The best way of announcing a development at Salut!, it seemed to me, was to go back to the beginning.
First, the present. Look to the immediate right and you will see an invitation to become a one-year or life Friend of Salut!. No one is compelled to subscribe but all who do will be warmly welcome.
There is a formidable archive at Salut! which you are free to explore without risk of encountering a Murdochian paywall. You'll find matters relating to France and Britain, the media, politics, travel, food and wine, even football and folk music (a similar "Friends of .." invitation has been offered to readers of Salut! Sunderland and Salut! Live).
But there are costs associated with maintaining a site like this and the project also takes time. For now, I will add only that anyone taking out the lifetime (necessarily mine, too!) option will receive a Salut! mug. Crikey, you must be thinking, how generous.
What was I saying about the past and Salut!'s origins? I have just looked back at the first three postings to appear at the Blogspot address where the site took its first breath in 2006. For new or relatively new readers, or long-term ones fond of nostalgia, here they are again ...
In order or appearance, they ran like this:
First Post:
This is a test. Only a test. And an idea filched from Petite Anglaise
SECOND POST:
Bienvenue to this blog, which I have created after working for nearly 29 years for The Daily Telegraph, the last 26 months as Paris Bureau Chief. A week ago, on Sept 26 2006, I was made redundant.
On this blog, I hope to share with readers my thoughts about France, the French, matters Anglo-French and many other things besides.
Please be patient. Details of my departure are unresolved and I am not sure when I will start posting in earnest.
And here's the genius of Matt on M Randall's unhappy end
AND THE THIRD:
My thanks to so many people who have given Salut! a bright start.
The links from the farewell posting on The Daily Telegraph's website and from petite anglaise and thisfrenchlife have helped and I am grateful.
Your messages have been kind and I note that Salut! has even managed to import some of my Telegraph blog's famed squabbling.
If I like to think I know a little about France and the French, writing down all that I know about the mechanics of blogging would not cover the back of a bus ticket. But I am not quite the model for Private Eye's "p***ed old hack baffled by new technology" slogan.
In time, a commodity that suddenly presents itself to me in abundance, and with the benefit of generous offers of advice (Petite and This French Life again), I will learn how to make Salut! look more professional.
Not, however, just yet. The last nine days have naturally been difficult and chaotic. I have spent much of that period in the UK. London's little surprise for me came just ahead of one of the occasional invasions by the Telegraph's fashion department, filling up the paper's Paris office/apartment that remains my home for the time being.
Hilary Alexander - so well connected in fashion that on one previous visit, Stella McCartney dropped her off outside after both had dined with Karl Lagerfeld and Nicole Kidman - and her colleagues are considerate guests.
Their sense of urgency and my professional inactivity certainly made for something of a mismatch, but while I was relieved to escape, they cannot be blamed for driving me out.
One trip was for formalities arising from my present circumstances. The second had been planned long ago and took in a pilgrimage to my seat at the Stadium of Light and a Sunday morning walk in glorious Swaledale. And the third was linked to a farewell party (not mine; there are a few about just now).
Salut! was conceived as four of us walked along the banks of the river below the village of Reeth. Joan Dawson, almost ready to set up as a psychotherapist after a bold mid-life career change, asked for ideas on what to call her practice. I asked her, since she is a French graduate and witty, to suggest names for my blog and for the website that may well follow.
Finding possible names for my sites was relatively easy. I wanted something short, Salut in the end seemed to fit the bill and the exclamation mark completed a personal conversion that I owe to the style of my Telegraph blog (I have had a lifelong aversion but the French use them all the time and simply found myself sucked in).
But what are we to call Joan's practice? Hearts and Minds? Northern Soul? Nothing that occurred to us seemed quite right. We were also stuck with the knowledge that one of her friends had already come up with a title that managed to be as inappropriately flippant as it was brilliant. Joan, another of those unfortunates devoted to Sunderland football club, wants to base herself in that city. Her
friend's suggestion? Mackem Better.
* There you have the debut of Salut!. Many people have been very kind in their comments about the site and its content. I am soon making my return from London hibernation to the Var ... and skies like this:
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