Salut!

Illustrated travels: (2) the eighth wonder?

When it comes to Petra, and much else that I saw in a short visit to Jordan, I am not sure too many words are necessary. That is not the lazy man's way out - though I do have to fit these postings around a long day - and nor does it represent any unwarranted claim regarding the quality of his photography. But the glories of Petra - from the magnificent facades of the Treasury, Monastery and other structures carved into the rocky mountainside to the spellbinding beauty of the sun setting over distant hills - speak for themselves, even when they have to do their speaking through the lens of my little Lumix. Petra has a place in the second volume of the Seven Wonders of the World, as defined in a poll by the Swiss-based 7Wonders Foundation, which claimed more than 100 million votes cast on the internet or by phone. But the people of Jordan, friendly without exception among those I encountered (including even the Petra hotelier as we debated the merits of my room), go one step beyond. They simply call it the eighth wonder. And Wadi Rum - 80 miles or so south of Petra - isn't bad either...

Making a point

Driving around Abu Dhabi, it is relatively unusual for the car driver to feel any great empathy with the people sitting behind tinted glass at the wheels of 4x4 monsters.

If I didn't like them when as Kensington Tractors or 16th Arrondissement Juggernauts, I am not about to develop a grudging fondness here.

Maybe I am stuck with the view expressed in a piece some months ago, when I wrote that drivers were probably no worse in Abu Dhabi than in many other places I have been as resident or visitor.

But rather a lot of expats do bring the worst-case road practices of their own countries and apply them to the bigger vehicles they can afford to run with fuel so cheap and no income tax to pay.

Is it just me? Or are 4x4 drivers in the UAE really the ones least likely to signal, unless the wrong way or after completing the manoeuvre, most likely to cut across three lanes at the last second to turn left at traffic lights and racing certs to zig-zag with criminal recklessness on the Dubai-Abu Dhabi highway?

And yet, Salut! favours fair play, so let me declare myself 100 per cent on the side of the man or woman who reacted to someone nicking his/her parking space by plonking his/her lorry-shaped specimen so close behind that the offending saloon driver has no escape, only the need to make humiliating entreaties to the wounded colleague.

Illustrated travels: (1) Christelle in Africa

If only to avoid pining for France - autumn is one of my favourite times of the year in the Var, so feel free to tell me it is so grimly immersed in crisis that I am best out of it - I will reflect on two very different journeys.

Christelle, as most readers of Salut! know, has been trying out her language skills on inhabitants of the animal kingdom of Africa, and brought back some great pictures.

From cute cheetah cubs to dozy male lions, elephants in the river at dusk and some splendid landscapes, she captured a lot of the precious moments of her three-month stay.

She should, as Bill Taylor said and I have urged, write a book. There is plenty of material, from the jungle of course - but also in episodes of humour or frivolity that may owe something to the occasionally dreamy world of the London film world in which she dwells.

Creatures great and small have always fascinated Christelle. Now that she has experienced the wild, I wonder whether she will ever look at her pet cats in quite the same way

She can easily devote a chapter to her successful campaign to strike terror into her parents' hearts, with stories of close encounters in the bush followed by the cool announcement that she planned to follow all that by getting up close and personal with great white sharks (the picture of one such specimen, she says, "is what I saw but is not my photo"). One way or the other, she has memories to occupy her thoughts for years to come. A book would share them more fully with others. Get writing, girl!

Next up: Salut! in Petra......

The Book, a prize. Or two

The awards ceremony starts here, after that wholly unrelated picture of the sun setting over the Petra mountains, with the result of the Who Are You? part of the Salut!'s recent competition.

It has been a tough call. The mischief-maker in me wanted to reward Roads of Stone for saying reading Salut! was "a whole lot better than reading the Telegraph". Vanity would have had me plumping for Jane ("I find your writing amusing, articulate and thought provoking").

A sneaking regard for insolent spirits tempted me to award the prize to Walter Ellis ("Do you ever do any work, Colin? I just wondered") or Marty E for his disdainful take on my attempts to make Salut! viable. Bill, Keith & Co produced their usual entertaining banter. There were words of wit and wisdom from various corners of France and across its border with Switzerland.

In the end, though, I felt the prize - a copy of Résistance: Memoirs of Occupied France, Agnès Humbert's magnificent, if painful, account of imprisonment at the hands of the Nazis - should go to one of the two most intriguing responses.

This one had me wondering what I'd said to put the poor person off:
"Dear Colin; I bookmarked your site when I was considering applying to work for you. It helped me decide against the move.
Yours The Apprentice
 PS Blog is v good actually, although would prefer to read more about the everyday life in AD."

But this, from Lynn, gets the prize. I have overlooked the rebellious use of so many of the Americanisms that I ban in my daily work (such as it is, Walter). It wins because it is not really about Salut! at all but identifies a contemporary literary trend in a way that makes me want to explore further:

"I have an apartment in Paris. I administer a Facebook group for folks like me -- English Speakers in France, if you want to look it up. I got well and truly tired of all that sentimental hoo-ha about all those between-the-wars writers who hogged the tables at the cafes. Let's face it, unless they wanted to hit on me, they wouldn't invite me to sit with them, so it's not as if it's a life I could have shared. Recently I have gotten interested in what today's more literary expats are up to. Through the miracle of the Internet, I can now join the table. So, here I am, thank you. It's nice to be invited."

For the second copy of the book, the choice was rather simpler, because fascinating though the replies were, they all came from the same three people. Bill nearly won the prize for his spectacular but robustly argued misjudgement of Brassed Off. Dumdad also came close with his loyal support of the Salut line (and for his welcome return to blogging after a period of self-imposed silence).

But Keith once again displayed deep knowledge of the period in question and, though I disagree with his analysis, deserves the prize (and will almost certainly find it as gripping as I did).

I loved this riposte to my original challenge to his position:

"Colin, you are right when you say that there would have been acquiescence from the British - but only some. The political scene was very much different and Churchill would have ensured that the truculent British would have fought on, painful though it might have been. Being a natural-born coward, I would have surrendered on the spot to the first passing Bratwurst salesman."

* The winners are asked to supply their postal addresses by contacting me via the e-mail link at the top of this page.

Who are you?

SEE NEW CLOSING DATE - I AM AWAY FOR A LONG WEEKEND AT A WEDDING IN JORDAN AND WILL THEREFORE EXTEND THE DEADLINE FOR ENTRIES TO MIDNIGHT UK TIME TUES OCT 21... THIS APPLIES EQUALLY TO THE POSTING ABOUT AGNES HUMBERT. THE PRIZE: ONE COPY OF THE HUMBERT BOOK FOR THE BEST REPLY TO EACH......

STOP PRESS: the prize for best reply to this post is one of the two copies I have available of a remarkable book on one woman's experiences of the Nazi occupation of France, Agnès Humbert's Résistance: Memoirs of Occupied France. I will be writing about the book soon (and will offer the other copy in a separate competition then, Salut! having gone competition bonkers what with these and the Maddy Prior one over at Salut! Live). .....

My friends at Statcounter are very good at breaking down the figures for "hits" recorded by Salut!.

But I still have no clear idea as to why there has been a surge of interest in the site in recent weeks. OK, media organisation is stretching it; even so, the figures I reported last week are - so far - no freak.

It is just past midnight* in Abu Dhabi. The day's count is very close to 500. That's double what it was, say, a couple of months ago, five times what it was when I first thought I had an audience big enough to justify making an effort.

But who are you?

Cry for help

I'm Gonna Jump
Picture: rayvensmoon

No. Salut! is not perched on a high ledge, threatening to jump (in the UK, I hear, the response to that sort of gesture is for a crowd to gather and start chanting encouragement to go ahead and do it).

Two years after this site was launched, however, it could do with a helping hand.

Salut! will never make me rich. I did not launch it with that in mind, and am grateful for the combination of support, loyalty and curiosity represented by the present total of 160,000+ "hits" to the site. About three-quarters are what are known in another morsel of website jargon as "unique visits", if recent statistics are reliable.

15,279,854: Christian's hits, Christelle's words

....was the number of times, when last I looked, that YouTube viewers had clicked on this famous video clip* of the amazingly affectionate reunion of two London-based Aussie pals (Australians John Rendall and Anthony "Ace" Bourke)with Christian the lion, bought by them as a cub from Harrods (at a time when such things were allowed).

They later reinstalled Christian in Africa but insisted on returning a year later to say hello, with moving results.

Christelle is now out of Africa, bubbling with words that can be numbered in similar proportions about her exploits on wildlife expeditions over the past three months.

Occupational hazards: one brave woman, one small prize

PLEASE NOTE NEW COMPETITION CLOSING DATE - I AM AWAY FOR A LONG WEEKEND AT A WEDDING IN JORDAN AND WILL THEREFORE EXTEND THE DEADLINE FOR ENTRIES TO : MIDNIGHT UK TIME TUES OCT 21... THIS APPLIES EQUALLY TO THE POSTING "WHO ARE YOU?". THE PRIZE: ONE COPY OF THE AGNES HUMBERT BOOK FOR THE BEST REPLY TO EACH. .....

Films about war I can live without. Films about wartime are another matter, if you see the distinction.

Put me in front of loud, all-action blockbusters about warfare, with battles scenes and tons of special effects, and you should not expect an enthusiastic response. But Au Revoir Les Enfants, Yanks, Hope and Glory, The Pianist and Joyeux Noël are rare examples of movies I would contentedly watch more than once.

The Giles Coren approach to football management

Image: John Robert Charlton

What springs to mind when you hear someone talk wistfully of this or that individual being "old-fashioned with old-fashioned values"?

Setting myself the question, I thought of the craftsman who trained hard to acquire and nurture his skills and now works diligently, taking pride in his work. The man and woman who pledge themselves to each other and actually mean it. Or the sportsman or woman who applies the highest Corinthian principles of fair play to his or her chosen game.

You will think of other examples. That thought process will not necessarily lead you to nominate Joe Kinnear, the newly installed manager (for a few weeks at any rate, given the slightly bizarre nature of the appointment) of Newcastle United football club, in honour of the 35 - or was it 52? - expletives he used in a short but bruising encounter with football writers.

But that was the view of one Brian. The headline in the online Times report says "Joe loses it with journalists at Newcastle press conference" and the piece goes on to give a verbatim transcript of his outburst.

Brian begged to differ, adding this comment:

Joe did not lose it, he told the bunch of hacks what he thought of what they had written so far and that they would not knock him down. He is an old fashioned man with old fashioned values one of which is not to take abuse lying down but to stand up and stand his ground. Good for him and good luck with the job.

While Giles Coren fumed, the others sighed for Paris

It doesn't happen with every Salut! posting. It doesn't happen at all at Salut! Live or Salut! Sunderland, since the subject matter of those sites is not to my good friend Dumdad's taste.

But once a week or so, he sends a kind e-mail praising an item while gently adding, "wearing my sub's hat", that this word appears to be missing, that phrase "doesn't quite read", the odd word is garbled.

The "sub's hat" fits very well, not least because in professional life Dumdad is indeed a sub-editor, and a very good one at that. I wanted him to come and work with me on The National in Abu Dhabi; we settled for the next best thing and he nips beneath the bonnet of the newspaper's website from his home in Paris, locating errors and tweaking errant headlines, captions and text.

This kind of thing does not work for everyone. Poor Giles Coren*, the hero of my chosen version (see below) of the present YouTube fad for spoof Hitler clips, took great exception when a sub removed a single word from a restaurant review he had written for The Times. The intemperate complaint he fired off has rocketed into the folklore of what is still called Fleet Street.

But it works for me.

Another string to Dumdad's bow is his beautifully written and engaging blog, The Other Side of Paris. There, he chronicles daily life in - sorry, Dumdad - a workaday Parisian suburb, while also reminiscing about his days as a tailor's assistant, cub reporter and Fleet Street sub.

Or rather, he did.