Pierre Perret and Yvonne de Gaulle

I include a shot here of Yvonne de Gaulle as in the sculpture in Calais by Elizabeth Cibot but without her husband as it's not my style to photograph prominent political figures. Rather, I'm more interested in the forgotten, the hidden, the obscure, the middle finger. In September 2020 Europe 1 interviewed the singer Pierre Perret (then 86) and he said a few words about Yvonne in 1966, when she had attempted to ban one of his songs about summer camps, 'Les jolies colonies de vacances', from the airwaves by calling her friend Roland Dhordain, the director of ORTF. Her problem (although she used the word 'nous', implicating the Général himself), was that the expression 'pipi dans le lavabo' ('peeing (probably best translated as 'weeing' in 1966) in the sink') was in the song. Dhordain still, according to Perret, included it in the playlist, and the song was certainly a huge success and went on to sell 200,000 copies: in effect, a huge 'Up yours' to Yvonne de Gaulle, who surely needed to get a life! Pierre Perret was delighted that Yvonne had honoured him in such a way, calling him 'the shame of France'.

Le Dragon de Calais in Calais (62), Pas-de-Calais (62)

As I stated last year when I first saw Le Dragon de Calais, which wasn't at the time operational because this was just a day before lockdown in March 2020, François Delarozière is the artistic director of the company La Machine, and is particularly known for Machines de l'île de Nantes. But today, as we walked towards the promenade we could see indications that there was about to be something happening, so we waited. And the wait paid off because the dragon soon emerged from its home and went for a walk, roaring, smoking from the nostrils, occasionally breathing fire and pissing water from its tail at the enthusiasic crowd. Not being a person for rides, I nevertheless checked the price on the website: €9.50 for an hour*, but then this is France: imagine what inflated prices the National Trust would charge if this were within their field!

*The original time mentioned has been altered following the very welcome comment by La Compagnie du Dragon below: I wasn't looking at my watch!

Auguste Rodin's Les bourgeois de Calais, Pas-de-Calais (62)

This statue, Les Bourgeois de Calais in front of the mairie in Calais, was sculpted by Auguste Rodin in bronze in 1895, and it is the first of twelve originals. The figures are Eustache de Saint Pierre, Jacques and Pierre de Wissant, Jean de Fiennes, Andrieu d'Andres and Jean d'Aire, the six city leaders who in 1347 surrendered to the English king, Edward III, in return for him saving the city during the Hundred Years' War. A very powerful creation.

Sand sculptures in Calais, Pas-de-Calais (62)

Definitely time that I finished the blog posts from our last visit to France (July to August) as I've been spending too much time looking into Marie NDiaye, Samuel Beckett and Éric Chevillard. So here goes with Calais, working back in time in general. Sand sculptor Franck De Conynck was commissioned to make sand sculptures of Calais's principal features. Barriers weren't initially put up to protect them, although they were later, and when the artist returned to complete another sculpture he'd correct the damage that the weather had done. I missed the sculpture of Les Bourgeois (the real bronze sculpture of which I'll make a post of next), and we weren't in time to see Conynck's last sculpture near the dragon.

L'Église de Notre-Dame in front of the mairie.

L'Hôtel de Ville in the Place Marechal Foch in front of le Parc Richelieu.

And the Théâtre de Calais near the Tour du guet, with the sculpture of De Gaulle with his wife Yvonne, who was born in Calais in 1900.

Le Dragon de Calais in Calais, Pas-de-Calais (62)

François Delarozière was born in Marseille in 1963, is the artistic director of the company La Machine, and is particularly known for Machines de l'île de Nantes, part of a re-generation project. He has also worked on Les animaux de la place in Roche-sur-Yon, a temporary project involving two giant 'spiders' in Liverpool in 2008 (when the city was named at the European capital of culture), plus a number of other things. One of those is Le Dragon de Calais, which at the time of my visit wasn't in operation, although it made photography better as I strive not to include people in my photos.

A juvenile seagull, no doubt on the lookout for tourist crumbs, waits patiently (but fruitlessly: a wise sign signals that it is forbidden to feed them).

Jean Teulé: L'Œil de Pâques (1992)

L'Œil de Pâques is Jean Teulé's second novel, and is far from being his best. It begins fifteen million years ago, then cycles closer and closer to the  present until it begins the story proper about halfway through. Up to then we encounter many recurring words and themes, one of the main ones being Calais and the Channel tunnel, which incidentally was first mooted (but without success) to Napoleon in 1805 by the engineer Albert Mathieu-Favier: and there are his designs of it online to prove it.

It would take a long time to say what it's about, so instead I'll try to describe some of the characters and action. Pâque is the central character and she escapes from her hippie mother, who is French but living in India, but thinks she's being spiritual by giving herself sexually to the locals: towards the end she realises that she's just being used and blows up herself and about a hundred Tamils. Stainer is the cop who's hopelessly corrupt and steals a fair amount of the cannabis he confiscates, who fires a gun repeatedly at his damp walls to get rid of his frustration, and who lets Louis off a potential murder charge because he can fix his walls. Lucy teaches Pâque music, but she's out of her mind, living on seven eggs a day and polishing her gold and silver, which she hides in a drawer – she also has twenty-seven locks on her flat door. Those are just a few of the eccentrics. It was only on reading this book that I realised that obsession is a major theme in Jean Teulé's work.

The novel is almost entirely set in Calais and just a few of the repeated words, which underline continuity, form linkages, etc, are 'Simple Vice', which is a river and also the name of Pâque's (and her half-brother Thomas's) father: yes, I've not made a mistake there; Stainer's damp-swollen walls can be twinned with Pâque's silicon-swollen lips; the name Lucy relates to the Beatles 'Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds' (or LSD, as drugs are frequent here); Pâque's nails are maquillés, and on two occasions Teulé uses his own expression 'made up like an English woman'; etc.

Looking at some of the reviews of this novel I can understand why it confused some people: it's far too clever for its own good.

My Jean Teulé posts:
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Jean Teulé: L'Œil de Pâques
Jean Teulé: Le Montespan | Monsieur Montespan
Jean Teulé: Le Magasin des suicides | Suicide Shop