Monday, May 19, 2008

Ford - or Trabant?

It took me 4½ hours to get to Cannes on Saturday – normal time
one hour – for the last 10km of which I had to leave the car and catch a bus – which took two hours.
You guessed it: it’s the annual bunfight known as the Cannes Film Festival. Hotels, quintuple-priced, are jammed, not to mention the fancy villas. For example, Château Microsoft, otherwise known as Chez Ballmer, which faces us across the bay on Cap Ferrat, housing, this week only – according to Riviera Radio - Brad Pitt and the very preggie Angelina Jolie (How do you get a nice name like Jolie? You start with a name like Voigt.) and entourage. The USS Microsoft lies just offshore awaiting their every whim. Here’s a picture so you can glimpse the sort of good cause that your generous contributions are supporting.

On Saturday the Film Festival was less crowded than usual. No, not because Harrison Trabant was indisposed but because of the vast crowd attending the Big Book Signing at La Gaude. Those who know about these things decided to spurn a 65-year-old super-hero for a slightly more mature writer. An animated - and thirsty - gang of literary connoisseurs assembled at the Villa Luciane, including the hostess, Chantal Paillard; the illustrator, Bernard Payet (who also exhibited his original works for the book); and an anonymous Riviera writer. They were up in the foothills of the Maritime Alps celebrating the six-month anniversary of the launch of the well-known The French Riviera: A Literary Guide (ISBN 978-1-84511-455-8).

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