibition, in Istanbul, is a great expression of the philosophy that Art is Life and that everything in life is political.

I slipped, almost literally, through the front door on a rainy, slippery, Istanbul day. For a cultural illiterate, such as I, who normally can’t tell the difference between Mahler and Wagner or between a Rembrandt and a Vermeer and who thinks a Concerto is a brand of Honda car, an Ai Wei Wei exhibition is perfect.

You don’t need to know anything about art or about Ai Weiwei. You just need to know something about life and politics. Everything else is explained.

Vases as columns against a backdrop of scenes depicting refugees, emigrants, prisoners and other similar groups

The exhibition is eclectic ranging over the Sichuan earthquake, Palestine, tigers, refugees, freedom of speech, the destruction of his studio, attitudes to power and authority, Chinese labour camps, beatings, stone age tools, war, iconoclasm, still life, traditional art.

For those who haven’t been to an Ai Weiwei exhibition here is a virtual tour……

Countries as art and political statements – as you enter you are greeted by a map of China in ceramic. It’s a form of jigsaw, and it’s really reflective of the rest of the exhibition in the way it binds together art and political statement – with interesting bits of information about the use of iconography as political dissent.

Much of the exhibition utilises common place objects as a link between the everyday and the political and cultural. A coat hanger is used as the basis for a portrait and car window winders are used to demonstrate the absurdity of totalitarianism. The Chinese Government attempted to prevent protests, while driving through Tiananmen Square, by removing all the window winders from cars.

Between 2008 and 2011 Ai Weiwei became the subject of political persecution by the Chinese Government. This began after his investigations of, and blogging about, political corruption.

This involved corruption that had allowed shoddily built buildings to kill tens of thousands of people during the Sichuan earthquakes in May 2008. The dead included 5000 schoolchildren killed by poorly-built schools throughout the region. AWW named each of the dead children.

There are echoes of history in his subsequent detention. His father, the famous Chinese poet, Ai Qing, who was exiled to the Gobi Desert, said in 1946: “I believe that art and the revolution must go together; they can never be separated. We are political animals, and sometimes we write as political animals. If the revolution fails, the art will fail, but in as far as is possible the artist must be a revolutionary. As a revolutionary and as an artist he must represent his times.”

Left: the earthquake zone, centre: ceramics recreating twisted metal reo from the buidings

Ai responded to the deaths in Sichuan with a series of angry blog posts, and by the next year had set up the Citizens’ Investigation on Sichuan earthquake. The police responded by making a threatening visit to Ai’s home. A few months later, when Ai was in Sichuan to attend the trial of an earthquake activist, police broke into his hotel during the night and beat him. He was left with a cerebral haemorrhage that required emergency brain surgery.

AWW filmed part of the earthquake zone and he superimposes on the images a series of negative responses that he received from officials when he tried to get information on the impacts of the earthquake and who was responsible.

A part of the exhibition uses the beating and the brain scans, that led to surgery, as as the basis for two ceramics using a scan of his brain.

Image of scan of Ai WaiWai’s brain on a porcelain plate, after his beating by police in China

It was during this period that AWW was arrested, as he was boarding a flight to Taiwan, and then detained for 81 days. Subsequently he was barred from overseas travel and the studio he had been invited to build was torn down by the Chinese Government.

In, literally, 24 hours, the entire building was demolished, razed to the ground and the rubble trucked away so that not one shred of evidence of the buildings existence remains – a sort of instant re-writing of history. You can see at left, below, the building before demolition and then the paddock shown after the building’s removal at right, below. AWW documents the process in a video.

Ai WeiWei studio and gallery before China demolished it

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From here the exhibition moves on to document a series of images of AWW’s response to authority, in a very simply and symbolic series of images of iconic buildings which in some form or other represent wealth, power or images of a society’s culture…such as, in the case of Australia the opera house. In each AWW stands with finger raised as we all wish to do to authority figures, much of the time.

Similarly he uses images, such as those of massed crabs, to document mechanisms of secret protest against authoritarian regimes. Chinese people use the word for the crabs as a synonym for censorship as the word for crab sounds similar to the Chinese word for “harmonious”. As such it refers directly to Chinese attempts to create a harmonious society via censorship.

Following AWW’s arrest and detention he was put under house arrest and then had his passport removed so he could not travel abroad. At the start this was done to prevent him receiving his Nobel prize. His resistance to the removal of his travel rights is documented in a series of images of flowers. His use of flowers is perhaps resonant of the famous 1967 images of George Harris and Jan Rose Kasmir using flowers in the face of the rifle barrels of National Guardsman.

Jan Rose Kasmir (left and centre photographed by Marc Riboud) and George Harris (right photographed by Bernie Boston) – at a rally of 100,000 against the Vietnam war

Over a period of 600 days Ai Weiwei placed flowers in the basket of his bicycle to protest against the loss of his passport. His use of flowers as a symbol of protest is repeated in a number of works in the exhibition and the centrepiece (centre, below) is a wall-papered room showing each of the bunches of flowers that were placed in the bicycle basket.

The rest of the exhibition follows similar themes using a variety of artistic mechanisms to document his views on Palestine through his videos of the last tiger, starving in Palestine’s zoo, following the Israeli blockade (the tiger was later saved), and documenting the treatment of refugees and other groups around the world (bottom images).

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All these images on Flickr here

29 December 2017 0

The Generosity of Strangers in Strange Lands

It’s clear that Australians whose daily out outpouring of bile against Muslims, refugees and strangers, in general, have never experienced the generosity, warmth and welcome of strangers in strange lands. Had they done so it is hard to believe that they would behave towards people with different values, skin colours and religions as they have been doing.

My childhood homes for 16 years, from the age of 6 weeks, were all in countries where people had no reason to feel friendly towards white, blond haired, privileged and wealthy children but my experiences and that of my family were overwhelmingly positive.

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One Bhuddist country, Thailand, two Muslim countries, Egypt and Iran and one Apartheid country, South Africa, all provided a welcome which puts Australia’s xenophobic, racist and cruel Government to shame and where the welcome and warmth of the citizens of those countries is in sharp contrast to the outpouring of bile by a minority of Australians.

Those experiences, of so long ago, are not isolated or historical. More recently, I have spent weeks or months in Egypt (2014), Turkey (2015), Jordan (2014).

In every circumstance, both historical and recent, I have experienced no hostility, no racism or xenophobia and an overwhelming inclination from everyone to be friendly and helpful and to understand and be open to people from other cultures – and not just from those who might stand to benefit from the spending of tourists but more broadly from the person in the street. Perhaps I have been lucky but I like to think not.

We lived in Egypt between 1960 and 1965. This was just four years after the Suez Crisis when Israel, Britain and France had invaded Egypt in response to Abdel Nasser’s nationalisation of the Suez Canal. So there we were, a British family (I was born in Britain in 1955 just before my family left for Thailand), living in a country which only four years previously had been invaded by the British armed forces.

Despite this, the Egyptians were overwhelmingly welcoming. I had the same experience in 2014, during protests and repression in Tahrir Square, when Egyptians would invite me to their homes for tea, despite their knowledge of Australia’s role in the Middle East and about its attitude to refugees.

Living in Tehran 1966-69

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We moved to Iran between 1966 and 1969, to a country where the west, in the form of a CIA inspired coup had deposed the democratic, and popularly elected, Mossadeq Government in 1953, a mere 14 years previously and had restored the repressive Shah Reza Pahlavi to power. Despite this Iranians were welcoming and friendly.

We lived in South Africa between 1969 and 1972, at the height of apartheid, where no black or brown person had any reason to feel remotely friendly to people with white skin and yet, as a teenager, experienced no sense of hostility or racism. Compare this with the abuse of people of all ages, including teenagers in Australia, just for looking or being different

Compare this, also, with the hostility shown to French people, in Australia, during the protests against nuclear testing in Mururoa – a small island 8700 kilometres distant. As an example, in Darlinghurst, Marc and Murielle Laucher, a couple with dual French-Australian citizenship, found the windows of their cafe, La Petite Creme, smeared with faeces – and this was not an isolated incident.

More recently, I have been in Turkey, a country on the frontline of the hostilities in the Middle East, and which is dealing with hundreds of thousand of refugees. This is a country where an Islamic-leaning Government has encouraged a less secular society and where negotiations over many years to enter the EU have not exactly endeared many Turks to “western” oriented societies. Never mind Gallipoli and the history of conflict between the Ottomans and the west.

Yet every person from the most secular to the most religious was welcoming and friendly and there was no sense of people being prejudiced due to the alleged clash of western and islamic values. In fact the sense of a reconciliation of those values (women in bikinis and headscarfs) was far stronger than in Australia. None of this is to say that no racism exists in these other societies or that minorities in all societies don’t behave in the same way as the racist bigots in Australia but it seems less prevalent and less obvious.

There is something peculiarly obnoxious about the toxic mix of political conservatism, xenophobia, racism which is making Australia a less pleasant, less open and less welcoming society than many of consider it to be. It’s a subject about which we need a national debate. How do we combat this? How do we change the politics of fear that allows this prejudice to thrive. And what can every citizen do to assist?

4 August 2015 0

Beating About the Bush, 60 Days in Northern Australia (Part 10 – Kununurra)

From Purnululu we head for Kununurra which will be our next rest day after Katherine. Our first stop, for fuel and refreshments is Warmun (formerly Turkey Creek).

Here we meet, John, another intrepid cyclist. He is from New Zealand and is en route from Darwin to Perth. His wife has abandoned him for the trip as she considers his passion for riding long distances over main roads to be something only explicable in the average asylum.

His two main loads are 30 litres of water and a bird book the size of the average car fridge. He expects to be in Broome, some 700 kilometres away, in two weeks. His trip has been a positive experience with passing motorists offering, water, lifts, tea and cake.

He notes that women are much more positive about his trip than men, with the women offering praise and enthusiasm and the men offering assessments of his sanity. John suggests that men feel that their masculinity is threatened, because they are cruising comfortably in four-wheel drives, so they feel compelled to belittle his achievement.

The scenery, as we travel east, is a mixture of spinifex plains and low mountain ranges topped by escarpments. The Goddess of Weird Excitability at Very Small Things Indeed (GoWEaVSTI), aka Jill, is agog. If we still used cellulose film instead of digital there would scarcely be enough cellulose on earth to sate her enthusiasm.

As we broach a rise in the road a low range of hills appears as a pimple in the distance. It is indeed topped by a very nice escarpment. Stop! the GoEaVSTI urges us. Scarcely a more glorious range of hills has ever been seen, she exclaims, it must be photographed immediately and multiple times.

A collective rolling of eyes occurs. But, GoWEaVSTI, we say, it is very similar to hundreds of other such ranges we have seen and will, indeed, not be capture-able on the implement for capturing such images. It will be simply a line on the horizon. But captured it was. And, lo, it was a line on the horizon.

We roll into Kununurra, which advertises itself as the gateway to the Kimberley. It is packed full of tourists along with a few intrepid “travellers”, like ourselves, who are exploring where thousands have gone before. We find ourselves ensconced in the Kimberley-land Holiday Park.

Unfortunately the lakeside site which we should have had is denied us when Roger appears unable to choose between a beautiful, green lakeside side with views of sunsets, birds, water and numerous other upmarket facilities and a dusty, non-lakeside site, with no views, directly on the toilet block and hence passed by several dozen visitors each five minutes.

As an added bonus we are mere feet from the kiddies playground which, I should add, does not change my view on involuntary euthanasia for noisy children.

Forced by Roger to consult and achieve consensus over such a difficult choice we find ourselves gazumped by the next arrivals. They for some reason, unlike Roger, are able to see, on the map, that the site indicated as being by the lake is, indeed, by the lake. Our camp site is lost.

Some compensation is achieved by the fact that we are adjacent to a very pleasant family from Macedon, Victoria, called the Royals. The Royals pass us important and confidential information about destinations which are, of course, not available to other tourists. This includes secret information such as the most popular camping spots around Wyndham.

Since it is late and no one feels inclined to cook we go for dinner across the road. The food is passable but the decor, which consists of photographs of a variety of female crotch and tit shots leaves something to be desired. MONA it is not.

Our days in Kununurra are dedicated to business and provisions, as well as a brief lunch with Lloyd, Lynda and two friends who are traveling with them. But first order of business is locating the town’s best coffee shop which is the Mango Tree on the corner of the main street. We also have to get our temporary repair to the sump crash plate fixed.

While the car is being fixed I retreat to the library. It is a beautiful new library. I am apparently funding its entire construction costs in the amount I am paying for access to the internet. At least it is a good investment since I am able to respond to my tax accountant about some questions he has about my tax return. He is unconvinced that by using the local coffee shop in Byron for work, I can charge all my several thousand coffees against my tax.

We replenish our food and alcohol supplies. Licensing rules in Kununurra limit us to one bottle of spirits per person, so we need three separate purchases. The most important additional purchase, over and above the gin and tonic, is a bottle of Baileys to add to the morning espresso.

For the uninitiated this is an essential component of camping trips which I discovered on freezing cold climbing trips in Joshua Tree and Red Rocks in the US. When you get up, sit in a chair facing east, in your sleeping bag and watch the sunrise while drinking coffee and Baileys.

Apart from being a perfect day-starter, it has the added advantage of relaxing one enough that one’s climbing techniques improve considerably. On this trip its function is to improve ones dexterity while climbing on the vehicle to put the tents away.

A part of our alcohol allocation permitted the purchase of six bottles of apple cider for Jill, who promptly gets drunk on one bottle. Jill observes that alcohol does not really agree with her. Jill’s tendency to be a cheap drunk has a very problematic downside on the morning that we leave Kununurra.

Kaylee and I are outraged to discover that she has given away the rest of our communal bottles of cider because she can’t cope with the entirely predictable side-effects of alcohol.

Roger and Jill are out canoeing on the lake when Lloyd and Lynda turn up. Kaylee and I meet them in the Mango Tree. They are travelling in an identical hire vehicle to us, albeit that, because theirs not a one way hire, they have been able to leave the surplus swag, chemical toilet and other encumbrances in Alice Springs. The vehicles are equipped, unlike most similar four-wheel drives, with two double tents constructed on the one roof.

I observe to Lloyd and Lynda that the main drawback is their proclivity to roll around like a ship in a storm when anyone moves. There is no need for Kaylee and I to move if we want to have sex. One person simply lies on top of the other and we simply wait for Roger to turn over, at which point the swaying motion of the vehicle accomplishes everything for which one might otherwise have to exert oneself. There is the added benefit that the only thing Roger and Jill notice is that Roger has turned over. It is the perfect sexual technique for shared vehicles.

Saturday morning sees Kaylee and I go kayaking on Lake Kununurra. My paddling technique is somewhat limited since I managed to put my back out due to Roger’s night-time movements but it’s an easy and short paddle surrounded by a plethora of water birds.

It is one of the bizarre eccentricities of bad backs that you can spend three weeks walking, lifting heavy boxes, climbing on vehicles, crawling under vehicles etc with no ill effects. On the other hand one tiny movement, with no apparent stress, and ones back decides to pack it in for three days. I am consoled by the thought of cooked breakfast at the Mango Tree.

While Kaylee and I are breakfasting, Roger does the shopping. This later proves problematic since, according to Jill, Roger is foolish enough to actually follow the shopping list. Jill’s technique, according to her own admission, is to waste a considerable amount of time writing a detailed list of requirements and then completely ignore it.

Having written your redundant shopping list you then go shopping, randomly adding anything you feel like and increasing or decreasing the shopping list accordingly.

To quote: “I just add at least a third more things to any list to ensure we have enough”. The logic of writing a list seems to have passed Jill by. After our breakfast I visit the chemist to replenish my reading and sunglass supply. I have a reading glass consumption rate of about 2 pairs per month and, regrettably no strategy, such as tying glasses to fixed objects, has managed to reduce that.

Our final job is to explore getting rid of surplus gear to make packing easier. We plan to freight the chemical toilet and spare swag to Perth. We ring the local trucking companies. Only one is open on a Saturday morning. They need to check on costs and delivery schedules and promise to ring back. But by the time that call comes we have already left and are out of mobile range.

We are now officially on the way down the Gibb River Road which branches off from the road to Wyndham. But first we plan a quick detour to Wyndham. It is one of those towns on which one gets mixed reports. But like Halls Creek its sum is greater than its parts.

Many of the alleged attractions of the town are closed, such as Look Sea Fishing Charters, the crocodile farm, the botanic gardens, the Lee Tong’s Oriental Grocer, the video store and the war memorial gardens. The town is also a tad overwhelmed by a constant stream of road trains carrying ore from the nearby mine.

Having had a poke around the town we stop for afternoon tea at the Rusty Shed, where, as with virtually ever other place we have visited, we are served by a French woman on a working holiday.

It seems our hospitality industry is sustained by visitors on long-term holidays. We meet Fred there who recounts his life history as a emigre from the Netherlands and a long-term resident of Wyndham.

Fred is fascinating and has strong links with the Aboriginal community. His father was part of the resistance during World War 2. He recounts the difficulties of surviving the war with virtually no food and getting arrested for cutting down trees for firewood.

He says that even in the fifties there were massacres of Aboriginal people occurring He quotes a case where a black tracker, from one clan group, assisted some people to kill a group of other blackfellas from a different clan group.

On Wyndham’s positive side there is a thriving and well managed caravan park, as well as the aforementioned Rusty Shed which a great cafe, There is an impressive Aboriginal memorial which is hidden in the back blocks and is half dignified and half kitsch. Nearby there is the fantastic Five Rivers Lookout from which you get a Panorama of the Joseph Bonaparte Gulf where the five huge rivers meet on an enormous flood plain.

Leaving the Five Rivers Lookout we pick up fuel and head out down the road to the Gibb turnoff.

En route we stop to photograph the boot tree which appears to be a random tree into which passing motorists have thrown their worn out boots. It is at the top of the hill on the other side of double white lines. I insist we stop to get a photograph of this phenomenon and my insistence persuades Roger, just short of the crest of hill, to swerve at high speed across the double white lines in order to meet my request.

Mission accomplished, Roger is advised by Jill that crossing a double white line at speed is risky and out of character and that he has been in my company for too long.

See the Flickr archive from which these images were taken:

Kununarra
Wyndham

Other posts in this series:

6 August 2014 0

Lunch in Aix-en-Provence

“Putain, he is a pied noir, what can I expect. They are all machistes, they think the woman is their slave, like all men”

Nadine stares at me for support. We have had several political discussions about such issues and the attitudes of the Pied Noir (white French from Algeria). Bernard, her husband, being a Pied Noir.

Across the table Bernard sits slumped in his chair, his face a mixture of resignation and a beseeching invitation to me to come to his assistance in his hour of need. This is the twenty-third instalment in this discussion.

I look at Bernard and Nadine. At this point they are a bit like the archetypes of Men are from Mars and Women are from Venus and I decide to take decisive action.

Bernard, A fine figure of French manhood

Together at the Med

Isn’t that the mountain that Cezanne often painted? I say. I didn’t realise that you could see it from here.”

Both stare at me. This is betrayal of the highest order. For Nadine it is a political betrayal; one cannot be politically correct unless one is prepared to support her against the idleness of the Pied Noir and the general uselessness of all men around the house. For Bernard my failure to defend him deserves expulsion from the loyal society of Martians (Men). He is no doubt thinking that he will rescind his offer to record several CDs for me from his large CD collection.

Silence descends. A sullen fug in which the three of us are trapped. I ignore it, take another slice of bread and Camembert, top up my glass of excellent Bordeaux, refill my plate with chicken, salad and ratatouille and relax back in the Provençal sun. A few minutes and the sun, food and wine will have buried this discussion for a few more days.

Aix-en-Provence lies just a few kilometres from Marseilles separated by scattered suburbs. This is the heartland of Algerian immigration and of right wind reaction. My friends Nadine and Bernard, with whom I shared a week in Safari Cottages on Gili Air, in Lombok, are part of the political left. This is the usual scattering of leftists of all hues, who hate Le Pen and George Bush, but not as much as they hate the Trots, the Maoists and the Anarchists, of course.

I console Bernard about Nadine’s criticisms

I console Nadine over Bernard’s attitudes

Algeria and the issue of Les Corses (the Corsicans and their demand for independence) remain two of the popular topics around the dinner table especially since many of the often-assembled groups are either of Arab parentage or are Pieds Noirs. This is very important because when all else fails one can have a heated conversation about Algerian politics, involving the all-important element of personal abuse.

Lunch and dinner, in this company in Southern France, is dominated by politics, football, sex, and French culture. No one else has any culture, needless to say, and they all enjoy the Gandhi joke when he was allegedly asked: what do you think of American culture?and he allegedly answered “It would be a good idea” There are many versions of this statement of Ghandi’s and you can insert your preferred substitute for “American”, e.g., Western, British etc.

Admiring the dance. Or maybe the dancers

The old Roman colosseum (and now bullring)

Politics whether it be religious, racial, social or international, as well as wine and smoke, are all consumed in equally large quantities in this part of French society and there is little holding back in expressing points of view. “You don’t like my smoke? Then I will blow it on you”. “You don’t like my politics? Then I spit on you”. You don’t like my wine? Then I take pity on you”.

George Bush is an object of vilification and scorn, the US and Britain almost equally so.

The objections to the war on Afghanistan and to the simplistic idea that a war against terrorism could be won via a conventional military campaign, a view that has been frequently expressed in the pages of the Sydney Morning Herald, are echoed here, but more much strongly.

Australians and New Zealanders are relatively rare in this part of the country and are viewed as vaguely interesting. There are lots of Americans studying at the University but they are viewed as separatists who do not mix with the locals.

Bernard tells me that many of his friends express interest in visiting Australia but he is ambivalent about the attitudes of Australias to the French.

“But the Australians they hate us, no?? Ze bomb, Ze Rainbow Warrior. Ah putain. But yes we will beat you at ze rugby when ze Australians come to Marseilles in November. Ha we beat ze All Blacks in Marseilles last time and Zidane he will score four goals against the useless Australians when we play you at ze soccer in Melbourne”.

I assure him that this is not true, that Australians are all lovely people, who welcome foreigners with open arms (lovely rest homes in Manus, Christmas Island, Nauru etc). We love the French, thought the bomb was a great idea (saves on fishing boats and nets – just collect up all those dead fish). We never really liked the Rainbow Warrior, anyway, which is much better off as an artificial reef, non? And as for sport that we were all hoping that that nice Marie Jose Perec would beat Cathy Freeman at the Olympics in Sydney.

In the same way that Tasmanians, Queenslanders and West Australians, see themselves as different from other Australians, the southern French view themselves as a race apart from the frigid northerners. There are two types of French people they say, the German French (the northerners) and the Latin French (starting a couple of hundred kilometres south of Lyon). The former are the ones that every foreigner loves to hate, they say: “Tres froid, comme les Anglais” (very cold like the English).

It’s true that southern France resembles Spain, in many ways, more than northern France. Catalonia, at its height ruled large swathes of southern France and in some of the southern French towns there are bullrings and tapas. Just across the border from Spain, the siesta still rules and nothing much happens from 2 pm until 4.30 except food and sleep.

From Marseilles and Aix the landscapes of Cezanne dominate the country, including the famous mountain he painted so often. Cezanne grew up in Aix but there are none of his paintings here. The Aixoise thought that his painting was shit so they didn’t buy any. So you can follow the lovely Cezanne walk around ancient Aix, seeing where he lived, where he ate, where he tripped over and grazed his knee but want to see his painting? No chance, they’re all in Paris or New York.

Marseilles at one million people is France’s third largest city, Lyon, being the second largest. The Marseilleise are very proud of their traditions. Ah yes, they say, Paris was a village when Marseilles was already a city. And, of course, the national anthem comes from Marseilles and was adopted from the battle hymn of the Marseilles warriors who defeated and beheaded the king.

Aixois see themselves as being separate and different from the residents of Marseilles even though the two towns are only marginally separate. Aix is a university city of 100,000, and so several tens of thousands of its population are university students. Tiny streets and plazas full of street cafes dominate the entire city. The nightlife is vibrant, with all types of music including much African and South American music.

There are several salsa clubs in which one can pass the night watching videos of Cuban and Brasilian music and dancing the Salsa (or when you compare me with the Cubans and Brasilians, it is sadly, a pale imitation of the Salsa).

When one pauses between dances to prevent oneself from drowning in sweat, one can sip slowly on the single exorbitantly priced drink which is all one can afford (perhaps a Pina Colada) and marvel at the style and rhythm of the many north Africans in the club, who are clearly practising, judging by body position and movement, the vertical version of the two backed animal.

For me the next day (a long-long lunch in the Provence Countryside) brings more success than trying to dance the salsa. This is when, like all visitors to southern France, one must be initiated into the rites of Boule or Petanques.

For the uninitiated this involved tossing a very small ball, that no normal-sighted person can hope to see, and then trying (playing in two teams) to get your larger balls nearest to it. For each ball between the opposing team’s nearest ball and the target you get one point. First to thirteen points, two points clear, wins.

However this is not the main point of the game. The principal goal of the game is for every member of your team to give you (and, in turn, every other member of both your team and the oppositon team) very loud, very unnecessary and completely contradictory advice as to how you should throw your ball. Having given that advice, if it is not followed, it is your duty to comment on the parentage of said player or of his/her lack of sexual prowess.

Most importantly the period spent verbally abusing others must take up at least five times the actual time one spends actually playing the game. This allows plenty of time for drinking and for abusing the opposition and, in particular, for articulating the complete incompetence of their performance. The better the performance of ones opponents the louder you must sledge, especially if the opponents are winning.

Having been reluctantly accepted onto one of the teams (surely no Australian could play Petanque well?!!), I proceed to demonstrate that Australians can play just as well as the French. At no point in the game did my verbal abuse of the opposition ever let me down.

Despite a crushing defeat on the scoreboard (13-5), honour was upheld as our team clearly had the better insults. After all is the point is not to win but to be more abusive than the opposition.

See the complete set of photos on Flickr: https://www.flickr.com/photos/29402953@N02/sets/72157606708576838

Other posts on France

97 Days Adrift in Europe (part 8 – France, Provence)
97 Days Adrift in Europe (Part 6 – France, Cote du Rhone – Sablet)
97 Days Adrift in Europe (part 8 – France, Provence)
97 Days Adrift in Europe (Part 9 – France, Annecy)
Europe 2017 (Episode 1): Corsica for short people, the credit card-less and mirror manufacturers

10 June 2014 0